A large conveyancer group in serious trouble

willfinlay

I am (was?!) in the early stages of conveyancing with BPL. I have paid £400 so far. My case worker‘a out of office said that they have left the business.

I was told by someone at one of the other companies that it was just a case that BPL were having issues with their phone system. Hrmmm.

Communication is zero at the moment and I am not sure what to do. I am assuming that my money and case are both gone. If anyone has any ideas let me know!

K_S

willfinlay said:

I am (was?!) in the early stages of conveyancing with BPL. I have paid £400 so far. My case worker‘a out of office said that they have left the business.

I was told by someone at one of the other companies that it was just a case that BPL were having issues with their phone system. Hrmmm.

Communication is zero at the moment and I am not sure what to do. I am assuming that my money and case are both gone. If anyone has any ideas let me know!

@willfinlay Sorry to hear that.

One of my clients was post-exchange with Beaumont. They told me that their case was transferred yesterday to another firm and they're still on track for completing mid-month. Afaik they haven't had to pay anything extra.

If affected cases are indeed in the process of being parcelled out to multiple firms (as usually happens in these cases), I imagine early-stage cases are probably not high priority right now but I'd think you would hear back in the coming days/weeks.

I'm assuming you paid by bank transfer. In the unlikely event that you paid by credit/debit card, and aren't getting any kind of response at all from BPL for a good few days, it might be worth exploring the possibility of doing a chargeback / S75 claim and then finding another conveyancer.

willfinlay

@K_S that’s something positive. I have contacted the SRA and we will see. I assumed I was low priority, but I’d still like to know that I am in the queue somewhere!

I am going to sit tight for a week or so and see.

GDB2222

Personally, I would not be sitting tight as a low priority case.  I would be looking for a new firm to do my conveyancing, as getting the job done effectively would be important to me.  I would hope to get reimbursed for the money I had paid, eventually.   

Sarah1Mitty2

When large housebuilders like Persimmon are in trouble it is bound to feed through the food chain?

Extrageorge

My solicitors were part of this group to close as we found out yesterday, post exchange due to complete on our purchase in two weeks. 

We’ve appointed the solicitors they recommended fingers crossed this won’t delay things 

TripleH

It depends on the structure of the law firm, but if work is split into teams (by geographical area) then other law firms taking over cases may well pick up the staff at the same time as the case loads they work on but this depends on the troubled firm's structure. Teams often move from 1 law firm to another.

This isn't a definitive for what will happen here, but people might get notification 'x law firm' has taken over their file but the people working on it may not change.

SDLT_Geek

This post (about having to change solicitors after completion) https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6402584/change-of-solicitors-after-exchange/p1 relates to the same conveyancing group.

Sarah1Mitty2

simon_or said:

Beaumont! They were sh*te when I used them a few years ago and looks like that hasn't changed.

How bad were they?