Solicitors conspire to drag out conveyancing

[SweetCruciferous]

AIBU to think solicitors deliberately eke out every step of the conveyancing process as a deliberate ploy to justify disproportionate fees for simple boilerplate admin tasks amounting to no more than a couple of days’ work?

This is my suspicion. Can anyone confirm this? Any heretic solicitors? AIBU?

@Crazycatlady83 and @NaturalStudy

We chose our solicitor based on a recommendation from someone we knew, not because we simply did a search for the cheapest.

As you say, this is a very infrequent purchase for most people, and for many the whole process is shrouded in mystery.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame individual house buyers with little prior exposure for the lack of transparency and practices of bad actors and in the sector.

You will get lots of blathering self justification here from legal bods, but the fact is that in house buying they are painfully slow, and sometimes inaccurate, and have little respect for the paying client.

Their trade is mumbo jumbo and delays- and we are supposed to be grateful for their nonsense, pay and shut up.

There is unfortunately nothing that will shake them out of their self-regarding complacency.

Threads like this annoy me when people complain about the slow process but won’t spend the money, yet as someone else said it’s on what will probable be their biggest lifetime purchase.

They only want to spend £500 on the conveyancing but spend £3000 plus on the estate agents photos.

People won’t pay a decent rate for their conveyancing to be done, therefore conveyancers have to carry a high file count - think of around 120 files (could easily be more) with no assistant/secretary. Then the client emails on their file, then they ring, then they discuss something with the estate agent who then rings to discuss it, then the mortgage broker rings, sometimes some of those people can’t get hold of you on the phone so they send an email too! Then they complain that you haven’t replied quickly enough. Think about easily 70 plus emails per day (plus the ones sent over the weekend), plus the calls, plus trying to actually read documents - which takes longer because you keep getting interrupted and forget where you were up to on a Lease from 1908 in scrawly handwriting.

Forget starting early, working through lunch, finishing late, no overtime is paid.

But yet conveyancers are lazy arses 🧐

@Daphnise

You will get lots of blathering self justification here from legal bods, but the fact is that in house buying they are painfully slow, and sometimes inaccurate, and have little respect for the paying client.

Their trade is mumbo jumbo and delays- and we are supposed to be grateful for their nonsense, pay and shut up.

There is unfortunately nothing that will shake them out of their self-regarding complacency.

I dont know where to start! Where is the justification for this nonsensical outpouring!😂

Sorry. Paragraph 5 should read ‘sale’ not ‘said’ and paragraph 15 should read ‘aren’t and not ‘are’

@SweetCruciferous

yes I know they don’t get more money if it takes longer.

And I don’t know the answer to this question myself – that’s why I’m curious to hear from others who might know more about the internal process than me.

So all insight welcome

Um...you know

So what’s the thread about?

HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA.

Trust me I don't want to deal with you for any longer than I have to.

And a few days work... Right okay. You clearly don't have a clue about the process you're trying to weigh in with your opinion on.

But by saying that solicitors “drag out” the sale, you lack the basic understanding of how you are paying for the service. The conveyancer would get the same for your purchase taking 6 months, as they would be a purchase by a cash buyer taking 6 weeks. It simply isn’t in their interests to drag out the process - they get the same no matter how much work they do!

You are always going to get bad solicitors, just like you get back accountants, bad builders, bad actors You did as much background as you could clearly (don’t go with the cheapest, get a recommendation etc)

If you aren’t happy, make a complaint using the firms complaints procedure - follow through with it. Don’t taint a whole profession.

Thanks @MrsVoog that’s a great insight!

My solicitor exchanged without telling me, and after we had exchanged without my knowledge, she told me she had also agreed a new completion date without telling me.

I found this out at 8am two days before the newly agreed completion date. I wasn’t happy.

I got some money back from them. It was a terrible first experience with conveyancing solicitors. I’m sure not all are like this.

Alice, I guess if the profession communicated more it would help. Say what they have done so far and what they will do next. That's why it looks like they do nothing, because they don't say that they do anything.

You can do your own conveyancing, but it’s like doing your own brain surgery...

yes, trust me (as a divorce lawyer who does fixed fee services) we really do not want to deal with things a second longer than we have to.

what fucks my conveyancing colleagues up the fucking wall is when estate agents blame them for their delays.

Ask yourself how much you are paying for your real esttae agent- then your solicitor. The solicitor will be dramatically less- for much mroe work- and they are actually professionally qualified as well.

Oh- and by the way- of you are a 'legal help' divorcing client your divorce laywer is getting about £200 to process your divorce. So don;t start sending them reams of fucking abuse because the courts are backlogged to the fucking extreme and divorces sent in to be issued in fucking april still have not been processed by the courts. it seriously is not your divorce lawyers fault.

But everyone loves to hate the lawyers.

Thank you.

@BralessTatties

Well no, I’m a layperson, that’s precisely why I started the thread, because I’m aware there are others with far more insight into this than me.

The problem in conveyancing is a lot of firms employ unqualified people to do the work and charge so little so they take on more than they can handle. Go to a reputable local firm who will deal with your matter in a proper timely matter. There are all sorts of problems involving management companies and other third parties which hold things up. But if not dealt with properly will cause issues when you sell. Generally if you use a cheap online firm who are miles away you won’t get a good service.

My firm have also turned a lot of work away as they can’t do their job properly if they take on too much.

I don't know why they do it, but my sellers solicitors waited unto l the last possible day to complete. Literally the day before my mortgage offer ran out. God only knows why. Bl**dy cowboys.

You get what you pay for.

If you want a cheap fixed fee you will get a minimal light touch service. If you want your solicitor to hold your hand every step of the way and bust a gut to complete quickly pay them appropriately for their services.

I'm a litigator, our pay isn't great, especially not when you factor in the unpaid overtime but I wouldn't do conveyancing for anything, it is an awful job for awful money and the clients treat you like shit.

We have too. We have 2 residential conveyancers and they have more than 150 current matters.

I have 87 current divorces.

We stopped taking new clients about 3 weeks ago 9and get roundly abused for it also on the phone. It astonishes me how people just default to abusive when you say that you cannot take on any enw clients).

And yeah- solicitors are not hugely paid. i earn circa £35 k (regional law firm).

@redcar2022

Yeah sorry about that, it was a difficult time for us all

I do agree about estate agents charging a lot more for essentially doing a whole lot of nothing

(baited breath waiting for a rabble of angry estate agents to come and set everyone straight)

There are ways to complain. The firm should have a complaints procedure and then there is ombudsman for service type complaints and a regulation authority for more dishonesty type complaints.
I used to be a legal secretary and i think the fees are quite reasonable to be honest. Its often the cheapest line on the bill after estate agent and stamp duty and removal truck.

Never had any issues. Have always paid a fixed fee agreed in advance of between £600 to £700 and paid on completion.

@SweetCruciferous

Bit snippy *@MinecraftMother*!

I am snippy. I'm tired after working a 100 hour week, including an eight hour day today. I have 449 emails at the moment - 100 of them will be chaser emails which I'll have to deal with (I can't just ignore) so that's going to take two hours of my time alone.

Three conveyancing bodies actually wrote a letter, unprecedented, about the pressure conveyancers were under at the moment. Link below, if you're interested before tagging all conveyancing solicitors are lazy.

I am now turning away work. Have been for a couple of weeks.

We work on 10 week pipelines of transactions and can usually get matters exchanged in that time. But 10 weeks ago we didn't know that not only would we have the Christmas madness to work on, we also have Rishi's stamp duty holiday deadline too and people have just gone off their head. So I couldn't have organised my work any better.

I'll regret in the new year the work I've let go and I'm sad that I can't help my clients who are coming back to me and asking me to start their work now.

I'm having to tell clients that it'll be the new year now.

Newish clients, whose matters have been opened for 3 weeks so I've only just got searches back etc and not even that in some cases are pressing me with 8 emails and calls telling me they've emailed me again, saying "agent tells me we can manage next Friday" and I think "good for the agent". Just because a new matter wants to complete next week, and shouts the loudest, does that mean I put poor Mrs Smith who's been isolating in lockdown(s) and has had her matter on the go since February...just because this pushy client thinks all I do is paper push?

It is so distressing to do what we do at the moment. I have to take two days off next week and I'm - genuinely - sick about it. Sick for my team, my clients, the stress they're under, but mostly I'm sick at the amount of post and emails I will have waiting for me on my return.

And all this stress for the princely sum of - on average - £500 per fixed fee transaction.

Give us the time it takes to get this right. You will never spend more money than this in your life. Never. We will miss title defects if we are rushed and harassed and bombarded by clients, brokers, agents, mums and dads and dogs. And it's not the agents you'll be suing when you can't sell the bugger, it'll be me. For my £500 compared with the agents £3000. No wonder they bother us so often.

Your conveyancers sound shit, but you have no idea what it's like at the moment. No idea.

www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2020/10/conveyancers-blunt-message-to-agents--be-patient-dont-nag-us

actually- not 87 current divorces. 87 files. Covering straight divorces; child contact arrangements; some initial care cases (called PLos); domestic violence injunctions; and random small claims matters.

It's all a bit mad.

@redcar2022

Shocked at £35k for a qualified solicitor.

And seriously, no one should have to put up with abuse from clients or anyone in the course of their job.