Solicitor v conveyor

wigglers

Hi does anyone have experience of dealing with an online conveyancing company over a local solicitor?

I'm wondering why most of the online quotes done on a comparison site are coming back more then £1000 cheaper than ones from a local solicitor?

Anyone got any recommendations for either within north Somerset please?

Bigphil1474

You get what you pay for generally. For a straight forward purchase an online company might be fine, but the chances are they'll have lots of cases on the go and will probably be difficult to get hold of if there are any issues, or you may have multiple case handlers. The advantage of a local firm is literally that they are local, and are often reputation dependant. Obviously, they cost more. We just got 3 quotes from local firms and chose the best one for us. We didn't want some anonymous bod who is probably on only just above minimum wage causing any problems with our purchase. We paid about our solicitor £2,300 all in for sale and purchase. I think that was worth it for us, and we did often pop into their offices to sign some papers or drop documents off. If you are spending £hundreds of thousands, do you really want to skimp on the legal process?

Flugelhorn

definitely get what you pay for - small in person solicitors can;t be beaten - we have had a purchase and a sale on the same house and both times there were glitches towards the end and having someone who responded to calls and emails quickly and knew what they were doing was essential.

jimi_man

Another vote for in person solicitors. Essential to have a local firm that you can call in and drop stuff off if necessary. Also I like to meet them first, seems the right thing to do.

monkey-fingers

I wouldn't use a full online conveyancer again. Did that once, never again.

However, the last 3 properties we've bought, we've used a local solicitor in the North East (we're in the South East) so a hybrid arrangement.

Worked out much cheaper and got the same service.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927844#Comment_81927844

Another vote for person solicitors, but I would say it is not essential that they are local.

Family member was recommended a solicitor 200 miles away and everything went really well. Very quick responses to all queries etc and a few hundred Pounds cheaper than the local ones as they were based in a lower cost area.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6660192/solicitor-v-conveyor

Online only places tend to be in cheaper locations, they dont have fancy offices with receptionists etc which all add to the cost of hiring them.

Conveyancers are one trick ponies, there is only one rate they charge and they can setup their tools, processes etc to be hyper efficient in the one thing they do. Local Solicitors will normally take on a range of different work, they have a different regulator, they need the tools and processes to cover the full spectrum of the services they offer. There will always be a certain tension between deciding if to do a personal injury claim at £300 an hour or a conveyancing job at £175 per hour. They rarely go for a true blended rate but there is an element of levelling the two.

I'll be the dessenting voice, we and friends were buying at the same time. We used an online conveyancer and they used a local firm (London). Ours was much more responsive, had better opening hours and we had no problems at all. They had various issues, could only contact them in office hours, no online portal showing the current status so meaning more phone calls and they paid much more than we did.

As to dropping stuff off… we found the inverse to be true, all our bank statements are electronic so uploading it to a portal was easy. Having to print stuff off and go to a solicitors office not close to work during office hours would have been a pain and inevitably probably gotten into the debate of if they are "original" as they are home printed.

RelievedSheff

For our first purchase we used a cheap online conveyancer and they were absolutely terrible.

For our second purchase we used a solicitors recommended by the developers we bought a new build from, They were equally terrible.

For the purchase we are hopefully completing on this Friday we bit the bullet and paid a bit more for a local firm of solicitors who are highly recommended. They have been brilliant and worth every extra penny.

p00hsticks

I lost a sale due to the potential buyer using a cheap online conveyancer - after months of silence from them, despite my solicitors repeated requests for information, I eventually found out via the estate agent that they were so incompetent that the buyers had claimed compensation, but not thought to tell our side. To add insult to injury whn this came out they then pulled out of the sale as 'the numbers no longer added up' (they were purchasing to add to their existing rental stock, as they already owned the property next door).

mills112

online conveyancers tend to be fine if the transaction is simple and you are tech savvy as you will need to load everything online because they have a line of bots to deal with the transaction and not actually one person!

if your transaction is complicated, that is when a local solicitors will prove invaluable as they will spend the time to look into the issues and ask the right questions and look at the answers!

personally i would use a local solicitor but i would read reviews on them as some local solicitors are just as bad, if not worse, than the online companies.

Tabieth

I used an online conveyancer (recommended by this site). While it was a straightforward transaction (I bought a freehold house, no chain on either side), it all worked extremely well. I had a named person who I spoke with and communicated with. The app was incredibly easy to use and really sped things up. I can’t see how using a local firm or going into a physical office would have benefited me in any way. If I buy / sell again in the future I’d use the same online firm.