How often can I call my solicitor?

jentt

Tiglet2 said:

Friday is the busiest day for completions.  Completions take priority.
If you feel you must call, leave it until next Tuesday.

To be honest, it does take around 4 weeks for the seller's solicitor to get the seller to complete all the initial paperwork and return it for the draft contract pack to be sent over to your solicitor to review, approve and raise initial enquiries.

Your searches were not delayed.  Your solicitor wouldn't have ordered them until the draft contract pack had been received.

The draft contract pack was received 5 weeks ago (totalling the 10 weeks or thereabouts that this transaction has been going on).  In that 5 weeks, they've reviewed the paperwork, raised initial enquiries, got responses to the enquiries and ordered your searches.  I don't think that constitutes any delay, inefficiency or incompetence.

Perhaps they have failed in managing your expectations.  

Is the property a probate sale?  Has probate been granted?  Is it leasehold?

Just because there is no chain it does not make this property straight forward.

Thank you for responding. 

The vendor's sale fell through with another buyer before our offer, so they did have all the paperwork ready when our offer got accepted, and their solicitor sent them to ours very early (the following day of our offer got accepted) but not dealt with by ours for 5 weeks (during which we asked her and her assistant whether she'd got them and they said no). 

It is a freehold house, not probate. 

Ksw3

We've been told average time to completion is about 16 weeks so it's not impossible...

jentt

Strummer22 said:

Call frequently, every day if you want to. Cite the fact that she has history (ignored docs for 5 weeks, only bothered to find enquiries when you said you'd been told by the EA they'd already been sent). If you can't get through, email and say you want to make a complaint. Try and find a general or specific email for the firm (e.g. info@ or sales@) to copy in, so that any complaint doesn't just go to your solicitor. If a supervisor has been copied in to any of your correspondence, send any complaint to them too.

If you want to exchange and complete in the next 6 weeks, you might have to ditch this solicitor and go with a local one, with an office, that you can go and see in person. Your current solicitor will eventually get you over the line but don't count on it being this year.

Thank you. It might be too late for me to instruct a new local solicitor (and if they are slow as well, we at least have got the searches and initial enquiries done with this one already, I cannot face chasing another from the beginning).

As some posts said Friday is the busiest time for solicitors, I might call her next Monday. I'll see what happens with her for another week, and raise the issue to their firm if still cannot get hold of her. Thanks for your suggestions. 

jentt

blinko said:

OP is this an actual solicitor and solicitor firm or is it just a cheap online conveyancing outfir. if its the later be prepared for a lot of pain, they are cheap for a reason. You'll get there just in "their" time not yours

This is an actual solicitor, just not local (they are based in the north, and my purchase is in SouthEast). 
They are cheaper than our local quotes, I thought because it's more expensive at SE. My mistake. I used the recommendation by our broker and did not do enough search about solicitors in advance. 

TripleH

With our purchase it took 10 weeks (?) to do from start to finish. That included a panic apply for new mortgage when 1st valuer thought house was falling down.

The longest wait we had was for local authority searches to come back and our conveyancer did specify an estimated time frame for each step.

We sent email updates once a week a week after the searches were submitted.

Maybe you should discuss timescales for when to expect to hear back at each stage point to help you manage your expectations better?

All I would say is that if you want a quick turn around from your solicitor, do you respond quickly when you get information or questions to review?

We had a maximum 48 hour turn around to respond to queries for us.

Solicitors will work on multiple files. They will send out queries on particular files and have a deadline for expected responses. These files will probably be put to one side and not looked at again until their next review point unless something major occurs. This should be to avoid mixing files up.

(Above is a generalisation from viewing how solicitors behave. I have worked for law firms but not in the legal field).

Strummer22

jentt said:

 call her next Monday. I'll see what happens with her for another week, and raise the issue to their firm if still cannot get hold of her. Thanks for your suggestions. 

Call on Tuesday. Don't forget Monday is a bank holiday!

I should clarify, in my first post I meant call every day until you get through. For example, if you have a chat on Tuesday next week, don't call for an update on Wednesday. I also meant that if you call (and call, and call) and never get through to your solicitor, then saying you want to make a complaint could be the only way to get yourself heard.

tooldle

Service so far seems pretty good to be fair. Most recently we got our sale through in 8 weeks and our purchase took longer at around 16 weeks. There were issues with the draft contract on the purchase and quite a number of enquiries. 
There is a lot going on behind the scenes that you don't need to be aware of. The conveyancer will report to you when they have the full picture, enquiries completed, any necessary decisions made and the contract ready to sign. 

secla

You need to keep hassling solicitors if you want things to move quickly, I’d say if search’s haven’t been ordered yet 6 weeks is very optimistic 

We are purchasing a no chain house right now and we are about 6 months in and due to exchange this week, I’d say that’s longer than average but most conveyancers are quoting 4-5 months average atm 

london21

You can also send an email to get update on progress.

There might be a good reason for lack of contact/progress, maybe your solicitor is away on annual leave. 

TBG01

Our purchase is quite straightforward with no chain, we are first-time buyers and the property is empty

Sorry but you haven't explained why it's quite straightforward. None of those mean you'd fly through the transaction any quicker than its taken.