Conveyancing recommendations

lottiemay

Choirgrl said:

propertyrental said:

walk down your high street and drop in on 2 or 3 solicitors firms and ask for quotes. If getting a mortgage, make sure they are on your lender's panel.

I use (3 times) a small 2-man firm (plus secretaies etc) and get fast personal service, as opposed to a cal cenre with 30 admin staff doing the grunt work for peanuts 'overseen' by an overworked conveyancer.

Plus, look at online reviews for the local firms with reputations for good communication and being responsive.

I have decided to go with a small local property lawyer who appears to have good recommendations and have won awards.  But, they are asking for just over £400 on account before they send any contracts/papers through.  Is this normal practice?  I thought I would have to give them all the info first and sign something before making any payment?

propertyrental

lottiemay said:

Choirgrl said:

propertyrental said:

walk down your high street and drop in on 2 or 3 solicitors firms and ask for quotes. If getting a mortgage, make sure they are on your lender's panel.

I use (3 times) a small 2-man firm (plus secretaies etc) and get fast personal service, as opposed to a cal cenre with 30 admin staff doing the grunt work for peanuts 'overseen' by an overworked conveyancer.

Plus, look at online reviews for the local firms with reputations for good communication and being responsive.

I have decided to go with a small local property lawyer who appears to have good recommendations and have won awards.  But, they are asking for just over £400 on account before they send any contracts/papers through.  Is this normal practice?  I thought I would have to give them all the info first and sign something before making any payment?

I;d expect them to provide a detailed quote plus their terms of business / terms and conditions before asking for any money on account so you can see what you are signing up to.

Are you sure by "before they send any contracts/papers through." they are referring to their contract with you? Rather than starting work on the conveyancing and sending papers to the other side (buyer/seller/ whatever)?

Yes, it's normal for them to require payment on account. The amount may vary but they'll all want something to cover the payments they have to make to 3rd parties on your behalf. But that should be after (or at the same time) you signed up to them

EssexHebridean

Yes - the firm I work for sends out a quote first, then (or sometimes at the same time depending on the approach) the property forms for a sale, or purchaser’s questionnaire for a purchase, along with the Terms of Retainer - and ask for those to be returned along with the money on account being transferred to our company’s client account. In the case of your purchase, that money will cover things like getting a copy of the title documents from the land registry, and applying for the searches when the time comes. At the end of the transaction when you are sent the completion statement that money will be taken into account on there. 

lottiemay

propertyrental said:

lottiemay said:

Choirgrl said:

propertyrental said:

walk down your high street and drop in on 2 or 3 solicitors firms and ask for quotes. If getting a mortgage, make sure they are on your lender's panel.

I use (3 times) a small 2-man firm (plus secretaies etc) and get fast personal service, as opposed to a cal cenre with 30 admin staff doing the grunt work for peanuts 'overseen' by an overworked conveyancer.

Plus, look at online reviews for the local firms with reputations for good communication and being responsive.

I have decided to go with a small local property lawyer who appears to have good recommendations and have won awards.  But, they are asking for just over £400 on account before they send any contracts/papers through.  Is this normal practice?  I thought I would have to give them all the info first and sign something before making any payment?

I;d expect them to provide a detailed quote plus their terms of business / terms and conditions before asking for any money on account so you can see what you are signing up to.

Are you sure by "before they send any contracts/papers through." they are referring to their contract with you? Rather than starting work on the conveyancing and sending papers to the other side (buyer/seller/ whatever)?

Yes, it's normal for them to require payment on account. The amount may vary but they'll all want something to cover the payments they have to make to 3rd parties on your behalf. But that should be after (or at the same time) you signed up to them

So, they sent a quote through with a breakdown of costs which I accepted. They then sent their initial letter explaining how it all works and said they would send online instruction forms once payment on account had been received. Then once those forms were received they would start working on my behalf. 

lottiemay

EssexHebridean said:

Yes - the firm I work for sends out a quote first, then (or sometimes at the same time depending on the approach) the property forms for a sale, or purchaser’s questionnaire for a purchase, along with the Terms of Retainer - and ask for those to be returned along with the money on account being transferred to our company’s client account. In the case of your purchase, that money will cover things like getting a copy of the title documents from the land registry, and applying for the searches when the time comes. At the end of the transaction when you are sent the completion statement that money will be taken into account on there. 

But in this case they are asking for payment before any instruction forms will be sent to me.  Just finding it all confusing and not happy to make a payment if I haven’t signed anything

lottiemay

propertyrental said:

lottiemay said:

Choirgrl said:

propertyrental said:

walk down your high street and drop in on 2 or 3 solicitors firms and ask for quotes. If getting a mortgage, make sure they are on your lender's panel.

I use (3 times) a small 2-man firm (plus secretaies etc) and get fast personal service, as opposed to a cal cenre with 30 admin staff doing the grunt work for peanuts 'overseen' by an overworked conveyancer.

Plus, look at online reviews for the local firms with reputations for good communication and being responsive.

I have decided to go with a small local property lawyer who appears to have good recommendations and have won awards.  But, they are asking for just over £400 on account before they send any contracts/papers through.  Is this normal practice?  I thought I would have to give them all the info first and sign something before making any payment?

I;d expect them to provide a detailed quote plus their terms of business / terms and conditions before asking for any money on account so you can see what you are signing up to.

Are you sure by "before they send any contracts/papers through." they are referring to their contract with you? Rather than starting work on the conveyancing and sending papers to the other side (buyer/seller/ whatever)?

Yes, it's normal for them to require payment on account. The amount may vary but they'll all want something to cover the payments they have to make to 3rd parties on your behalf. But that should be after (or at the same time) you signed up to them

So would you class signing up to them as accepting their quote?  They have said they will send instruction forms through to me once they have received the payment on account

GoogleMeNow

Not all conveyancing firms do things the same.

Your firm have made it clear they will not begin any work on your transaction (including sending out of forms) until they have received the payment from you. 

They should have emailed their quote and details of what the quote includes, together with terms and conditions. Please read them to see whether they mention monies up front before work begins.

Instruction forms are the forms you complete when sending over all the relevant information (i.e. your ID documents, details of the property, details of your lender etc. 

£400 is quite high, but the Land Registry documents and the searches plus the solicitors "admin" costs will take up most of that £400.  It just saves them asking for monies a few weeks down the line.  They'd rather have monies in straight away so there can be no delay in requesting searches/LR documents.

Bigphil1474

OP, we've just signed up with a local solicitor who has asked for £300 on account. We got quotes from 3 local ones and they all seemed pretty similar.

arthurdick

Similar here, with our local solicitors we had to pay £350 on account, so I think it is pretty normal to be around that figure.