Our solicitor taking too long, seller wants to abort our purchase

squidg

I wonder if anyone has any advice for me on this matter?

We're in the process of buying a lease.

Our solicitor is uselessly slow and has been taking so long to respond to queries, either from ourselves or from the seller's solicitor, that the seller has become very frustrated and is threatening to abort the sale altogether if we don't exchange contracts imminently.

I'm incredibly annoyed with my solicitor but I don't really know what I can do about this. As far as I recall from the documents with signed with them, there was no response time specified so it seems like they can take as long as they like and there's nothing we can do about it?

If the purchase does get aborted, all that will happen to my solicitor is that they'll charge us for the work they've done so far. While we end up with nothing. So what recourse do I have here?

GDB2222

You should make a formal complaint ASAP.   If nothing else, that gives you a basis for resisting their charges.

TBG01

The seller doesn't get to dictate when exchange takes place.

It's easy for them to say it's taking too long, all the while there's a whole load of issues with the property/title and enquiries THEY haven't given satisfactory responses to.

I'm assuming the seller does know, that if he does abort and resell, he doesn't get skip straight to completion with the next buyer. He's starting the 4 or 5 month process all over again.

ciderboy2009

OP - How long has the process taken so far?  Also, are you using real solicitors or a conveyancing company?

squidg

Thanks all. Here's some extra context:

• There's no chain: it's an empty property and we're not selling, so i'd expect this to be relatively quick
• The law firm does conveyancing as well as some other areas of law
• The seller's solicitors have replied to everything nice and promptly. I know this because the seller's estate agents keep forwarding me all their replies, which is useful to me personally. As far as I know, they've addressed every concern that has been raised, we have seen the lease agreement and we're happy with it, and we're ready to sign the contract and get a completion date sorted.
• It's my solicitor that is abysmally slow. The seller's solicitor keeps emailing them and getting no reply. I keep emailing them and getting no reply. When I phone up, I either get the secretary or the solicitor's assistant, and all i hear is "the solicitor is still working on the file" and absolutely nothing else. No timeline, no list of outstanding issues, no nothing. I've still never actually spoken to my solicitor, for all i know she's a made up person that doesn't exist and it's all an elaborate hoax

I understand the seller doesn't dictate the exchange date, but they are intending to relist the property and consider other offers. The market is apparently improving so they're likely to get a better offer than what we offered (of course, they'd have to weigh that against the effort of restarting the whole process from scratch).

squidg

To be fair, I have heard from a variety of other people that this is actually quite normal, and that solicitors tend to leave "simple" cases at the bottom of their to-do pile because they'd rather work on the complex cases. I've heard that it is generally the case that people have to constantly hound their solicitors to get them to do something. I've been doing that now but there comes a point when even the constant hounding doesn't seem to be getting results.

I'm gonna check my contract with them tonight and peruse the complaints procedure. Maybe that will cause some work to be done.

Hoenir

Suggest you speak to your solicitor directly and ascertain the state of play, 

NameUnavailable

Can you visit the offices? Explain the situation, tell them the vendors solicitors are saying all enquiries have been answered etc. and that the vendors are putting pressure on you etc. Don't get fobbed off.

You may find that actually not all enquiries have been answered or that there's some other issue holding things up.

I would try that before raising a complaint.