Waiting for exchange - strange enquiry. please help!

HelpfulLittleHelper

I've never come across a solicitor that is genuinely competent, they ALL seem to take absolute ages to do anything. And the excuse that they have multiple cases isn't my problem, if you're already too busy to take on more don't take on more... Every interaction takes ages and things only proceed if you show up at their office to just rush things along, sign stuff or make them do it right then and there. It was the most frustrating bit of both selling and buying

Section62

HelpfulLittleHelper said:

I've never come across a solicitor that is genuinely competent, they ALL seem to take absolute ages to do anything.

I'd rather employ a solicitor who takes time to give the matter proper consideration, rather than rattle off a quick answer to make it look like they are efficient.  In my experience there are plenty of the latter.

Broadly, better/more competent solicitors are busy people because they have clients who keep coming back to them, because they have a track record of providing good advice.  As with some other professionals (e.g. builders) the ones who can take you on immediately and attend to you promptly are often the ones other people tend to keep clear of.  Which is why these 'professionals' have time to dedicate to you.

At least to start with.

HelpfulLittleHelper said:

And the excuse that they have multiple cases isn't my problem, if you're already too busy to take on more don't take on more... Every interaction takes ages and things only proceed if you show up at their office to just rush things along, sign stuff or make them do it right then and there. It was the most frustrating bit of both selling and buying

Next time you could always ask them to quote to provide an exclusive service - your own solicitor who will do nothing else but attend to your matter for the duration.

I'm not suggesting that would be cheap though.

Bigphil1474

The solicitors where I work recharge their time at £250 an hour. If you are paying a solicitor £2k to do the whole house purchase and sale, that's not a lot of hours. 

saajan_12

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81854755#Comment_81854755

Slow (in elapsed time) is not really correlated to competence though. The prevailing business model seems to be to take on 100s of clients and then flit between them. The result is long waits for the client between updates, but the flip side is the solicitor is never waiting with nothing to do, they always have work, so can be more competitive on price.

The alternative is fewer clients, quicker service, but much higher price. They probably find most people dont' actually want to pay £20k for conveyancing.