..to want to visit Countrywide Property Lawyers and beat the Solicitor with a big shitting stick?

[KazzaRazza]

I am in the process of selling my house. I accepted the offer in the middle of January. My buyers are first time buyers and I am moving in with my parents until I find somewhere to buy, so only 2 people in the chain - simple you would think, if only.

My buyers opted to use Countrywide Property Lawyers and we are supposed to be exchanging today with completion set for Friday. A representative of CPL confirmed on Friday, by email, that all enquiries were answered and would be requesting the mortgage funds. We have now been advised by a different representative, as the one from Friday has swanned off on her holidays for a week, that they can't exchange today as they are not happy with the info supplied regarding an extension that was built 10 years ago (before I moved here and my Solicitor didn't have a problem with it when I bought the place), oh and they didn't request the mortgage funds on Friday.

CPL have had the paperwork for weeks. I have already moved my DD and animals to my parents and am currently surrounded by boxes as the removal firm are booked for Thursday.

So, my question is as above - AIBU to want to visit CPL and beat the Solicitor with a big shitty stick?

[londonrach]

We got told we could pay a £25 fee to hear about houses before others. My husband thought that sooo wrong. We still living in rented. 2015 is going to be our year of a house.... Yanbu.

[Lucyandpoppy]

I used an estate agent who comes under the Countrywide property umbrella.

Truly awful experience - when we moved in flat was damp, had a leak, toilet broken, sink broken, kitchen floor 'unfit for purpose' (as stated in the inventory that we were given after moving in), bay window in the lounge hanging on by 1 hinge. We were there for 6 weeks and it was only through constant nagging and persistence by me that they very reluctantly sent out contractors to fix some of the damage. We paid loads of money in admin fees (about £500 on moving in) and were totally fed up, they said that the only way we could move out was to pay them more money to re-let the house which we very reluctantly did (another £500) in total lost £2,000 from living in a damp flat with contractors coming and going for 6 weeks.

The estate agents were absolutely horrible and very poor communication, even though we had shelled out loads of money they treated us like a nuisance.

Avoid Countywide at all costs would be my advice including all of their estate agents (Austin &Wyatt, Gascoine-pees etc)

[weegiemum]

Don't use them as agents to rent a property either. Utterly useless!

[Doingakatereddy]

Don't care if it's a zombie thread, after our last experience of buyer using countrywide I would actually pull a sale if in future any house buyer used them.

I am not joking, they are horrendous. They Make house selling torture

[icecreamcrackers]

Not read the thread but I would hit them with a big stick too. Sold my house with them and they were so useless it is unreal.

[DoubleValiumLattePlease]

ZOMBIE thread!!

[BorisBaby]

We rented from a lovely fily business that sold the business to them. The fees had more than tripled in price and they tried to up the rent! Luckily the original contract said rent and fees could only go up by a certain percentage so we didn't have to pay it. The house inspections turned into every three months (we had been there for over two years) got ridiculous and very rude house was spotless . They tried to tell us to get rid of our dog because she wasn't meant to be in the house even though it was on the original contract and even had her age and breed on it plus the owners knew about her! Luckily it annoyed us so much we bought our own house and I have enjoyed knocking down walls (literally) and painting in whatever colour I wanted I have no idea how they can be in business still

[Notmumyet14]

Countrywise - avoid at all costs! Our seller is using them, we started this buying process at the beginning of November. Over the last 2 months, queries have gone missing and paperwork hasn't been checked or arrived with our lawyers... if we had known how bad they were we would have avoided getting into any purchase with anyone using them.

[Quangle]

I have had a horrific experience with another firm of licenced conveyancers and would never go this route again. (Their initials are L & T just in case anyone is on the verge of using them.)

I had to move all my work to a standard solicitors' firm to get it done properly - horrendous. I think the conveyancers are cheaper but it's just a commoditised service and it was not worth the saving. I'm not sure how they were still in business.

[Skinidin]

Just realised this is a zombie thread:(

But it's worth replying just to warn people off CPL!

[Skinidin]

My son used CPL - they were appalling.

Almost impossible to speak to the person who was dealing with the sale, having to answer the same identity questions innumerable times, not wanting to exchange contracts etc etc.

I was buying and selling at the same time, my sale was tied in with his a nd my solicitor was infuriated by CPL. My son had been led to believe by his mortgage company that he had to use them, not actually the case.
Apparently, CPL like to complet and exchange all on the same day, they can charge for so doing.
As it was, it went right down to the wire on the Friday, we only just managed to complete before close of business. I was so worried that we would have to pay penalty charges.

Hope it goes ok for you.

[cfc]

Argh! I have to reply to this even though it's a zombie thread. I am a solicitor and in my firm we used to groan at our desks when we saw that the other side were using CPL.

Whenever anyone made this noise you'd look at them and say "CPL?" - or your secretary would hand you the post with a sympathetic look on her face saying "you're not going to like what you find in there..."...yup, CPL.

Basically, you'd have to tell your client that you would have to revise your quote and the length of time the matter was expected to take because you'd be spending A LOT of your time EDUCATING their box tickers in the not-so-finer points of the law and chasing and chasing the buggers up.

Rant over.

We've just sold our house and have offered on another, I was holding my breath waiting for the Memo Of Sale praying that my fellow chainees weren't using CPL!

[Lapsus]

I have come a cross this post whilst trying to see what others have thought about countrywide.

They basically recommended their in house lawyers to deal with the conveyancing. I went for it as they said it's all in house and it will be quick and simple.

Just beware, after about a month of nothing they had sold my case to another firm! I had to fill loads of forms out again, I was dealing with a firm miles away from me and I was not happy at all. The estate agents were always on my case, they are like hard sales people with no customer service skills. I have read other posts on the net that they sell quite a lot of files despite the hard sell that they are brilliant all singing and dancing.

Anyways the completion and work the other firm wasn't bad to be fair, but I think the process was slowed down at least a month whilst they obviously negotiated the sale of my file. I also wasn't happy about countrywide being paid more then the legal fees as a 'referral fee' when they did nothing but harass me.

My advice? Go with a lawyer you decide to use not them. Their fees are higher than I expected, read the small print of any firm you hire and question your bill at the end.

Also check the search package you are quoted. Most will quote you for all the searches when I found out I could have just chosen the local authority search and the water search and that would have saved me almost 150 quid!

[Weightlessbaby]

We accepted an offer on our house on 26 March (using a Countrywide Agent). We are going through CPL and our buyer is using their Mortgage broker. Today we discovered that our buyer STILL hasn't had a complete mortgage offer. We only found this out by phoning his broker ourselves as CPL and our Agent kept telling us different things and obviously didn't have a clue what they were on about.

We hope (need due to relocation) to exchange by end of July but I'm really not convinced this will happen.

[Incidentally, I found this thread by Googling 'Countrywide Property complaints procedure' - it was the first thing that came up!

[Mimisrevenge]

We used their mortgage services. Never again. They mis informed us over a number of things and we nearly lost the sale and purchase of our house. The day before exchange we were asked for an additional £11,000 to be produced within 24 hours. This was just one thing in a catalogue of errors. We were able to get the fee waived. Small mercy- I was 8 months pregnant at the time.

[Alisvolatpropiis]

seabright there are definitely solicitors working at the firm. I know two solicitors personally who work there.

[CheshireDing]

I know this is an old thread but needed to make my point anyway.

There are Solicitors working at CPL. I used to work there too, unfortunately when you have shit people at big companies everyone gets tarred with the same brush. I enjoyed working there.

The problem with conveyancing is also that you have to carry such a huge caseload it is extremely hard to respond to things in a timely manner.

I have definitely worked at worse companies.

[Seabright]

There will be NO solicitors there, not even supervising. CPL is a firm of Licenced Conveyancers, not solicitors. Solicitors cannot work for Licenced Conveyancers, they are regulated by a different body.

That's part of the reason CPL are cheap.

[Seabright]

CPL are NOT solicitors, that's one of the reasons that they are cheap. They have some Licenced Conveyancers working for them, but mainly, as far as I can tell, it's unqualified people that do most of the processing, with referrals to the Licenced Conveyancers every now and again.

When I know I have CPL on the other side I know I need to add at least £100 to my quote, to try and cover some of the extra work I will be doing to cover their inabilities. So my client ends up paying more, because the person on the other side choose to use a cheap firm which is paying a referral fee to the estate agent who talked the the other side into using them.

BTW, they are owned by the same business as the Mann & Co, Mann Countrywide and Gascoigne Pees estate agents, amongst others.

[rundontwalk]

Used them once,never, never, NEVER again. A catalogue of errors (some huge), different person every time we rang, totallly unprofessional in all aspects of their service. Can you tell I wouldn't recommend them?!

[KenAdams]

Flossyfloof mine too! I wonder if its the same person! We lost out on a house because of him.

[ilovechips]

Yanbu. Used them almost 10 years ago and can still remember my rage at their utter uselessness, an uncomplicated 3-property chain took 5 months to complete, and they charge more than others for their shitty services as well...

[CouthyMow]

Wouldn't a big SHITTY stick be better? (Shitty in the literal term of being covered in shit? Then not only is he getting beaten with a stick, he's getting covered in shit too..)