To think nobody else would get away with this in their job?

[ChickenLegs7]

Jesus, what's wrong with them? I know their busy but seriously...

In the process of buying a property and they've all been shit as far as I'm concerned, including the vendor. It seems that I'm the only one that's been trying to get this done in a timely manner. My solicitor has been ok but she's so rude. I don't harass her but every time I've rang for an update, I get told that she'll ring me back but she never fucking does!!! We've been waiting over two weeks for the other side to come back with some paperwork (baring in mind all searches have come back, we are literally waiting for this one thing and it's holding everything up now) and I rang my solicitor today around 3:30 and asked if she'd heard anything. She explained no but that she would ring them herself and ask what's going on, she said she would ring me back today before closing but.... NOTHING!! I couldn't ring before they shut as I was on a teams meeting. It actually makes me wonder if she even phoned them at all...

Don't get me wrong, I know moving is stressful (done it once before) but their all useless and I've honestly done more work than any of them put together. I work in a customer facing role myself (for far less pay might I add) and I would never dream of telling someone I'd ring them back but not bothering to and just shutting up shop!!! I'm pissed off at the other side too as they've seriously just taken the piss from day one. They haven't even sent the draft contract yet and and even the EA told me that's the first they normally send over...

Feel like telling them all to piss off and stick the house up their ass...

Yes, my lot were not even good at pretending they were doing stuff and the receptionist got really pissy with me for calling time. In the end the sol came back on the Monday, we got confirmation on Tuesday that we could meet the deadline we were aiming for and moved on the Friday. It took years off my life. And the estate agents who had been in everything for the whole process suddenly checked out. There is a reason that they are the two most hated professions.

@chickenlegs7 How did you choose this solicitor? Was she recommended?

You get what you pay for

I live in a small village and her company is based here. My mum has also used this company (not for a house purchase though)

The vendors solicitor is just as bad, if not worse!!!

I wonder if the process just grinds to a halt sometimes, and no-one has the oomph to get it started again. Does this explain the derelict houses you sometimes see?

Yes I see that now @user1487194234 👎🏻

I think you will generally get a better service with a local firm and I would avoid conveyancing ‘factories’ like the ones usually recommended by the estate agents. They are impossible to deal with and having had them on the other side you can never speak to anyone and the whole transaction will be dictated by their timetable irrespective of the needs of the rest of the chain and indeed their own client.
Be prepared to pay a little more for a better service but even then it is a very stretched sector given that the pricing is so ‘competitive’ which leads to firms taking on large volumes and service decline. Bear in mind the solicitors do have to do a thorough job and will do this at the expense of delay, which you really should be grateful for as it could save you very expensive future problems.

People won't pay for more. OP you say she shouldn't take on so many cases but to pay the firm's rent, support staff, bills, insurances and salaries - they have to. Unless people double or triple what they pay.

Work has changed. Ridiculous targets, everything "cheaper on the internet", everyone "I'll put in a formal complaint" (which has to be investigated), everyone bombarding you with chaser emails or phone callls because it's easy for them. Staff leaving or going sick. But costs have to be kept down.

Work is becoming crazier and crazier - and customers will suffer.

It's taken me 9 months to sign a business lease! We won the tender in December and expected to be in by February, we only got the keys last week, such a frustrating process. My solicitor blamed it on the other solicitors (council), simple paperwork was missing, things were sent in dribs and drabs, and in random unopenable formats. When we eventually signed on a Friday, and transferred money, I specifically asked if scanned documents were OK or did they need originals, no scanned fine...decided on the Wednesday they did need originals so legged it across town to deliver, an absolute shambles.

My house has sold, rented, and my landlord has been told to expect 4-6 months for completion

We are paying a "proper" solicitor and she is very good(mostly) however, if everyone else in the chain are using shitty online conveyancers then it really doesn't make much difference. This is our situation now unfortunately. She does her absolute best to chase them but you can't get blood out of a stone and as a consequence our sale/purchase is ready to complete but the upper chain don't even have a mortgage offer yet

And yes the EAs have been useless wankers too. Rude at that.

I would make a point of ringing her every day asking for an update. She’ll be desperate to get you off her books. She’s obviously forgotten that you are actually paying for the shit service she is giving you.

I wouldn’t swap to another solicitor as it’ll just delay things again. Hang in there if it’s your dream house.

Our purchase took 6 months… it was an empty property and we were first time buyers. Solicitor’s on both sides were crap and it was a team effort from us and the vendor getting mightily annoyed that moved it on in the end. It was when the rates for second properties were going up so everyone’s else’s sales were getting pushed to the back of the queue.

Doesn't matter what you are paying, you've engaged then to provide a service at a price they have set. If they are not providing a competent service then that is a problem.
You are right to expect your case to be dealt with in a timely manner - yours is the most important to you frankly.

@user1471447863 you get what you pay for how do you expect a high service if you are not willing to pay? Of course the firm will have to take on a larger number of matters to survive

Same as if I asked a builder to build me a wall. If it falls down the day he is meant to finish the excuse of 'well I was cheap' isn't going to cut it is it?

@user1471447863 not the same at all the work will be done properly

As people have said it's unlikely to be a solicitor doing the work, probably a legal exec or conveyancer. Either way they will be running multiple cases, as conveyancing is a very low margin business alongside being high risk and high stress. Also even if your conveyancer is great the other side's can be terrible (or the other side can just be deliberately slowing down the transaction) meaning the whole transaction is slowed down. There have been attempts to automate the process / encourage bigger providers into the market but it's never worked. Mainly because running a conveyancing business is low profit and high risk not to mention being completely thankless

I'm not a conveyancing solicitor, but I am a solicitor. The work they do is high volume, low value. That's why it's so cheap. Your solicitor probably has hundreds of cases at once. It's not a matter of them scratching their arses all day doing FA, but more likely they have fifty other clients like you calling in asking for a fairly minor "update".

Btw, Friday is the busiest day of the week for conveyancing, so I would avoid trying to get non urgent updates then.

They are also dealing with a HUGE backlog coming off the SDLT freeze which has had a massive affect on workloads. I'd cut some slack. Your house purchase will no doubt complete. When was your offer accepted out of curiosity?

Thanks for your reply and appreciate the advice @boxinell. I normally ring at the beginning of the week and have only rang once a week throughout the whole process. We are 13 weeks in and should have dates by now (solicitors words) but we've just found out that the property might not be mortgageable, hence the urgency in getting this sorted. I'm not being awkward for the sake of it or demanding that they contact me about trivial things. We've already wasted enough time and money and now we just need to know what's going on and if we will even be able to buy the house.

ha! when i worked as a teenager as a receptionist in a law firm for some work experience i dealt with these calls all the time. i'd put them on hold and ring through to the solicitor and ask her if she wanted the call put through 7/10 times she'd say no she's busy. i got loads of abuse off people when i'd ring back and tell them she wasn't free at the minute. more often than not i'd just put the phone down on them because i wasn't having people be abusive to me when i wasn't even getting paid for it. the majority of the time she was being serious about being busy. on the odd occasion, she just didn't want to speak to the person because she didn't like to them. every time that happened, the person would be abusive to me.

@Lurcherloves I disagree, it's still someone not doing a good enough job. If you want, the chasing and running about you do is akin to you having a wall built and you still having to mix cement for the bricklayer.

But anyway, the conveyancing process should be much simpler, particularly in the case of buying a new build from a developer - that should be akin to buying a tin of beans in Tesco or a new car.

@user1471447863 you have very little insight as to what is involved. The job is largely to make sure you buy good legal title for the property, not to chase people.

I’m so with you on this OP.

We’re moving and will now have to pay stamp duty due to the incompetence of our vendors solicitor.

We could have completed in August had they submitted something to the land registry when they got the case - they didn’t, and the LR have a 5-6 week turnaround time. They also seem to have lied about it as they assured me it was submitted 4 weeks ago and had been requested to be expedited and are now saying it will be ‘looked at’ in October. Never mind October being an entire month of five weeks.