DH chasing solicitor constantly, I think we leave them alone to do their job!

[Uglyducklingswan]

We are selling a property, and solicitors are doing their job fine I feel. It’s slow but these things always are! However, DH is very impatient and wants it done yesterday, so he is chasing them daily with emails, calls etc.

YABU - (DH is right) solicitor needs chasing or they forget you and go slow
YANBU - (you are right) Leave them alone - solicitor will get the job done quicker if they don’t have to deal with DH’s messages

Daily is pointless and will at best make your DH feel stressed. Conveyancers have huge work loads and tend to check up on files at scheduled intervals, do what needs doing and then come back to it the next scheduled interval. Your DH harrassing them is unlikely to make them make an exception for him.

I always thought it was a bad idea to chase solicitors until my dd bought a flat last year. It went right up until the day before her mortgage offer ran out.
She was so stressed and didn't want to bother them. I eventually explained that bothering them was what she was paying for and if she had to apply again the rate would be astronomical as it was when rates were starting to increase.
She did get in touch and they finally got their act together, but she was stressed for a long time. There's just no need. I think a weekly phone call is acceptable.

We left them for the first few weeks but then when they sat on paperwork for a while week that should have been moved on we went to a bi weekly check in weds am and Fri pm got it through in 9 weeks. But my god it was painful and I did loads of fetching and carrying and chasing the seller myself. Seller was a pain in the arse too as she wasn't motivated to clean it out so we really had to drive it or we would still be sat waiting for her to sell a 20 years old sofa for £800 on facebook

How much is he costing you in extra emails they have to answer? Die he realise the6 will charge to respond

I think our purchase would have fallen through if we hadn't been in touch with the seller directly and pushed both ours and theirs along

Same! No extra cost beyond the fee agreed.

Unless you're on a fixed price, every time they answer the phone to you or respond to an email you will be charged for (usually) a unit of 6 minutes work. I.e, if your husband phoned every day for 5 days and the phone call lasted a minute each time, you will be billed for 30 minutes of the solicitors time, even though you only took 5 minutes of their time.

Often solicitors are waiting on things from other people like surveys, searches or other documents. It takes time! Once a week makes more sense, or you could just ask the solicitor to give you weekly updates.

Speak to the estate agent dealing with the sale. Ask them whether there is any progress and can they ask the buyer to chase their solicitor. There might be some sort of hold-up at their end anyway, and if the solicitors can talk to each other, things can get sorted out.

One lot of solicitors is probably waiting for some paperwork from the other.

That is more likely to work than an endless stream of emails from your DH.

We are in the midst of a probate sale and a separate purchase on the back of the proceeds. The word 'complicated' doesn't do it justice, and there's not just one chain, but two!!

I've also learned the hard way that if you don't keep on chasing solicitors, absolutely nothing happens. I too have never been charged for contacting them, beyond the originally agreed fee.
I don't understand why it's so hard to get them to do what you're paying them to do, even if you factor in unavoidable waiting time. Perhaps I don't understand that they're rushed off their feet everyday? Nah, I can't see that they're ever constantly super busy.

I wasn't charged any extra for the chasing but I did save them about £200 in postage by picking up stuff and dropping it off.

I think weekly is OK but not more than that. Solicitors are so busy that it's easy to sideline the quiet clients and get the noisy ones off your back

Source: I am an overworked Solicitor who unfortunately gives more attention to clients who pester.

Solicitor here. Any client who chases us or one of our team for a conveyancing transaction every day is no longer a client of our firm - period. In such (albeit rare) cases, we return their fee and tell them to go elsewhere and quite often, they come back moaning about the service elsewhere. We just don't have the time to chase a matter every day and it's not fair to other fee paying clients. Once a week is about right.

So will you get a bill at the end with this contstant contact charges?

Daily is too often, but you do need to chase them regularly otherwise it progresses at a snail's pace. We had to use different solicitors for our sale and purchase, and one suggested chasing the other (who was very slow to act) more regularly as she always acted quicker when possible when clients chased her.

I've also never been charged based on how often I contacted a solicitor, slways paid a fixed amount.

If I was being chased daily they'd be going straight to the bottom of my inbox on a daily basis

Or, you could be professional and advise them that you cannot meet their needs, then suggest they find a different solicitor. No client should be contacting you daily, but there are ways of handling these people in a professional manner.

That wasn't my experience. I wasn't chasing daily, but certainly every 4/5 days because they'd done absolutely nothing after a fortnight with a 6 week date of entry.

We mostly tried the "let them do their job" approach and trusted the process, especially since the solicitor was a friend (and ex-employer) of my mother's.

She ghosted us for the month running up to our completion date, and then went on holiday for two weeks without handing anything over for someone else to take over. Given that it was a council house purchase, we would've had to start all over again if we hadn't started the process of complaining to the Legal Ombudsman. That got her attention enough to make her actually do the work while she was on holiday - she ended up spending most of her holiday negotiating an extension and finishing the work she was supposed to have already done weeks earlier.

I didn't even feel slightly bad about that.

@barbarahunter Perhaps I don't understand that they're rushed off their feet everyday? Nah, I can't see that they're ever constantly super busy.

I'm a lawyer (albeit not in property) and have many lawyer friends. They absolutely are constantly super busy 😂 I don't know any that aren't over worked!

To you, your matter is a huge deal, probably keeps you up at night on occasion. To them, your matter is probably one of potentially hundreds that they're working on!

Ok @applesandmares I think I kind of knew already that my personal business is just another thing in my solicitor's working day, but, given that solicitors deal with things that really matter to their clients, I feel it not unreasonable to devise a system of client care that at least updates weekly on progress or lack thereof? A generic email would suffice, at least it would be something. In the past, I have left things a few weeks, assuming something will be happening, only to discover upon contacting her that my solicitor has done sweet FA about the next stage of the process that is extremely important to me.

As a solicitor myself (not in property) I would caution that I know that those who chase daily/ make a pest of themselves generally don't find themselves being prioritised.

Unless you have a fixed fee arrangements the additional calls and emails would likely be billable, so costing you more and by interrupting your solicitor they're not getting a chance to actually "do" the work.

I would agree a cadence for regular contact with your solicitor and be clear that no contact unless something has happened doesn't work for you. Your solicitor would likely prefer a scheduled time in her diary rather than ad-hoc calls and interruptions.

Why do people keep talking about him pushing the fees up? I've purchased and sold numerous properties over the years using different solicitors and it's always been on a fixed fee conveyancing basis, I've don't think there has ever been an option to pay by time instead.

OP, you don't say what stage you're at. If you're in the final phase and urgently waiting for something to come back then I don't think every day is unreasonable, if it's right at the start then yes.

@barbarahunter absolutely client care is important as are regular updates. I was just taking issue with the idea that they aren't busy. It's not as though nothing has happened because they're sat twiddling their thumbs!

If you are unhappy with the service you're paying for then make a complaint. If they are unable to provide a proper service because they're overworked, you might be doing them a favour by getting some additional resources!

Chase them with a view to finding out more about the process - what the reason is for the delay, what the timeframe is, what factors might entail a further delay. Our solicitor kept us abreast of all the above so even when there was a period of frustrating radio silence and nothing seemingly happening, we knew why that was the case.

Our fabulous Solicitor (small local firm), agreed a Friday afternoon call with us weekly, even if there was nothing to update.

I'd say every 10 days is about right. Enough to keep them on their toes and allow for some action since the last chase up, but not too often as to annoy them and waste their time checking and replying (meaning they have less time to do their actual work thus increasing delays).

Daily is crazy, but likewise, you can't let it drag on for several weeks between chasers.