To expect a quote from solicitors the same day?

[Marshpillow]

Genuine question, I don't know how quickly these things work. Called solicitor this morning to get a quote to remortgage, left a message with a lady on reception, not yet heard back from them.
DH dealt with them last time we used them and they were painfully slow in responding, is this normal and I just have to suck it up, or is it reasonable to expect to have had a response by now, for a quote?

tha place i work is slow. you have to realise that they don't just have you to respond to. I'm a receptionist and I get upwards of 100 calls a day, the solicitors/PAs can only call back so many people a day on top of their work. you're not their only customer. YANBU to expect a call, YABU (as I work in this exact field) to expect they deal with you and only you when they probably (in a small firm such as mine) only have 3 people to answer calls as well as mounting up files/dictation (as the solicitors don't give you the figures. The PA/fee earner does)
just wait and they will get back to you. ours need prompting somtimes but they will, eventually, get back to you.

and yeah solicitors don't really give quotes for remortgaging. you need to go to a mortgage broker or your bank and they will sort it out - i know our place (we do conveyancing) don't do the mortgage. a lot of places don't

Why would you use them again if they were 'painfully slow' last time?!

I am a PA for a solicitor. I think that sometimes clients/potential clients have no idea how much work we do and how little work the actual solicitor does. For example I am expected to take most of his phone calls from clients, see them when they call into reception without an appointment, do all of the typing for all of the files (which is not just typing the odd letter, most of the files that I work on are two or three inches thick and sometimes there are multiple files for one matter), manage his diary, speak to other solicitors on his behalf, etc etc etc.

Before I worked here I was a client of the firm that I work for now and I had no idea how much work there was to do and how much of that work was done by largely unqualified support staff.

None of this is your problem but sometime it is just not possible to return all calls during the eight hour period you are at work. Most of the job is prioritising what needs to be done, what is urgent and what is not so urgent. I have five full size filing cabinets of files in my office and all of the clients for all of these files think that they are the only file that you have to deal with.

We do remortgages as the mortgage company require a solicitor to return a clear certificate of title and do all of the usual checks. We normally charge about £300.00 plus VAT and disbursements if that helps you at all.

the work of satan completely agree with all you have said. we have massive piles of files of people who think they are the only client. I swear to god I'm getting sick of being shouted at by people who don't know what they're talking about - thinking they can speak to/see a solicitor RIGHT NOW.
no.

That's the problem with the law. You generally only need lawyers when something stressful has happened/is about to happen. Stress doesn't promote reason.

Okay thanks everyone, I will wait a few days and then give them a polite call perhaps. Would that be reasonable/not too annoying?
We've been approved for the mortgage and have almost finished the application but we were told by the mortgage provider we need to appoint a solicitor, and need to let them know our chosen solicitor before they will begin proceedings. We wanted to get a rough quote (and give them a heads up we'd like to use them) before confirming to the mortgage provider that we were using them.

To the PP who asked why we're using them again - the solicitor who was so slow last time has now left and someone else has taken over from her, so hopefully things will move at bit faster this time, but then I don't know how quickly it's supposed to go so maybe that was normal! (Took 9 months to add my name to the mortgage/house deeds)

I am a solicitor and always attempt to respond the same day. Especially to new business. It's not a good sign if they can't be bothered to get back to you with a quote/ estimate.
What does annoy me is when clients email and then phone 5 mins later when they don't get a response - give me a chance!!

For a remortgage we would quote closer to £450 plus vat and disbursements. Depending on the lender they may want searches carried out.

Cool thank you Fleurchamp. I hope you don't mind me asking but do you charge extra if we're also doing extra things, for example we are buying the other half of the house off the housing association as well? I assume you would charge extra as it's more work for you?

Yes, staircasing would be additional work. You would also need to check the position re stamp duty land tax.

As others have said, we do try but it really is incredibly difficult.

I'm in court all next week. I have a meeting this afternoon which will take most of the afternoon. I've been drafting a document for a deadline for most of the morning and I'm just grabbing 15 minutes for a sandwich. I can see I have six calls to return and I have 32 unopened emails from this morning.

I agree that calls should be returned as promptly as possible.

I am also shocked (as a solicitor) that a PA deals with clients and sets out that most of the work is done by unqualified staff. Not at my firm (or any of the previous firms I have worked for). Yes, a secretary can take a message, call a client / solicitor to say I am in a meeting and will call her back in an hour or that a letter is coming out in the post this evening etc but would never deal with any of the fee earning. Yes, there are more junior staff (legal execs / paralegals) who run files (with appropriate supervision) but never, ever secretarial staff.

And yes, OP, if you were buying from a HA, then its not just a straight forward remortgage and might be the reason why you're not getting a quote immediately.

presumably the solicitors on here who are busy in court aren't doing conveyancing as well though?

Brokenhearted and Mandy I think you are being a bit unfair. I know many secretaries who (certainly in non-contentious issues) draft many a document and letter from scratch (not one-liners but full explanatory letters). Yes, it will signed off by the solicitor dealing and maybe amendments will need to be made, but they do lots more than a 'bit of typing, filing and admin jobs' and I am sad that you think that that is all secretaries do.

As an ex legal sec/ PA I did a lot more than just type a few letters. I certainly dealt with client phone calls and gave advice. It was my job to screen the calls of the two Partners I worked for and only pass the call along if I couldn't deal with it. With 15 years experience behind me I knew all about procedure of the cases we ran, next steps etc.

DolphinsNose with 14 years + experience as a solicitor, I have never come across a legal secretary that would draft a document or letter from scratch, other than a 1 liner. I think secretaries have a crucial role, they genuinely keep a firm going, most have involvement in business development and know a fee earner's files / client better than the solicitor, but that is completely different than allowing them to do fee earning work. I would be very wary of any firm that allowed that.

YABU. Theres not many services costing a few hundred pounds you would get quotes for the same day is there? Some firms might have enough support staff to issue quotes that quickly but if its a small or medium sized firm, I wouldn't have thought so - unless they are exceptionally quiet or exceptionally expensive, which are hardly what you are looking for.

Would no-one else send out a written or emailed quote?

Thank you everyone for your replies.i called again today and my message hadn't actually been passed on to her, so I briefly explained what we wanted and she gave me a figure.
I will be more patient next time :)

I always put time requests in an email, saying I need a reply by 3pm or whatever, then there is no doubt. Last conveyancing solicitor sat on files for three weeks and then said there was no chance of meeting our chosen completion date. So I went elsewhere and all was fine.

Actually I do draft documents and write letters. I also prepare all Court of Protection applications from scratch, I see clients and prepare probate applications and I give advice when asked to do so. Obviously I cannot speak for all firms of solicitors, only the one that I work for, but it is commonplace here to do all of those things and more if requested. When I posted I was referring to my firm and how it works here.