How can it be this hard to get a solicitor to do our sales conveyencing

[Birdyfrom]

In nut shell, dm in a care home suffering with dementia, I am registered attorney for her financial affairs. We have accepted an offer on my mother’s house through an estate agent. The title at the land registry has the proprietors as being my mother, my brother and myself (brother and I were left my fathers 50% in a trust in his will). I have all the documents to this effect. I have been contacting solicitors this week, all who advise the ease and convenience of their sales conveyencing, however as soon as I mention the above arrangement I’m told they are not taking on new clients, one said I couldn’t represent my mum as lpa ( but didn’t offer any advice as to what I would need to do), or someone will call me back, but nothing, phone is not ringing. Surely our circumstances can’t be that unique. Do they only want quick easy sales? This has made me quite upset, as I don’t know what to do, any advice would be greatly received

Hello, OP. We can see you didn't have much luck when you posted this in AIBU so we've moved it over to our Legal Matters board now.

DS's MIL is one. I know people think no one buys houses at this time of year but they're absolutely flat out, especially with the Christmas break coming up, so maybe you're right.

There are two companies I would trust with this, Acumen Law and Britton & time, both in Brighton but can work remotely all over the world. It is an exceptionally busy time of year with people wanting to complete before the changes in April next year, but if they have space they will help you.

My brother and I, as executors, recently sold our late sister's flat. The transaction was quite complicated, as two out of the three flats in the building owned the freehold, a lease extension was required and the managing agent was useless.
We used Sara Bensusan at Peter Brown & Co. in north London. She was very knowledgeable and thorough and I would use her again.

I suspect the firms you’ve contacted are busy with the pre-Christmas completions and don’t want to take on anything complicated unfortunately.

Have you or your DB moved in the last 10 years? Maybe try the firm you used.

Can the estate agent not recommend a firm?

It’s really not that complicated! They are maximising their profit.

What sort of firms have you been contacting? If they are the online-only specialist conveyancing sort of company, then they probably only want easy, bog-standard transactions they can do for a fixed fee.

Have you tried any more established local solicitors who also have a conveyancing department?

Or have you asked your estate agent for advice? I got recommendations for a couple of very good solicitors from my agent, but again they were an independent local estate agency and they didn't get commission for recommending solicitors (unlike some of the big national chains), they just recommended the ones they had found fastest and most helpful in getting transactions through.

Just before the Christmas break may not be a good time to be trying to find someone with time for a complex case, though.

Thinking about it though, by the time you’ve filled in all the forms and they’ve checked your ID, I wouldn’t expect a firm to get your contract sent out until the new year.

So poor show by the firms you contacted.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to comment. In all I contacted 10 firms, big, small, and all in between. Thankfully in a really small company a solicitor picked up the phone and advised that it was doable, the problem was I couldn’t sign as my mothers attorney and for myself in my share of the property, since my mother was unable to assign another attorney as she no longer has capacity, the solution the solicitor advised was I appoint an attorney for the transaction who signs on my behalf. We are going ahead, I’m very grateful to get the sale moving. Thanks all