To be tearing my hair out with this unresponsive solicitor?

[Rae34]

For anyone awake I am struggling to sleep due to the stress! My move in date is supposed to be one week today and I have a totally unresponsive solicitor.

I made an offer on a property which was promptly accepted. Throughout the process I heard often from an advisor at the firm. Next the firm's director confirmed everything and congratulated me. He advised my solicitor would be in touch in about 10 days when x y and z was done.

The solicitor never contacted me but the advisor updated me as much as she could. I have been emailing my solicitor with no response. I phoned him 2 days ago and said 'you are on my list today' and told me he would email me details over later that day. He didn't. I chased again yesterday, nothing. He says we 'should' be on track for next Friday.

I need to know if the exchange is happening on that day for sure as I have arrangements to make. I also havent paid anything. Furthermore he told me 2 days ago 'you will need to arrange building insurance from the day you move in' but I thought this would be covered by the service charge and factor??

I am so stressed out about it and dont know what I'll do if I cant reach him again tomorrow.

Is it true that you can also get the estate agent on the sellers side to chase the solicitor? I am a first time buyer so this is all new to me.

Firstly this is not unusual, solicitors who handle property purchases and sales are woefully overworked, we have found speaking directly to sellers estate agent does work, they tend to get answers when you don’t.

Are you in England?

No I am Scotland.

I realise this may be the case - but to say 'I will email you the details this afternoon' and not do it and ignore follow ups is bad imo.

I work full time. My work can be flexible but only if I give them some advance notice and I have no clue if this is definitely happening and a time to exchange keys. Surely the seller must be wondering similar?

And now he is telling me one week before I need the building insurance sorted at the last minute.

I don’t know how the Scottish system compares to England, but you are right that not doing what they say they will do is poor. I would get on to the estate agent first thing tomorrow, confirm your seller is expecting the same date, and get the estate agent to contact your solicitor. I did the same and found my solicitor wrote a gushing friendly reply to estate agent, when didn’t reply to me, who was paying the bill! It’s bad, and stressful, but you’re nearly there