Solicitor tips

Brokenlynx

Hi all, 

In terms of the buying process I have a successful mortgage offer, an upcoming survey due to be completed but am currently waiting on.....you guessed it, the solicitor. 

I've sent an initial application/instruction and an initial payment but have found the communication to be really bad even at this relatively early stage and was wondering if any body has tips for how to deal with solicitors?

Or if anyone can provide an insight into why the communication is so poor?

Or to just set expectations for the remainder of the buying process for me at this stage. 

Thanks in advance.

housebuyer143

If it's poor now, I recommend you change.. it will not get better.
Normally they are horribly over worked, hence poor communication. 

jj_43

How long have you been waiting? Solicitor appear to take action when focus is required. And work in weekly workloads. Fridays are typically completion days. 

trakky14

We didn't have a lot of contact with ours in the early days, she would reply to emails 3 or 4 days later...eventually. But since we are nearing the end now (hopefully!) we've been emailing or calling daily and she has been better at replying almost within half a day! They speed up as exchange/completion approaches we've always found.

You need to nag them, chase them, ask for updates...but leave the heavy chasing till you need it at the end! 

YoungBlueEyes

I can't comment on your particular solicitor, but it is something that gets posted about often.

I've just bought and sold. My solicitor wasn't in touch on a daily/weekly basis, nor did I expect him to be.  There's a whole lotta nothing happening on any given day in a property transaction, my sol only got in touch to ask me for something or to tell me something.  On any request from him I hopped to it.

There's a post on here somewhere from a while ago that explained beautifully what actually happens from the legal side of things.  It's a lot of waiting for answers to questions, waiting for the council/client/other sol to respond to something, waiting for someone to send paperwork etc etc.

The one thing I've never dome, nor would I ever, is to ring ring ring and nag nag nag and chase chase chase.  These things move at their own pace.  Be patient, you'll get there.

Brokenlynx

Ok as I've seen elsewhere it seems to be a common case that solicitors have really bad communication. 

I saw a YouTube video on the topic where two solicitors (bemoaning the negative impressions left about their impression on social media) discuss why the process of searches takes so long and how each purchase is different, therefore requiring individual details to be checked individually and thoroughly.

I think most people especially those that work in many other professional capacities understand this. The bit that makes little to no sense is the complete lack of any reasonable communication. 

Admittedly for my situation I'm only a couple of weeks in so I'll give it some time. 

YoungBlueEyes said:

.....

The one thing I've never dome, nor would I ever, is to ring ring ring and nag nag nag and chase chase chase.  These things move at their own pace.  Be patient, you'll get there.

I've mentally noted a date two weeks from now by which I'd either like to have received a status update or will chase for one. In the meantime I'll just wait.

TBagpuss

One key factor is that solciitors / conveyancers hve ended up in a siituation where the only way to make covenyaing work a paying proposition is to have very high case loads - factory chains like PPL have pushed prices artificially low so basically you have people who are very busy and have to get extremely good at prioritising and dealing with things only when they need action, not when nervous buyers/ sellers need reassurance. Add to that that the housing market has been absolutely cray as a result of the covid stamp duty holiday, so most conveyancers have been working flat out for the best part of 2.5 years now.
there's been a higher than average number of people leaving the job (mostly early retirement) so those remaining are even busier. 

If you want a bespoke service you can get it - offer to pay by the hour instead of on a fixed fee, and you'll get as many calls and updates as you want. 

Add into the mix that agents tend to bend the truth (e.g. the sellers solicitors are waiting for yours to reply may mean 'the sellers solictir sent yours a four page email with 27 uestions in it, at 10 a.m. - it's not 10.15 and they haven;t had a reply yet, so technically it's true that they are waiting, but it doesn't mean that your conveyancer is slacking)

n a conveyancing trnasaction there are lots of things which are not in your conveyancers control - e.g. how long seraches take, how quickly you / the other party provides dumenst or inforamtion, how quickly mortgage orffers / survey reports come in - mostly they will contact you when there is something conrete to tell you or specifc information needed, butif they know they are going to need several things from you they may well wait until they can raise all of them at once, rather than having 3 or 4 separate conversations / e-mails. 

But the short answer is that it is a high pressure, high volume job and they don't have time for unnecessary calls / emails.

One thing you can do is ask them for estimates on when they expect to next be in contact / to need anything further from you .

But generally, they will be in contact when there is something they need or something concrete to update you about. 

Richiem1987

TBagpuss said:

One key factor is that solciitors / conveyancers hve ended up in a siituation where the only way to make covenyaing work a paying proposition is to have very high case loads - factory chains like PPL have pushed prices artificially low so basically you have people who are very busy and have to get extremely good at prioritising and dealing with things only when they need action, not when nervous buyers/ sellers need reassurance. Add to that that the housing market has been absolutely cray as a result of the covid stamp duty holiday, so most conveyancers have been working flat out for the best part of 2.5 years now.
there's been a higher than average number of people leaving the job (mostly early retirement) so those remaining are even busier. 

If you want a bespoke service you can get it - offer to pay by the hour instead of on a fixed fee, and you'll get as many calls and updates as you want. 

Add into the mix that agents tend to bend the truth (e.g. the sellers solicitors are waiting for yours to reply may mean 'the sellers solictir sent yours a four page email with 27 uestions in it, at 10 a.m. - it's not 10.15 and they haven;t had a reply yet, so technically it's true that they are waiting, but it doesn't mean that your conveyancer is slacking)

n a conveyancing trnasaction there are lots of things which are not in your conveyancers control - e.g. how long seraches take, how quickly you / the other party provides dumenst or inforamtion, how quickly mortgage orffers / survey reports come in - mostly they will contact you when there is something conrete to tell you or specifc information needed, butif they know they are going to need several things from you they may well wait until they can raise all of them at once, rather than having 3 or 4 separate conversations / e-mails. 

But the short answer is that it is a high pressure, high volume job and they don't have time for unnecessary calls / emails.

One thing you can do is ask them for estimates on when they expect to next be in contact / to need anything further from you .

But generally, they will be in contact when there is something they need or something concrete to update you about. 

All this is very true, especially with estate agents spouting rubbish. We got told we were at fault for delaying agreements on completion dates, which that was definately not the case and they were put in their place. Luckily I had a decent conveyancer, despite them being based in Richmond, and buying in Newcastle. 

newsgroupmonkey_

Agree with most of the above, but consider that end-to-end is currently averaging 150 days or 5 months.

It's not just the solicitors. They're going to be waiting for searches (which in some cases are taking months), mortgages and so on.

Get your forms filled in ASAP, then sit back for a few months. They'll let you know nearer the time. As someone else said, ours was calling us at least every day in the last week and would respond to emails in minutes. Previously, it would take days for a response.

london21

They might be really busy but what is their reviews like.

If they are one of the ones with like 1/2/3 star, then maybe better switching to a better conveyancing company in the early stage.

If you are not too bothered then perhaps just have to keep on top of it and a lot of chasing. 

Brokenlynx

TBagpuss said:

.....

But the short answer is that it is a high pressure, high volume job and they don't have time for unnecessary calls / emails.

One thing you can do is ask them for estimates on when they expect to next be in contact / to need anything further from you .

But generally, they will be in contact when there is something they need or something concrete to update you about. 

Thanks for this context setting, I had a feeling that this is roughly the case and I'll bear in mind the tip about estimates of when the next intend to be in contact. 

london21 said:

They might be really busy but what is their reviews like.

If they are one of the ones with like 1/2/3 star, then maybe better switching to a better conveyancing company in the early stage.

If you are not too bothered then perhaps just have to keep on top of it and a lot of chasing. 

The conveyancer I'm using actually does have a pretty strong rating above 4.5. I'm going to put it down to load and stay patient.