Conveyancing - incompetent solicitor

Conveyancing - incompetent solicitor

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kiethton

Original Poster:

13,883 posts

179 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
Very true, but very hard to remove when she's in place....

Still no answer and more refused calls, as a result I've sent her a rather strongly worded email saying basically why have you not been replying, not acceptable etc reminding her that I'm being chased by others that she is not replying to...

Basically says call me before midday else I'll come to the offices this afternoon....

Rouleur

7,015 posts

188 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
kiethton said:
Very true, but very hard to remove when she's in place....

Still no answer and more refused calls, as a result I've sent her a rather strongly worded email saying basically why have you not been replying, not acceptable etc reminding her that I'm being chased by others that she is not replying to...

Basically says call me before midday else I'll come to the offices this afternoon....
£100 says you don't go, today or any other day.

Vaud

50,287 posts

154 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
kiethton said:
Very true, but very hard to remove when she's in place....

Still no answer and more refused calls, as a result I've sent her a rather strongly worded email saying basically why have you not been replying, not acceptable etc reminding her that I'm being chased by others that she is not replying to...

Basically says call me before midday else I'll come to the offices this afternoon....
Grow some proverbials and get down there.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
Deadline passed - l assume it's all kicking off at the solicitor's offices now then.

Black_S3

2,667 posts

187 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
kiethton said:
Fairly local firm, unsure of scale - can't name and shame so picture the job title of somebody who "xxxx" bread and a well-known fast-food chain double-barreled.

Quote not particularly cheap - £1600+ SDLT IIRC so comparable with others, went with her as its local
Im not usually any good at charades, but i think i won??

http://www.bakermacdonald.co.uk/

kiethton

Original Poster:

13,883 posts

179 months

Friday 18th March 2016
quotequote all
Well she did actually get back to me, bang on the deadline but hasn't come back to my reply!

Issue is that things that should have been taken care of weeks ago haven't been (she says its not her side of the transaction) but she's apparently on getting it sorted asap - lease variation (common standard template change) and the physical mortgage paperwork for the purchaser hasn't come despite being outstanding 3 weeks ago! - still don't know why this hasn't been chased!

I've spoken to the agents who seem to be saying that given the outstanding issues we have no chance of it happening by Thursday...as they'll then have to send the paperwork to the purchasers and wait near a week for mortgage funds, typical!

Red Devil

13,055 posts

207 months

Friday 18th March 2016
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elanfan said:
Whilst you're there speak to the senior partner and mention complaints to Law Society (or has that bit now changed) and dare them to send you a bill!
Yes it has. The Law Society is effectively her Trade Union. The regulatory body is the SRA and has been for quite some time now.

surveyor said:
For the sake of completeness - We Told you So!

Formal email, advising that her refusal to communicate is holding matters up, with a financial consequence. Put her on formal warning that you will seek to recover any losses from the firm. Ask for a copy of the firms Complaints Handling Procedure also.
He probably won't get that either given her ostrich approach to business! If so, it plays into the OP's hands. If he can't invoke the firm's CHP because he hasn't been given the required information he needs someone with a bigger stick to ram up her **** - http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-so...

kiethton

Original Poster:

13,883 posts

179 months

Tuesday 5th April 2016
quotequote all
Time for an update....

Still in legals!

Had the thursday before Easter off work to tend to a trustee meeting so thought it best to stop by the office of the solicitors later that afternoon seeing as nothing had happened in 3 weeks and I'd been getting no reply to any attempts at correspondence. It got a little interesting, I had no appointment and turned up unannounced, she refused to come downstairs to speak to me, after explaining the predicament to the receptionist and stating I was happy to wait as long as it took, until home time if necessary saw the receptionist scurry back up to her.

Needless to say she refused to speak to me but did move a consultant onto my file, one of the ex-partners with his name above the door. He has been significantly better. We had a lot of progress last week, most documents had to be re-done as they were either wrong or expired and we have finalised all documentation. All was looking well until last Wednesday when the only outstanding issue was a replacement NHBC certificate (flat was built in 2007), applied for on the same day but was still awaited on Friday...

Thankfully the purchasers are still keen (so far as to have already started a Sky contract at the flat!) but one goes away on business tomorrow so looks like we won't be completing this week now (haven't been able to get through to them today...)

Joy! Yours, now 8 months in!

Roo

11,503 posts

206 months

Tuesday 5th April 2016
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Blimey, you'll need a holiday after it all goes through.










wink

kiethton

Original Poster:

13,883 posts

179 months

Tuesday 5th April 2016
quotequote all
Roo said:
Blimey, you'll need a holiday after it all goes through.










wink
Don't I just, now thats a whole load more hassle

Ilovetwiglets

695 posts

167 months

Tuesday 5th April 2016
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Ours took 6 months due to incompetent solicitors, absolute nightmare trying to get through every day knowing you'll be unsuccessful. We exchanged on the morning our buyer was moving in, I had the removal company on standby to move everything into storage and my dad was going to put us up. Only consolation is 18 months on it's almost forgotten about although we have sworn never to move again. In the grand scheme of things it's a short term problem no matter how crap it seems at the moment.

Rangeroverover

1,522 posts

110 months

Wednesday 6th April 2016
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I am an estate agent, we know locally which agents to avoid, there are two or three in my local area that when a client mentions they are going to use them we try very hard to stop them.

Most agents have two or three favoured lawyers that they always suggest, I get no kickback from them, the reason I steer people towards solicitors I like is in order to make the transaction painless for me and the parties involved. Ask an independant agent in your area for a suggestion, even if he isn't involved in your transaction they will be happy to help.

If you are using a national chain of agents don't let them push a "call centre conveyancer" onto you. They are cheap and sometimes work OK but the moment there is a problem you will be dealing with minimum wage unqualified people "supervised" by a lawyer who you will never have access to.

Remember that you are the client, if they are asking stupid questions along the lines of "how many keys have been cut in the last 10 years?" or "I need a copy of the warranty for the television aerial" tell them you don't care, Legal execs are always the worst as they seem to be trying to prove how powerful they are.

Ilovetwiglets

695 posts

167 months

Wednesday 6th April 2016
quotequote all
Rangeroverover said:
If you are using a national chain of agents don't let them push a "call centre conveyancer" onto you. They are cheap and sometimes work OK but the moment there is a problem you will be dealing with minimum wage unqualified people "supervised" by a lawyer who you will never have access to.

Remember that you are the client, if they are asking stupid questions along the lines of "how many keys have been cut in the last 10 years?" or "I need a copy of the warranty for the television aerial" tell them you don't care, Legal execs are always the worst as they seem to be trying to prove how powerful they are.
That's where we went wrong, looked to be a small solicitors but it was actually owned by another who used a call centre, they had their own friendly looking website and everything but the people pictured didn't even appear to work there. It took 3 weeks to find out if the property had a septic tank or cesspit as they used both words, in the end I said I didn't care and stop trying to find out. In hindsight I should have made the 250 mile round trip and checked myself!

Red Devil

13,055 posts

207 months

Wednesday 6th April 2016
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The main difference between a septic tank and a cesspit is one of cost. The latter will need emptying far more frequently.

Ilovetwiglets

695 posts

167 months

Wednesday 6th April 2016
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Red Devil said:
The main difference between a septic tank and a cesspit is one of cost. The latter will need emptying far more frequently.
I know the difference, it was a casual question to the solicitors who used it to drag the whole process out another 3 weeks, it wasn't a deal breaker either way.

kiethton

Original Poster:

13,883 posts

179 months

Thursday 14th April 2016
quotequote all
Well we were meant to be exchanging tomorrow....

The form (standardized document) that was awaited last week as it was previously issued with a piece of wrong information and not picked up by any of the 4 solicitors still hasn't been received - its a standardized document FFS!

Now my "new" solicitor hasn't got back to my e-mails doesn't seem to have done anything all week and is now "engaged" when I try to speak to him.

All documents barring this have been completed by everybody, but the purchasers solicitor refuses to request the deposit until they have all documents completed - why not request now ahead of it i really don't know...they'd even pocket a days interest!

Thing is the flat has to exchange tomorrow, given the period taken to draw-down the mortgage mine will have expired unless we do...fking typical!

Even if I exchange tomorrow this whole process will have taken 9 months...how the juddering fk does that happen!?!?! - more importantly why wasn't this fking document done months ago!

  1. rant over - an extremely pissed off kiethon

Dizeee

18,166 posts

205 months

Thursday 14th April 2016
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We have moved 3 times over the years and this story sounds exactly the same as our experience, a complete amd utter ball ache dealing with incompetent and dis-interested solicitors from start to finish.

When we purchased last time we used a firm in Yourkshire, nowhere near us, based on reviews and recommendation. They were fantastic, and the best solicitors we could have asked for. The problem was the other firms in the chain, all local, who continually held things up, missed problems, never replied to calls or emails and caused a whole pile of delay and issues.

Last two times we have moved, we have ended up knocking on doors / obtaining phone numbers of people in the chain, which has always ended up saving the day, as we have negotiated and sorted problems out directly between us completely removing the need for chasing around third parties. Last time this even extended to me contacting other solicitors throughout the chain, which was a real moral issue for some of them claiming a "conflict of interest", but ultimatley, I was the only one willing to sort out and organise the issues that they seemingly never had time to, so that's what we did and it worked.

Makes you wonder why you pay these people. I don't know what they do all day.

Billsnemesis

817 posts

236 months

Thursday 14th April 2016
quotequote all
Dizeee said:
We have moved 3 times over the years and this story sounds exactly the same as our experience, a complete amd utter ball ache dealing with incompetent and dis-interested solicitors from start to finish.

When we purchased last time we used a firm in Yourkshire, nowhere near us, based on reviews and recommendation. They were fantastic, and the best solicitors we could have asked for. The problem was the other firms in the chain, all local, who continually held things up, missed problems, never replied to calls or emails and caused a whole pile of delay and issues.

Last two times we have moved, we have ended up knocking on doors / obtaining phone numbers of people in the chain, which has always ended up saving the day, as we have negotiated and sorted problems out directly between us completely removing the need for chasing around third parties. Last time this even extended to me contacting other solicitors throughout the chain, which was a real moral issue for some of them claiming a "conflict of interest", but ultimatley, I was the only one willing to sort out and organise the issues that they seemingly never had time to, so that's what we did and it worked.

Makes you wonder why you pay these people. I don't know what they do all day.
Not defending the general approach (I have been on the receiving end of poor conveyancing services myself) but there is a regulatory issue with speaking directly to a party who is legally represented. It is basically prohibited unless specifically agreed between the parties and their lawyers.

The idea is that it avoids allegations that e.g. the lawyer for the buyer has been told something by the seller or has said something to the seller that creates the conflict. I tend to rely on it to avoid having a false allegation along the lines of "well your solicitor said...." flung at me or, as happened in one case, the avoid the borrower's solicitor hurling abuse at me when I was acting for the lender.

A good solicitor is worth his/her weight in gold but few clients are prepared to pay their lawyer as much as they pay their plumber and the whole industry and its client base suffers as a result. Pay the solicitors what the estate agent gets paid and you will be amazed how well everything goes.

Dizeee

18,166 posts

205 months

Thursday 14th April 2016
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Problem is legal or not we had to adopt that approach to make things work both times.

It cost us 35k to move house last year... couldnt afford to pay anyone any more. And that was a sideways move changing to an equivalently priced house give or take 10k.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 14th April 2016
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Hate to say it OP, but if you had changed solicitors 5 months ago when it was suggested you possibly would not be in this mess.

Sometimes better to cut your losses!