Wiltshire. Offer accepted!! Need help!

[Idefix]

Made a very low offer on our dream house 4 weeks ago, just had a phone call to say that the couple selling the house have accepted the offer

We are in a state of shock!

We had contacted a solicitor through the moneysavingsupermarket.com but have seen a number of threads that recommend using a local solicitor who knows the area.

Recommendations please! In need of lots of hand holding
Dh and have not done this before, and are currently swinging from happy to scared have read too many sad stories on mn where it all goes wrong

All advice welcomed.

[MooseyMoo]

Definitely local solicitor. I walk all the important documents to our solicitor to know they have received them. Also, as they know the local area they probably have done legal work on houses in same street/estate and know the quirks

[wowfudge]

Now I disagree - while a local solicitor is convenient, a decent conveyancer can be based anywhere these days.

[Swifey]

Whereabouts in Wiltshire is the house? I am on the process of selling a buy to let and buying another one, both in wilts, and I also live here, so can advise on solicitors.

[Whyjustwhy]

Definitely use a local solicitor. We moved 6 months ago and our buyers came from another part of the country, didn't know Wiltshire at all and used a solicitor local to them. It took 6 months before they finally agreed they were ready to move.
Absolute nightmare!!
Also if you want to say whereabouts you're moving to (or pm me) I have lived in Wiltshire over 20 years, & moved house 5 times so know a few areas and solicitors.
Congrats on the move!

[RaphaellaTheSpanishWaterDog]

I agree that using a local solicitor is best.

When we sold last year - in Wiltshire but close to the Dorset border - we were able to pop any paperwork into the office by hand and things went very smoothly. Our buyers otoh, despite being local themselves - in fact they lived two doors down from our solicitor's office - used an online conveyancer and had nothing but problems throughout the whole process.......

[Idefix]

Thank you for the quick replies!

House is in a village south of Devizes, the agent has recommended premiere property lawyers - lots of praise regarding speed and good service. just feel a bit paralysed by all of what we have to do especially when we are far away.

We are currently overseas so most of our dealings will be via email phone. Luckily no chain involved, the vendors are going to be renting whilst looking for perfect new home and we sold our previous home a while ago via a work relocation scheme so fairly green on many aspects of buying.

Hope being overseas doesn't hold things up too much.

We have 2 more years of overseas before we will get to live in our new home but feeling very excited nonetheless

[AnitaManeater]

I used Premier Property lawyers and I thought they were very good, however I was a FTB purchasing a no chain property and the vendor was also using Premier Property too. It was very quick!

[Pipbin]

A friend who was an ex solicitor said never to touch online places.
After one of the agent recommend solicitors sent us the break down of fees etc I soon realised that it was a low headline rate with a load of random added extras. The local solicitors ended up costing about half the price of the online one.

[Idefix]

That is reassuring anita will be checking out websites when I am less full of fizzy wine!
Really hoping being chain free helps Keep the process simple.

pipbin really worried people will realise how naive we are and will take us down the garden path with all sorts of unexpected extras...

Beginning to feel very real now.

[Pipbin]

Talk to friends who have bought and sold and take solicitor recommendations from them.
I've never bought a house in a different town but I have gone with a solicitor close to me and still communicated via phone calls and email.

[Idefix]

Well we have just crossed premier property lawyers off the the list! Reviews were terrible, including a thread on here.

Although a few people seem happy, there were many unfavourable reviews.
More research is needed!

[andantecantabile]

Just wanted to chip in - we have been using Premier Property lawyers. We had already instructed them to go ahead when I read the terrible reviews and thread on mumsnet about how awful they were. We were recommended to use them through the broker we are using.

I can honestly say that I have been impressed with the speed and ease that things progressed. We were able to upload scans of many documents, which for us was a plus, trying to juggle full time work with buying a house. When our first property fell through (after we had paid the search fees and mortgage valuation, seller backed out) we knew PPL had insurance for this, so we are in the process of claiming back this money.

We are in the early stages of the process for our second property, and things are proceeding in the same way as the first one. I can absolutely understand your trepidation (and indeed I spent a good many hours fretting about our decision to use them!) but I can honestly say no problems here. Good luck with your purchase!

[andantecantabile]

I should also add, we are also FTB, our second property is no chain, our first property started off as no chain, then it wasn't, then it was.....(can you tell this was destined to fall through?!)

[swillows]

Another vote for using a local solicitor - they will know the area and the local authorities for stuff like getting the searches done. Online places or anything recommended by the estate agents will just be conveyancing sausage factories trying to push the work through as quickly as possible. You should probably bank on costs of approximately £700 plus VAT and disbursements.

[Idefix]

Hi, I wonder if I could take up your kind offer on local solicitors swifey?
Can't believe how hard it is to make my mind up, the more I read the more put off I feel lol.

Regards, Ide