Solicitor contact when buying a house

[Rarfy]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice. We are first time buyers buying a share in a shared ownership new build.

The house is ready to go. We have paid our reservation fee to the housing association. Paid a mortgage broker to help us with the mortgage and received a mortgage offer and have instructed a solicitor.

I am beginning to see it is a slow and sluggish process but i am becoming increasingly frustrated with our solicitors.

The only contact we have had from them is paperwork through the post. The fees varied quite a lot from what i was quoted and weren't clear. The timescale also wasn't what we were expecting. I emailed solicitors last Thursday with queries and have had no response.

I emailed again on Monday or Tuesday with another query and again no response.

I called yesterday and left a message for them to call back and again no response.

Is this normal? Each time i have emailed i have copied in admin support and not even received a response from them.

It is so frustrating. We are paying for a service and it feels like we are getting no further forward.

We are desperate to move as quickly as possible. Is there anything i should / could be doing?

We have paid for searches.

Did you agree a fixed fee (usually % of purchase price) with the solicitors? If so get on their case as constantly ringing them will not increase their charges. They may be waiting on searches or other info but they should tell you tbis.

No i dont think so. I think it was just a general quote but based on it being a shared ownership property.

The paperwork quoted a higher figure and additional is shared ownership. Didnt indicate whether the search fee was on top of their fee or would be deducted from the end figure.

Those are the questions i wanted answering as well as revising the time frame. It has been going through with thr housing association for a few weeks now. They're time fram was 6-8 weeks 3 weeks ago however the solicitor paperwork only came through on friday and said 6-10 weeks.

We rent so need to give notice. We also need to know how much we will be paying out so we can prepare for it. Its so frustrating.

Have lots going on outside of house buying so i dont know if i am putting too much pressure on. 17wks pregnant living in a damp house with a horrible history of loss. I just associate the two and want to be out ASAP.

First of all, call them and say you want a fixed quote in writing. They are obliged by professional conduct rules to give you this. If they don't respond within a given timescale (say 48 hours), go somewhere else.

Thank you for your advice @Thiswayorthatway and apologies for my terrible spelling / grammar.

Can you go elsewhere even when you have paid for searches, would they refund this?

Oh looks like dp has just received a call as we speak!

If the searches have been done, you should receive copies and you could give these to new solicitors.

No, not normal, I'm buying at the moment any mo solicitor 90% replies same day, if not the next day. We also had a quote in writing before we started. I'd go elsewhere.

We only paid for the searches yesterday.

The solicitor has just advised dp that they are awaiting the mortgage offer from our mortgage broker. He is back off holiday tomorrow and is very prompt so i will chase him to send this across.

She gave us a rough timescale of four weeks on the phone but advised us not to put our notice in yet (one months notice). Great.

Ok sounds better. Have you got a quote for solicitors fees yet? You need to ask for a fixed amount ASAP, don't be fobbed off by them saying that they can't estimate anything, it is very standard to pay a fixed fee based on a % of the purchase price.

You can't put notice in yet or you may find yourself without a house at all.

Your solicitor will also be working on behalf of your lender. If the searches or his investigations on the lease throw anything up then he will need to a) go back to the seller and b) refer to the mortgage company to verify they are okay. The mortgage company may then send it to their underwriting team which takes more time. They may come back and demand an indemnity or similar.

Basically until exchange of contracts, don't do anything. With respect if you've only paid for the searches now that is when you need to start the countdown. Solicitors won't carry out searches until they've been paid for them generally.

Did you go with your own solicitor choice or were you recommended by the seller/estate agent?

Most sales take more like 3 months not 4 weeks so that bit is very surprising.

The mortgage broker doesn't produce the mortgage offer It is produced by the mortgage company and you will get a copy the same day as your solicitor does
Nothing much will happen until the mortgage offer comes in
Communication from solicitor seems poor but some solicitors take the view that until the mortgage offer comes through there is not much point in doing too much as it may not go ahead
Was the solicitor a personal recommendation or (hopefully not) the one the seller recommended
I think you are a fair bit off competition

The solicitor was recommended by the mortgage broker and they are both local companies.

We havent received a mortgage offer in fact the valuation isnt until a week today. Does it actually not come through until after that? You can tell i am clueless although the broker did tell me on the phone he had the offer.

The only quotes we have had from the solicitors was a basic quote via email for around £760 then the full paperwork we recieved which quoted a similar amount but with lots of other fees throughout and the search fees. All in all it looks like the quoted price could jump up £300+.

Hi
The Valuation needs to be done before the mortgage offer is issued,yes .
As the Valuation is booked that is a sign that some progress has been made with your mortgage,but it will be at least a week after that (and probably longer) until the offer of loan is issued
Your mortgage adviser should be able to give you an estimated time scale

Re the fees sounds like what has happened is the solicitor has said fee is x plus VAT plus outlays and the written estimate includes the outlays
Which will be higher than normal as it is a shared ownership
I would speak to your mortgage broker about the communication difficulties
Your solicitor no doubt get ms a lot of Business from the broker
Don't apologise for being a FTB ,everyone is once
You are relying on the professionals to do their job and guide you

Yes i understand it can be higher for shared ownership however my initial request for a quote stated it is for a shared ownership property which is why i am confused with the varying price.

Thank you that is really helpful to know. The mortgage broker will no doubt get back to me tomorrow so i will mention about difficulties and query timescales.

If it could be done in four weeks that would be amazing but it sounds a little advantageous at this point! I guess i need to accept it will likely be October time and anything before that is a bonus!

Sounds like the quote they gave you was for their fees. The other stuff you have to pay is things like searches, Land Registry, stamp duty perhaps, and other out of pocket costs. £760 doesn't sound like much. I can't imagine that's more than 3 hours of work factored in, if that includes vat.

The more you pay, the more time they can devote to picking up the phone every time a client calls. It's like the difference between Ryan Air and BA.

Thank you very much that's helpful.