My broker has frightened me......!

vwjo

Hi all, we managed to get our mortgage approved today, yay! But last night I went onto the abode site for a conveyancer (on advice/recommendations from this board, no less!)... When I mentioned this to our broker today, he seemed really dismayed - and said we would be much much better off going to somebody local..... he had previously given us the name of a local chap, but I didn't think it would make that much difference? Especially after reading the experiences of a few of your good selves regarding the abode service.....? Should I now be worried? And is it too late to change our minds now that we have 'accepted the quote' from abode?

Help!

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

have never heard of Abode, but in my experiance of Online conveyancing (2 of my buyers) i wouldnt touch them!

At least with a local person you can walk in and make a fuss if needs be, you can hand deliver paperwork without the "it never arrived" excuse.

Buying/selling has got to be one of the most stressful things ever, why scrimp on 200 odd quid on something so critical to the process..

only imo of course...

Doozergirl

I don't see too much difference. Our usual solicitor charges a fortune these days (only just discovered last week that she doesn't do residential any more and is simply doing us a favour by charging us £750 :rolleyes:)

I've used another solicitor this year that cost £400 and now using one that costs £240. It's alright. It's not the same as dealing with someone you've known for years but perhaps if I didn't know our usual solicitor so well, she wouldn't be any different either

If you need your hand holding then perhaps local is better, but even local solicitors use snail mail and I've never had anything go missing in the post.

PS. your broker will get a bung for you using his guy

PasturesNew

I would say, I used an online conveyancer when I sold. It was considerably cheaper.

However, I did have problems communicating with them. My calls were not returned, I couldn't get an answer to "what's happening/when are we exchanging".

I was desperate for the buyer to not drop out, so wanted exchange. I then needed 2 weeks between exchange/completion, as I'd said from the outset, to clear the house. But I got nothing. All along we were working to a theoretical/ideal date to complete... and in the end I had no idea what was going on so had to exchange just 48 hours before completion because I didn't want anything to hold up the exchange, so didn't dare go to them and say "Yeah, do it, but 2 weeks please to complete". I just went with it

The ability to walk in and make a fuss is important.

I'd say for a buyer it is more important to use somebody local/real.
If you are selling only there's less need to make sure they're dotting the i's and crossing the t's, so it's not so important.

I used lawcomm

Local solicitor quotes were about £600+VAT. Lawcomm (from memory) were about £300 inc VAT.

phead

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain wrote: »

have never heard of Abode, but in my experiance of Online conveyancing (2 of my buyers) i wouldnt touch them!

I would agree with that , my buyer was using a online conveyancing firm and the whole thing was like The Muppets Christmas Movie, even I knew more about the legal aspects of buying property than those fools did.

Scout

Last time I moved, I used a conveyancing firm I found online and had no problems whatsoever. My buyer used a conveyancer local to us - SHE was the muppet!! We got to within 2 weeks of exchange and then buyers conveyancer started stalling, putting forward potential "problems" etc. My buyers were ready to go and ring her neck!! I know they practically camped on her doorstep at the end and we only got the house sold because me and the buyers got off our backsides and sorted out these "problems" between us

So, non-local conveyancers are not always bad news

pania

I think the difference is that a lot of conveyancers nowadays have a "call centre" staffed by unqualified people with the supervisor being a qualified conveyancer. Different people have had different experiences of both on-line and local. Remember that different areas have different local requirements. A sale at the estate agent i used to work for in sittingbourne became subject to a massive delay as the on-line conveyancer (in newcastle) insisted on a mining check being done on the area and would not exchange without. Never in the whole course of history has there been any minin in sittingbourne but as it was common practice in the area he was based he took those values elsewhere also.
Swings and roundabouts here, and it isn't necessarily true that your broker has a vested interest in your using the local firm. the question is what would YOU feel comfortable with. a person you can go and ear bend if necessary or a company where you will probably speak to a different person each time, thats isn't guaranteed to have licenced conveyancers making up it's entire staff and that you have limited control over?

Good luck with your house move!!!!

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

phead wrote: »

my buyer was using a online conveyancing firm and the whole thing was like The Muppets Christmas Movie, even I knew more about the legal aspects of buying property than those fools did.

Dont suppose you remember who they were? My buyers used Joslin Rhodes (because they were cheap!) although apparently they have now been bought out (mods, by all means remove is nessecary)

I ended up on a 200 mile round trip to hand deliver documents that they had been sent 3 times already the morning before simutaneous exchange and completion. :T

littlefrank

Hi,

My friend and I used Abode Conveyancing to complete the sale of my flat to him. We agreed a price between us and told both solicitors the date we wanted to complete around 2 months in advance. We thought there would be little risk and it would go through quickly as we were pretty sure we weren't going to have any disputes between us.

They ended up being 10 weeks late with completion and this was with almost daily phone calls to both firms to chase them up. They kept blaming each other saying the other solicitor was waiting for searches, and when I talked to my friend, his solicitor would say it was mine who was delaying!

I caught them out 3 times blaming the other solicitor for delays, when it turned out that they had forgot to carry out searches.

They kept delaying things, only being able to carry out basic tasks if continuously chased up and even then at the slowest rate imaginable.

They continually got the figures on the completion statements wrong, causing more delays. We were constantly having to tell them how to do their job and reminding them what searches they had to do, who they had to contact, suggesting ways to do things quicker that even a child could have worked out.

I think they get so many cases, or get so little money for these cases, that you go to the bottom of the pile and are always the last to be dealt with.

They whold experience cost me over 1000 pounds in interest, because my planned completion date was end of september and they finally completed just before xmas - and even then they were saying they were having to rush things and it was unlikely that they could do it before xmas! The other firm also refused to pay interest on the 30000 pounds that they had held in their account for a number of weeks. They also charged for things like postage, copies etc when it was stated in the T and Cs that this was included.

This was after they had continuously reassured me everything would be done for september!!! They also forgot to post items, were very late in submitting searches - eg they only started submitting some searches a few weeks after the original date!! I just couldn't see why they were completing legal work so late when they had been given two months notice!

I would avoid this and any other online solicitors and unless are asking for problems and potential extra cost, then go with the cheapest solicitor you can find locally. The solicitors abode recommended were Arthur Jackson and Beaumont Legal. Both were useless at any form of communication and continuously fobbed you off.

Avoid these companies if you want to remain sane as moving house is costly and stressful enough without solicitors treating you like you know nothing about housebuying and also being shoved to the lowest priority.

I nearly had a heart attack several times when they kept on saying things would be done by the end of the week only for them to put the date back on a weekly basis!!

littlefrank

Hi,

My friend and I used Abode Conveyancing to complete the sale of my flat to him. We agreed a price between us and told both solicitors the date we wanted to complete around 2 months in advance. We thought there would be little risk and it would go through quickly as we were pretty sure we weren't going to have any disputes between us.

They ended up being 10 weeks late with completion and this was with almost daily phone calls to both firms to chase them up. They kept blaming each other saying the other solicitor was waiting for searches, and when I talked to my friend, his solicitor would say it was mine who was delaying!

I caught them out 3 times blaming the other solicitor for delays, when it turned out that they had forgot to carry out searches.

They kept delaying things, only being able to carry out basic tasks if continuously chased up and even then at the slowest rate imaginable.

They continually got the figures on the completion statements wrong, causing more delays. We were constantly having to tell them how to do their job and reminding them what searches they had to do, who they had to contact, suggesting ways to do things quicker that even a child could have worked out.

I think they get so many cases, or get so little money for these cases, that you go to the bottom of the pile and are always the last to be dealt with.

They whold experience cost me over 1000 pounds in interest, because my planned completion date was end of september and they finally completed just before xmas - and even then they were saying they were having to rush things and it was unlikely that they could do it before xmas! The other firm also refused to pay interest on the 30000 pounds that they had held in their account for a number of weeks. They also charged for things like postage, copies etc when it was stated in the T and Cs that this was included.

This was after they had continuously reassured me everything would be done for september!!! They also forgot to post items, were very late in submitting searches - eg they only started submitting some searches a few weeks after the original date!! I just couldn't see why they were completing legal work so late when they had been given two months notice!

I would avoid this and any other online solicitors and unless are asking for problems and potential extra cost, then go with the cheapest solicitor you can find locally.

The solicitors abode recommended were Arthur Jackson and Beaumont Legal. Both were useless at any form of communication and continuously fobbed you off and said they were taking care of tasks only for me to find that a week later they had still not sent off a simple form!

Avoid these companies if you want to remain sane as moving house is costly and stressful enough without solicitors treating you like you know nothing about housebuying and also being shoved to the lowest priority.

I nearly had a heart attack several times when they kept on saying things would be done by the end of the week only for them to put the date back on a weekly basis!!

Arrgghhh - my blood boils just thinking about it!!

Biggie

I used Abode who appointed Beaumont Legal and I have to say they we're immaculate can't fault them. Could call solicitor when ever I wanted, replied to emails whith a few hours and got paper work out on a daily basis rather then siting on it.