"forced" house sale and conveyancing - do we NEED a solicitor?

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

Long story short
DH and I have to sell the house fast.
It is a hovel in bad repair but luckily we have equity and don't need "full market value" so can sell to one of those "we buy any house" internet firms or a proprty developer who will gut the place.
Anyway, does anyone know/have any advice/words of wisdom for us regarding a solicitor?
Will we have to have one or can we trust these companies to play fair so to speak, (presuming we read the small print, we're not thick but we're not lawyers either) and just sign on the dotted line?
Every penny counts and legal fees are just one more financial committment we could do without, but obviously if we need to, we would pay someone to make sure everything was done properly :(

I can't help with your specific request but wanted to say that, if speed is important and you do need a solicitor, do not be tempted to save money by using an online conveyancing company. We made this mistake and it was nearly catastrophic. A total nightmare.

I would be very wary of selling to an outfit like that And using their solicitors. Suspect conflict rules may prohibit it. Do you have a mortgage? That may complicate things. I would pop into a high street conveyancer and check what their approach would be. Take opportunity to find out costs. Hopefully a property lawyer will be along soon.

If you're only selling and you are getting a price you want / can live with (after fees) then whats the problem?
If you're buying you absolutely need your own solicitor.
If conveyancing and searches are handled by their company they will just cut off every corner possible with basic searches all the way which can be really bad news for a purchaser!

people buying new builds use the developers "recommended conveyancing service" all the time, these are a damn site more dangerous than a company who is giving you 70% the market value of your house and charging you to buy it!

We're not buying anywhere, just selling the house we're in now - we're moving into a rented place and that's totally separate from selling this house.
I'm hoping that if we use our common sense and read the small print it will be ok, but wasn't actually sure if having a "legal bod" was a requirement or how likely these firms are to try and rip us off (over and above the "below market value" thing that is) and how reputable any of them might be iyswim.
Any more views/experiences from anyone will be welcome, especially anyone who's had a good experience with one of those firms! and thanks to the people who posted.

Those companies are based on exploiting companies in vulnerable financial positions, so no I wouldn't trust them. You will almost certainly get a higher price selling at auction, have you looked into that?

I had a quick look at a local auction company, and we've said that if the "buyerpeople" don't offer us enough, we'll go to them instead. It would take longer, but we're in a weird position of being able to move before we sell this place, but not having any money to buy the things we need/do up the new house until we sell this place iyswim.
Ideally we just want shot of this place asap and for a certain minimum amount. We're stressed past caring tbh, and as long as we get that minimum amount, the first one to come up with the money can have the place and welcome to it
bitter? moi? nooooooo

It is not illegal to do act for yourself in the sale if you think you know what you are doing. You obviously need to check you are not making all kinds of promises and warranties about the place which may not be true and you are sued over later and make sure it is clear what is paid and when. Would be a lot safer to use a solicitor.

What Greengrow says is very important. You must be careful that you don't give warranties about the property without having gone into the history of the place. There could be covenants attached to the property that you may have (inadvertently or unknowingly)breached eg a covt not to build anything other than a house etc and, let's say you put a home office in the garden or something. In other words, you must examine the title document (from the land registry) and any other documents mentioned on that title, to be able to vouch for yourselves.

If you don't, or are careless as to whether you answer the buyer's questions correctly, you may find yourselves being sued somewhere down the line.

But then, I am a conveyancing solicitor, so I guess I would say that

Why not sell it on the open market for, say, £20,000 less (I'm not sure what property prices are like in your area) than a comparable house very nearby? It will be snapped up, surely!

(I'm a lawyer but I would never do my own conveyancing and it's not my area. I suspect the Law Society do a rotten job of explaining the huge range of tasks and skills of solicitors doing conveyancing. People might assume it is a form of box ticking or similar to an estate agent's role but you are checking all kinds of things).

It's certainly chock full of pitfalls that could come back years later to bite you on the arse. You're paying for a solicitor's expertise, and if they get it wrong, you can come back and bite them on the arse! legally speaking!

Thanks all - I think we will be using a solicitor, I am too stressed already without worrying about something we missed/didn't know coming back to bite us in the arse later.
I take it they would do the work and wait until we had the money from the sale to pay them with? (If they need paying up front, we won't be able to as we are beyond skint)
Mintyy we are selling up one step ahead of repossession, the place is a hovel, and I just couldn't cope with anyone coming in and viewing.
I can just about manage a valuer for a company that will move quickly and who know about what a state the place is in, or someone from the auction house who will clearly state it is a "development opportunity" or whatever they call hovels in need of much doing, but anything more than that is beyond me, and I will probably end up running away going out while DH deals with the valuers as it is. I just can't do "it" pretend to be a normal functioning grown up much longer - trying to make the DCs think this is all just a lovely adventure is about as much as I can manage

It sounds like you are having a really difficult time. Have you looked at options other than selling?

We do want to move Daisy sort of - it's a long long story, but this house has been like the proverbial millstone round our necks for years and it has actually been something of a relief to just have to admit we can't go on, decide to "give up" as it were, and get shot of it.
It's part true and part "look on the bright side" - we will never own again I don't think, but we are lucky enough to be able to get a rented council house and just the thought of a working cooker, working heating, a working fire, no damp, safe wiring, and any repairs being carried out is bliss.
If we tried to hang on here, all that would happen is that we would get deeper in debt, the state of the house would get worse, and we would all be cold, miserable, and sickly for more years.
I've done 10 years without a working oven, 2 without a working fire, 14 with crappy wiring and I've had enough...
The people coming thing is because the housework got too much for me over the past couple of years - I have heart disease, and depression and you name it and I suffer from it and have been pretty ill, and Kim and Aggie would run screaming.
We are going to hire a skip and gleefully throw all the crap into it, and declutter completely - new house, new start, no "stuff", and little things like a dining table so we can sit and eat proper meals, a cooker that works, warm damp free bedrooms for us and the DCs will make such a difference.
I think in a way I am sort of pinning all my hopes on the new place and am just counting the hours until we can walk out of this one and never look back. There are times when I could swear that if we weren't semi-detached I could fire this place and dance round the flames while it burned

In which case it sounds like a great plan! I hope it can be a wonderful fresh start for the whole family. It will be so nice for you to have a house where everything works. How are you getting on with the purchase company?

I'd go for a solicitor for peace of mind. For sale only, they'd probably only charge £500ish which, if you're taking a hit for the price anyway, is a relatively small additional sum to lose out on.
Why would you have to pay for a valued/surveyor? That is usually done by the purchaser. If you do get one done, it is unlikely to be of any value to the purchaser as the report will only be addressed to you and only you can rely on it (and sue on it if it turns out to be wrong). You may not even be able to show it to a purchaser.
Good luck!

I'm glad you're using a solicitor. Selling is cheaper, in that regard, than buying.

Can you put off selling until after you move out? Then you can completely empty it via a skip (or pay someone to do it? We paid a man-and-van type company to take lots of junk to the tip before our last move). Then you can just hand the keys to an estate agent and wash your hands of it.

Whatever state it is in, I imagine it'd sell much better empty. But if you can't bear it - well, anything will sell for the right price.

We are in a similar situation Hoping to sell our house soon.

I would definitely use a solicitor, you never know what might come up during the sale. I got a quote from local solicitors for selling our 4 bed house and it was £650 ish, so not too bad. You don't need a survey, that's up to your purchaser.

And yes, Pom, the solicitor will bill you at the end of the process and take their bill out of the completion monies.

That's a relief Pasty
I'm hoping to have a week or so here after we get the new tenancy to do any painting and arrange everything there. We will be getting a skip here and throwing everything in it apart from the few bits we're keeping. Usually when anyone gets a skip round here, the rag n bone men arrive as it does and hover and take what they want so the skip sort of empties itself as you go along, so we'll get more in.
I've got 6 boxes of car boot sale stuff so far and a friend of mine is going to take it for me and we'll share the proceeeds.
It's just like being on a hamster wheel though, or one of those slidey puzzles, A has to happen before B can happen but not until C has happened and so on in circles...
We've got two valuers coming next week, one from one of those property companies, and one from a local estate agent via another property company. The third company I contacted wanted a fee upfront to do anything so we had to tell them we couldn't do it .
I got a gut feeling about both the companies on the phone - one sounded a bit vague and just put me off somehow, but the other was lovely and had all his facts and figures straight, and really seemed to know what he was on about, so hopefully their offer will be sufficient and we can take it... fingers crossed anyway!
(That said the woman from the housing association was supposed to phone me on Tuesday and hasn't called yet, to say she has the keys for us, and I am too cowardly to call her and ask after them in case something has gone horribly wrong or she thinks I'm bugging her or something)