conveyancing solicitors

Bit late now! In fairness mine has been great. It's just all these delays waiting for responses that are driving me mad.

Hoping to complete next week but with just over 7 days to go and no official confirmation its difficult to actually arrange the move. .just be even harder with the international factor you face and current delays.

 

I'm at least fortunate in that I'm at the easier end of the chain - selling but not buying so I'm moving everything out at the moment whether it goes ahead on time or not. I might have to wait a bit longer for the money to come through but I don't have to worry about coordinating removals, etc. That's the really frustrating bit when people aren't communicating, as you say.

 

The problem with people who find conveyancing solicitors frustrating is they haven’t spent enough time talking to the planning department!

 

Heard absolute horror stories about them! They offer a cheaper price if you go with their people but they admit themselves that they are reactive not proactive which I don't think a lot of people realise. You have to do all the chasing yourself as they don't do anything without a specific request each time to do it.

 

Is it acceptable to email the other sides solicitors myself or is that no advisable?

 

I would guess that they will only deal with your appointed Solicitor Redstone. When I lived in
Donny, my late Mum left our family home and relocated to Walsall to live with my sister and
hubby. I decided to buy her house from her.

She moved to Walsall and to speed things up after I sold my house, I kept contacting her
Solicitor in an attempt to get updates. I needn't have bothered as he just ignored me.

Before she moved, Mum wanted to give me a set of keys to the family home. She was
told in no uncertain terms, that she should only do that, once my cheque had cleared her
bank.

 

There is probably a cause and effect relationship between those two statements mate.

 

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever or ever use the Estate Agents suggested solicitors. They'll be cheaper sure, but they'll be utterly garbage.

 

Undoubtedly.

 

They were more expensive the last time I moved and their primary reason was "We are located in the same building as the Estate Agents, so communication will be a lot quicker".

Yeah OK, I'll just save £200 and go somewhere else thanks

 

To understand the timescale of a house purchase or sale you need to understand the conveyancing process. There can be much going on in the background, but the main point of interest to clients is when will exchange of contracts and completion take place? Often, little will seem to be happening and then the transaction is all completed in a flash. A qualified solicitor will have oversight of your transaction, but it is likely that a Legal Executive, licensed conveyancer or an assistant will be doing the day to day spadework (the practising solicitor will still have legal responsibility for the whole shooting match). DIY is difficult these days (even if you understand what you're doing) as there are structural hurdles which act as an impediment (accessing standard forms in single quantities; online contact with HMCR re SDLT - even for a 'nil' return; dealing with banks/building societies, for example). There's nothing to stop you specifying which date(s) you need the transaction to be completed by (for instance if you are giving up a rented property), and the solicitor (or his/her staff) will have a duty to let you know if that can't be achieved. The most compelling argument against DIY is that put up by Mansfield Red: it will likely be the most expensive financial transaction in your lifetime, and you want someone's name against the legal responsibility if anything goes wrong.

 

My experiences: Take recommendations and get a good conveyancing solicitor. When buying my house, mine spotted a discrepancy that I hadn't, regarding the boundaries of the plot, which the vendors had to sort out at their own expense. The estate agents said it was a paperwork formality and accused me of using this as a stalling tactic, saying they'd advise their clients to pull out of the sale unless I agreed to complete anyway. He just said forward him the email and he'd deal with it. He got everything sorted out and didn't increase the agreed (albeit not cheap) fee.

I rented the house out for a while as the market was slow for selling at the time and sold it a few years later. My man no longer worked for the same firm and his new job was not in conveyancing. I saw an ad in the local rag offering a cheap, fixed price and got a total knobhead. The stress of doing his job for him and then chasing him up to sign it off, so that I could pay him as if he'd actually done it himself, simply wasn't worth the saving.

As for estate agents, I've found that the rule is if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, whereas if you pay top dollar, you get expensive monkeys. The last lot I used were £400 up front and 1.4%. They measured up, took some photos, wrote a leaflet with grammar my ten-year-old would cringe at and put photos of someone else's house in it. They sent it to me for proof reading. I completely rewrote it then, as they'd lost the correct photos, took my own photos and sent them a corrected leaflet. They put it in the shop window for 1 week, put it in the Chronicle for one week, put it on Rightmove and basically said over to me. Their advice was give it 2 weeks then drop the asking price by £10k per week until it sells, then write them a fat cheque for their trouble.

As they old joke goes...
Why did the mosquito become an estate agent?
Because he was already an obnoxious, blood-sucking parasite, so all he needed was a tape measure and a clipboard.

 

The solicitors push that all the time but how often does it occur? Also do you know anyone who's successfully sued a solicitor?

 

Doesn't happen often, but it's more likely to happen if you do it yourself and then it's all on you. As I see it it's worth covering against the risk given the potential resulting detriment. I'm a solicitor and I wouldn't do it myself so I don't know what more I can say really.

It's not generally particularly difficult to sue a solicitor if they've got something wrong - all firms have PI insurance and the insurers are very aware of the fact that the legal costs of contesting it will be substantial so I would expect it to be resolved long before it gets anywhere near a court.

 

Can’t think why I’ve lived in the same house for 42 years

 

I'd agree with this 100%. I've never dealt with an estate agent who I'd describe as both competent and having my interests at heart. Come to think of it I'm not sure I've ever dealt with one who I'd describe as even just one of those things.

 

Interesting thread and one I should be able to add to as we're currently in the process of moving house.
Firstly, we've sold our house through purple bricks and to be honest their sales person covering West Yorkshire has been ok. Fees and extras clearly explained, easily contactable to answer any queries throughout the process and our only complaint was that a couple of the photos on the draft brochure appeared to be of a poor quality but this was quickly rectified. House sold 6 weeks after going on the market. Another positive to purple bricks is that you can manage your viewings through their online portal which is nice and straightforward. Appreciate people have had different experiences with purple bricks but not sure what they are expecting with the low fees. Regarding estate agents in general, as someone posted above I've seen hardly any that are competent, fees don't come into it and you certainly don't get what you pay for.

Solicitors on the property we're selling are purple bricks recommended solicitors (due to the fee structure agreement) but no issues to date.

On the property we're looking to buy (sale agreed mid August) we've had a really slow start to proceedings and things came to a head last week. The seller's solicitor accused our side of delaying tactics, not responding or confirming receipt of certain documentation. We looked into matters and took great pleasure in embarrassing the seller's solicitor as we managed to prove she had not sent anything to our solicitors or it would appear started any work on the case. In a nutshell, we sent a strongly worded email to the seller's solicitor and copied in the estate agents and our solicitor showing her up and basically said she'd got one week to sort things out and start liaising with our solicitor or the deal was dead. On Friday afternoon things started to move

 

Yes it is (copy in your solicitor and the estate agents) although it is very unlikely you wil get a direct response as you are not their client. See my post above, the **** hit the fan on the house we're buying last week due to the seller's solicitor lying and accusing our side of delaying matters.

 

Had an OK experience with them so far fella. We went with purple bricks because of the cost but kept our expectations low! Having previously paid high estate agents fees and received a **** service we wanted to try something different this time. PB's sales person covering West Yorkshire has been ok, explained everything clearly regarding the fees and has been easily contactable (so far) if we have any questions. Another positive is that you can manage all your viewings through their app which is nice and straightforward to use.