Conveyancing solicitor won't send me copy of communications

pollyparrot1989

Hello everyone. I'm in the process of buying a property and the solicitors are being very unresponsive. I know this is a common experience, but when I ask the solicitor to send me copy of the emails she sends to the seller's solicitor so I can know exactly how and when she's asking for things on our behalf, she refuses on the grounds that it's "conflict of interest". She says that she will let us know of her enquiries and the replies from the seller when they get back to her.
I don't understand why me receiving a copy of her email when my solicitor sends it is a "conflict of interest", if she works for me. Could someone explain it to me, since she refuses to elaborate? 
Thanks very much in advance for your replies. 

user1977

It isn't a conflict of interest, so either she's talking nonsense or something has been misunderstood. You're entitled to everything that's on your file.

Though she might be trying to resist you from micro-managing what she's doing on your behalf.

Hoenir

The solicitor represents the mortgage lender as well. Just happens that you are paying all the fees.  There's nothing you need to know from the correspondence between the solicitors. 

pollyparrot1989

I'll elaborate for clarity:

There were several issues with the property that I discovered in the survey and that are not reflected in the seller's paperwork (missing warranty for some installations, unreported changes to the property for which the seller did not apply for planning permission and broke the leasehold contract), and a mismatch in the number of years left in the leasehold between what the seller's agent reported and the years that were actually left in the contract. All things that I reported to my solicitor over the phone and then by email.

But when I have sent her emails with the issues that I highlighted above and other queries about the contract (that they insist I must read and fully understand), again, after days without any response or acknowledgement that she had received my emails, I called her and she said very rudely "what about the emails", and then proceeded to say that she was waiting for the seller's response, when there were several queries that I addressed directly to her, for her legal advice and clarification, and then she admitted that she hadn't read it and she hadn't sent the additional requests for paperwork to the seller yet. I feel I can't trust her to even fully read an email, much less to accurately convey my requests to the seller, hence my insistence to know exactly what has been asked for in my behalf. That's why I ask for a copy of these specific communications to the seller's solicitors. 

I wish I could find another solicitor but this is already the second solicitor we have hired, as there was some widespread IT issue affecting the previous one (including data theft which he didn't bother reporting to us) that forced us to change solicitors, and I don't want to drag on the buy longer than needed.

TBG01

So you are trying to micromanage things.

Jonboy_1984

How did you choose your solicitors in the first place. I am in rural Oxfordshire and there are around 20 solicitor offices within a 10 mile radius that offer conveyancing so I am surprised you struggled to find any???

How long are you giving them to review and reply, I have seen elsewhere that a normal solicitor can have 60-100 files on the go at any one time, and much of the routine work is dealt with by their staff for them to sign off, so they may not be aware of every minute detail of every file, before the file is complete for sign-off.