Agggghhhhh…Conveyanc ing Solicitors…..

Don't worry or feel guilty about calling them daily. If you wait for them to call you will just get upset if you don't get an answer or they keep putting you off. At least with a daily telephone call, they should at least be able to keep you posted and not have to remember to call you. Plus damage limitation after your daily call no use worrying till the next day.... or at least until nearer next Friday...I used to work years ago in conveyancing and the people that phoned everyday files' used to be placed on top and the secretary would chase up the solicitor for an answer. Try to be nice to the secretary and she will hopefully reciprocate. Good luck I'm sure things will work out but remember whilst it means everything to you and the other people in the chain, you are really just a file number to the solicitor. Try not to worry too much. Take control back and don't be afraid or embarrassed to call them daily. Big girl panties time..

And yes, my son's sellers were using a firm recommended by their Estate Agent.
On the other hand, the estate agents who handled my last recommended a solicitor who proved to be wonderful. Our family have used him twice more since then.

Do make sure its being done by a proper solicitor, not a conveyancer. The other side of my son's first purchase was being handled by a conveyancer and our solicitor said she never spoke to the same person twice, and usually couldn't get hold of anyone at all. They never seemed to know what was going on, nobody was overseeing the whole process.

Totally agree, whilst selling my family house, no chain, used the solicitor recommended by the estate agent and it took 5 months…

We had a dreadful experience with the other side's conveyancers when we bought our current property. As there was a lag in selling the previous house, we specifically told the estate agents that we would not sell to anyone using them.

Never use an EA recommended conveyancer. Always use a qualified solicitor of your own choice. It costs more but you usually get what you pay for.

my estate agent had a special person who dealt with my solicitor wrt progression of dates, letters and information etc. EA was worth every penny

Don't tar all solicitors etc
How true. GSM did you ever come across Mr Shallet in Westcliff?
We bought 9 properties using him. He went way beyond what you expect from a solicitor. Then unfortunately he died.
My last one was so bad I had bad thoughts about him 😉

The solicitor acting for the vendors of my last property failed to register the property in the new owners name.
We had been in this property for some months when I received a court summons for non payment of council tax 😱

In England a firm completion date is not settled until contracts have been exchanged - then it is a definite date, your Solicitor should have made that clear. Why the delay in sending you the contract for signature? Are you using a Solicitor or a "conveyancer"? If a solicitor then you could complain to the local Law Society about their lack of professionalism.

We moved 3 years ago. 2 months ago we had a call saying some additional paperwork to do with our purchase had been located and they would post it on. We're still waiting. Apparently it's on the solicitor's desk waiting for her to sign it off.
For 2 other house sales we used qualified conveyancers rather than solicitors and they were much more efficient.

Never use a conveyancer recommended by an estate agent. They will be of the ‘pile em high and seller cheap’ variety and will want to keep in with the EA to secure more recommendations. The EA will get a commission if you use them, as would have been disclosed to you, and they would have agreed with the EA that they would charge a low fee to recommended clients. They can only do the work to the agreed low fee by delegating to unqualified staff and/or cutting corners. No law firm which I would consider reputable would work with EAs in this way. They are not truly independent because they want the recommendations to continue. As I have already said, you get what you pay for - and you are paying a low fee and getting bad service whilst the EA trousers a commission for having put you in this position,

If you ever move again, ask for recommendations from friends or do your own research. Never use a firm recommended by an EA or a developer.

Don’t tar all solicitors who do conveyancing with the same brush.

When moving here, we had eight months of this chopping and changing, delays and strange silences. What a merry dance!

The family here had moved out and were paying a bridging loan. We eventually lost patience and decided to pull out.

Then (and only then) we were told our buyers had a big problem with their lease. Within a few weeks, though, we had new buyers and more (much more) money (in the 1988 market) had offered more to our long suffering sellers with the loan - and we'd moved in.

Next time, I simply won't have the patience - or ever remove the house from the market until exchange of contracts.

It’s our first house move in 22 years and our estate agent had an offer to use this solicitor, so we’re thinking OK, might as well as we had no idea about how to find a decent conveyancer and seemed like a good idea at the time to take the pressure off.

Just so annoying that no-one seems bothered 😕 hopefully all will fall into place next week…but I’m not holding my breath…

We have bought and sold many houses and always use the same solicitor, he is thorough and worth every penny, his shroud advice has saved us thousands!

Profitable, not prof.

Try asking the estate agent.

Is the person doing the work actually a qualified solicitor? Or in order to make the job profhas the donkey work been passed down to a secretary or clerk? The terms of engagement should have told you who was actually going to be doing the work. You are entitled to know.

I trust you haven’t gone to one of the cheap conveyancing firms.

As with everything, you get what you pay for. The personal attention of a solicitor, especially a partner, costs.