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Original poster

Can you tell me about your awful solicitor experiences to make me feel a bit better?

123 replies

waytheleaveswork · 14/08/2020 13:53

Went into sign paperwork on a new flat today. Female solicitor who has done all the work has been fab, but was on holiday this week.

Male solicitor clearly hadn't opened my file before my 12pm appointment. He noticed some forms were missing - which he would have spotted before I came in if he had bothered to read the first page. Then proceeded to explain that because it was leasehold, I'd struggle to sell in 30 years time 'but hopefully you wouldn't still be living there'. He was just a totally arrogant, unprofessional, incompetent arse weasel.

When he told me I'd been asked to come in too soon, I just said OK and left.

I don't want to complain - there's no point. I just feel so insignificant and disappointed. I was bought out of my previous home by ex-DH. I know this flat isn't amazing, but I was excited about my next chapter. I have dealt with many solicitors over the past 4 years and, without exception, the women have been excellent and the men shite.

I'd love some solicitor horror stories to cheer me up.

OP posts:

JuneFromBethesda · 14/08/2020 14:56

Moving day, I called our solicitors to check that everything was in order and the funds had gone through. Solicitor told me there was a 'shortfall in funds'. ON MOVING DAY. It was a five-figure sum. I remember standing in my parents' kitchen open-mouthed, asking how that was possible.

Turns out they'd done the sums wrong and had forgotten to account for the deposit which had already been paid. Everything was fine, and resolved the same day, but dear god, that phone call.

purplecorkheart · 14/08/2020 14:58

When I sold a property the other side's Solicitor decided he would save money by hand delivering the cheque to my workplace as it was nearby.
However instead of knocking and handing it to be he posted it through the door of the building next door which was under construction. I received a very wet cheque, a few days later when the foreman found it.

itchyfinger · 14/08/2020 14:59

Our buyers solicitor didn't inform the rest of the chain that our buyer had lost his mortgage (due to some information missing that was meant to be submitted by...the solicitor) and so on the day of completion the entire chain (5 families) packed up, got in their vans and waited for the money to pass down the chain. The solicitor didn't answer the phone until 3pm because she was "in meetings", by which point we had all given up and had to either move back in to our old houses or stay in hotels. We all then had to send our mortgages back to the bank to avoid early repayment charges and the completion was put on hold for A MONTH!! Had the completion failed entirely our buyer could have been sued for hundreds of £k.

Absolutely shambolic, I made a complaint to the legal firm she was at and the partner replied and said although he acknowledged how "inconvenient" the situation was (no shit, in a new town with no where to stay with all our stuff in storage) we could hardly blame the solicitor!!

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Legal issues

ComtesseDeSpair · 14/08/2020 14:59

I firmly believe that conveyancing solicitors should be made to go on a course on a regular basis reinforcing the impact their work has on clients. I think because many conveyancers never actually meet their clients in person, and a lot of conveyancing work is really just paper-pushing, it’s easy for them to forget that there’s an actual human being involved who is making the biggest purchase of their life and making a lot of other upheaval arrangements to their life in tandem and who is often incredibly stressed about it all.

My last conveyancing solicitor went on annual leave without telling me, the day after the vendor’s solicitor advised them that a competing buyer who they’d agreed a sale with first but who had then dropped out close to exchange, had come back to make a higher bid and we were now in a contract race. I spoke to solicitor in a panic on Thursday afternoon and he said, sounding as though he couldn’t care less, to to call him back the next morning. Did so and his colleague said he was off on his holidays.

Fortunately said colleague turned out to be a bloody miracle worker and expedited everything outstanding on my file so I was in a position to exchange almost immediately.

AnneElliott · 14/08/2020 15:01

Mine got the calculations wrong for our completion and nearly gave is a heart attack!

He then resent it but to the flat we hadn't yet bought do the current owner read and opened our personal letters! We found it in the kitchen when we moved in.

Fairybatman · 14/08/2020 15:03

When we bought our current home our solicitor “forgot” to pay off the mortgage for our old house. You can’t imagine the shock when the mortgage direct debit went out 6 weeks later .

Original poster

waytheleaveswork · 14/08/2020 15:07

These are all excellent and making me feel much better, thank you!!

Bang on @ComtesseDeSpair - to him, it was a 12pm meeting that he didn't give a toss about, to me, this is all my savings and a big life choice!

OP posts:

MinnieMountain · 14/08/2020 15:10

At the risk of being called stupid (I admit to not being ambitious), I'm a conveyancing solicitor.

The arrogance is one thing but so many of the issues here could have been prevented by the proper procedures being put in place.

My "favourite" arrogant man was the one who responded "You should know, your office is round the corner" when I asked if a property by the docks had ever flooded. He was always helpful like that

sergeilavrov · 14/08/2020 15:21

We had a lawyer who sent my DH and DC’s passports to the wrong country’s embassy for visa approval and then tried to convince us that was a better option... after he’d helped us buy a house in the intended country. Needless to say my company handled everything in house after that one. Took a stern phone call from the right embassy to get the passports returned quickly.

AdaColeman · 14/08/2020 15:23

My general experience of solicitors is that you tell them what you want them to do; they don't do it, so you do it yourself; they then send you a bill for several thousands of pounds.

When I got divorced many years ago my solicitor was hopeless. STBEX didn't respond within the set time, so I wanted a Bailiff service, which would have kept me in control, but solicitor advised against this.

This led to whole string of problems for me and costs which wouldn't have otherwise occurred.
Years later, when the property finally had to be sold, I represented myself, and got a much better outcome, which redressed the balance a little.

PaternosterLoft · 14/08/2020 15:30

waytheleaveswork but ironically if you were still living there in 125 years when the lease runs out then you'll be able to make a fortune selling the secret to everlasting life and thus, eventually, be able to move to somewhere bigger.

honeylulu · 14/08/2020 15:37

When I bought my current property I paid most of the purchase funds from my savings. The conveyancer was very aware of this as I had to move chunks of it daily to their client account over several weeks. I am a solicitor myself (not conveyancer) so I also dealt with all the legal stuff.

After the move my husband got a letter addressed only to him enclosing a cheque payable only to him for a £300 surplus of funds. I was bloody furious at the sheer sexism of it and wrote a very annoyed email. My complaint was not even acknowledged, let alone dealt with.

The conveyance was female too!

Babababababybelll · 14/08/2020 15:40

When we bought our house, it was held up because our solicitors spelt my name wrong.

They then proceeded to blame me for the miss spelt name.

Now i might not be the sharpest tool in the shed , but i have always managed to spell my name right .

I think we know who was most likely to add an extra letter in my name

Original poster

waytheleaveswork · 14/08/2020 15:45

@PaternosterLoft

This is a savvy financial tip and I will save it for future use!

OP posts:

TimelyManor · 14/08/2020 15:59

My general experience of solicitors is that you tell them what you want them to do; they don't do it, so you do it yourself; they then send you a bill for several thousands of pounds.

This is similar to my experience. I went to see a solicitor who had been recommended for my circumstances. She seemed very nice in the first free 10 minute appointment but wanted a LOT of information. I got all that she wanted together (even though I'm still not convinced she needed to know my inside leg measurement and colour of my knickers) and sent it in to her. I then got a bill. I phoned her to ask something. Another bill. I phoned again, felt worse with every phone call and kept getting all these bills.

Over £750 later I got another bill and she hadn't even done anything! So I changed solicitor and he didn't want half the information she did and has sorted it all out. I haven't had his bill yet

KitchenConfidential · 14/08/2020 16:02

Turns out the 'other' solicitor was from the same firm - just blaming themselves for being shite basically!
That’s surely illegal? A firm cannot act on both sides of a transaction, it’s a conflict of interest!

Galvantula · 14/08/2020 16:05

Our solicitor didn't let us know that our sale was about to fall through. We only found out because we called on her day off to ask why we hadn't heard anything.

Turned out our buyer's sale had fallen through.

So we lost the sale 2 weeks before we were due to move and had to put it back on the market and have a bridging loan for a month.

We later heard she was busy with her own house move. 🙄

itsgettingweird · 14/08/2020 16:11

@Mumsnut

Mine murdered his associate mid sale

Although that might have won MN this week

Musmerian · 14/08/2020 16:16

Solicitor I instructed to deal with my divorce. OH and I had agreed everything and it was before you had to do financial settlements officially. All he had to do was the paperwork. When stuff came back after initial meeting it was full of errors. He also referred to me throughout as Mrs EX H Name rather than Ms Musmerian (which I have always been). When I pointed this out he said ‘You’re not divorced yet so you have to use your married name!’

Solicitor we used for Will was shocking. I had to send back the documents with 23 mistakes outlined.

Foxyloxy1plus1 · 14/08/2020 16:17

JuneFromBethesda we had a similar experience. Our conveyancer left a couple of weeks before completion very suddenly, so I’m pretty sure she was sacked. The weekend before we moved, the completion statement arrived, showing a five figure shortfall. DH saw pretty quickly that they had failed to include the depositR, but I had a sleepless weekend until we could sort it out.
Eyvhad
Then they wanted more money for the Land Registry fee, because they hadn’t taken into account that new builds have a different fee. Since they had been doing the conveyancing on the same estate for three years and should have known this, I told them it was their responsibility and we were t paying.

Then they wrote a few weeks later, enclosing a cheque, although they had no idea why they owed us money.

BigGee · 14/08/2020 16:27

I was selling my parent's home after they passed away, and we were three days from exchanging when the solicitor finally confessed that she'd lost the original deeds. She made a song and dance of spending a whole weekend searching her offices from top to bottom before the paperwork was "discovered" safe and sound at the local court, where it had been lodged for an associated issue that needed looked at, and forgotten about. She then tried to invoice me for the time she spent looking for the "missing" paperwork. Her boss sorted that out very quickly when I mentioned I had been in touch with the Law Society about her long list of mistakes and carelessness ( this was just one of several stressful situations the bimbo subjected me to).

Toomanycats99 · 14/08/2020 16:33

Mine took near enough 2 weeks to find the paperwork sent by the bank for a remortgage and then having found it told me they wouldn't do anything for another 3 weeks as there was only 1 full week before they shut for Xmas and they would only work on movers. Despite having told me they would prioritise it once they found it.

I then had to deal with an angry ex (divorce) hassling me for progress.

MinnieMountain · 14/08/2020 17:39

@KitchenConfidential licenced conveyancers can so long as the supervising partner on each file is different.

CourtneyLurve · 14/08/2020 17:51

I went to one of the top lawyers in a specific field to discuss a possible claim. He told me I had no case, that the other side had behaved admirably, no laws had been broken and then charged me for the pleasure.

I did my own research, discovered he had given me incorrect advice and went on to win a £90,000 settlement.

KitchenConfidential · 14/08/2020 18:19

@MinnieMountain thank you. How interesting. Should the parties not be aware though?

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