To think solicitors are f***** unprofessional and no other professions would get away with it

[Indigo93]

A chance to rant. Please tell me I am not being unreasonable to feel utterly pissed off and beyond exhausted over this???

After 5 months of attempting to buying home with no chain at either end, we have been "apparently" ready to change contracts since last Thursday but surprise surprise it hasn't happened. So far I have been the one to chase the seller, the agent, the lender and other parties to send stuff back as our solicitor prefers to sit on their bum and wait for days for snail mail. We needed to exchange today in order to not be homeless for a few days due to complications with renting. Today was finally to be the day but guess what?? The vendor's solicitor is "working from home" and has not responded to emails or phone calls all day!!!!! Her team have apparently said they can't do any more. The e. agent can't reach her either.

WT ACTUAL F??!!

How is this professional?!?!?!

How do they continually get away with slow and non-responsive practice!!!

Rant over

Actually hari i earn more than DH but way to go with more fucking assumption.

You're on a roll tonight.

Conveyancers are incredibly slow in this country

Many conveyancing transactions are bound by things out of the conveyancer’s control.

The worst people, in and out of work, I have ever come across, have been lawyers.

Abuse, incompetence, massive failures, negligence, terrible egos, aggressive, never in the wrong, don't care about others, narcissistic, financially abusive, liars and I've even seen physical and sexual assault of clients.

Oh the joy.

There's a special place in hell!

Hope it gets sorted out soon.

@LuMarie and comments like that are why @Scooble, and I, might seem like they have a chip on their shoulder, because many many solicitors work incredibly hard for relatively low financial reward, to be tarred with the "evil bastard" brush

Was thinking this would be divorce related because I could have posted your title Op - totally agree their needs to be some accountability for unprofessionalism and most of the other traits mentioned by LuMarie.

I believe I was emotionally and financially abused by my solicitors when I was most vulnerable after my 20 year marriage fell apart due to x affair - still trying to rectify through LO but thinking I may need to go professional negligence route although this means going back into the lion's den!

@greenberet I'm sorry to hear about your experience, it sounds awful, but there is accountability.

Solicitors are answerable to the SRA who can, and do, fine or strike off for failure to practice properly.

The legal ombudsman is an agency specifically set up to sort out problems between solicitors and clients.

Solicitors are accountable, and quite rightly held up to high standards of service.

Unfortunately the chain is only as fast as the solicitor representing the buyer at the bottom. I found this out to my anger and disappointment last year. I had a good solicitor, but my buyers solicitor kept moving the goal posts and refused to communicate with my solicitor in a timely manner. I complained to the SRA about my buyers solicitor in the end, they investigated and although no action has been taken, the report is on file. The legal ombudsman can only help if you are not happy with the service provided by the solicitor you have appointed.

It was the most frustrating time and only resolved when I said I was going to withdraw from the entire sale...... Keep badgering everyone is my only advice!

Thedancingbear I am a conveyancing solicitor, you quite clearly do not know anything about this field, so probably best not to advertise your ignorance!

LuMarie what a ridiculously sweeping statement, funnily enough not all solicitors are aggressive rapists

If you insult an entire profession, of course those working in that profession will feel insulted.

What a daft thing to say- it isnt personal

I think it's the English property process that's a big problem here. In Australia, you agree a timeline-eg 30 day sale. The sale is done in that time or deposits are forfeited. I remember my Australian husband and I tearing our hair out as our London property purchase limped along - and it was done in three months - fast!!!!

But you are being unreasonable to lump all solicitors in the one bucket. I used to work for a magic circle firm - totally different to what you're dealing with - and the level of service we gave to our clients was incredible.

@greenberet Divorce solicitors are definitely the most evil conniving creatures on this planet, when I was getting divorced we were in & out of court constantly for 8 months & my ex husband's solicitor always seemed to be one step ahead of mine. I found out that she was best friends with my solicitor & best of all was shagging my now ex husband!

I reported her to the firm that she worked for & she was sacked, when I next saw my solicitor she mentioned that my ex had someone new acting for him, I innocently asked if she had left, my solicitor got flustered & said she had "moved" to another company.

Fast forward 8 years, I went to see a new company of solicitors over child access, as usual at a first appointment I only saw a paralegal, but was given a brochure with pictures & work profiles of the staff, the solicitor overseeing the paralegal I saw was my ex husband's solicitor, I'm going to another company, I wouldn't trust her to do anything.

Oh don't get me started. I lost out on a house sale because of the utter incompetence of my solicitor failing to sort out a boundary issue on time. House prices were dropping at the time and I ended up selling for 30k less. And now we are limping through the probate of my late Father in laws will. Its all perfectly straightforward, and yet we are approaching the anniversary of his death and still it limps on ever onward with no sign of closure! It makes my blood pressure rise just thinking about it.

My divorce solicitor is and has been wonderful.

Completely agree with this thread ....I mean we all want the cheapest solicitors fee so why can't they do the work for less than cost whilst spending all day answering the phones to clients and then spending all night doing the work they haven't been able to do during the day but it's okay with their MASSIVE salaries they will have a whole staff to run their homes see their kids etc.....oh wait what do you mean they get crap pay for the hours they work and will be burnt out by 35......

This is why there are fewer and fewer solicitors doing conveyancing.

Unfortunately it means that there are huge firms of conveyancers which people think are solicitors but are not. Anything remotely out of the ordinary and they're completely at sea. But they're cheap, so that's what is really important.

While I'm sure there are lots of lovely hardworking solicitors out there, mine was slow, incompetent AND charged me a bloody fortune. So yeah, they aren't all over worked and underpaid. Not by a long chalk in my bitter experience.

I didn't use a conveyancing company, I used a solicitor. I felt that they dragged my purchase out in order to justify the price they charged.

It wasn't so much the speed of conveyancing that bothered me, although that was bad enough, it was the complete failure of my solicitor to communicate with me without my first having to harry them with emails and phone calls. If you say you'll call someone back, call them. If you say you'll let them know next week, let them know. If you'll say it'll be ready Wednesday and it isnt, tell your client.

OP YANBU

We moved last month and used a conveyancing firm. I went on the recommendation of a couple of friends. Got to say the solicitor there was great. Always a step ahead of the vendor's solicitor & that was regularly confirmed by our EA, who had to keep chasing him as she was also the vendor's EA. Clear communication and often chose to call me to explain things rather than email. Pragmatic in terms of letting me take documents home for DH to sign ( & get witnessed!) so he did not have to take time off work.

I didn't instruct the solicitors we used when we bought our last house again though as that practice was dire and unprofessional. Like every other profession seems there are good and there are bad.

You get what you pay for. When we sell our house I'll only agree to a buyer if I also trust their solicitor to move things through quickly (I used to be a property solicitor).

I dunno why people are sticking up for this solicitor. Their own team can't reach them when they are meant to be working. That is very unprofessional. If they are sick or have an emergency, fair enough, but you tell your boss so they can deal with it. Sounds like they've just decided to have a lazy day and can't be bothered. I could understand the client not being able to reach them, but their team? No. There is no excuse there.