Solicitor recommendations please

[tricot39]

Hi. Just that really. Getting organised in advance of buying a house.
What is the going rate? Thanks.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Kay Leslie from www.stewartsmurdochs.co.uk/ - recently did a faultless job helping us buy a house in Glasgow. Was around £800

We have used MacLachlan MacKenzie through 2 house sales combined with purchases and would really recommend them.

Valente McCombie & Hunter were good when we used them. We used their Easter Road office. If you are buying in Edinburgh I would recommend using an Edinburgh firm. It's a funny market here, and the Edinburgh solicitors know the market and the "players" which you might not get from an out of town solicitor.

Conveyancing Direct will provide exactly the same service as any of the Edinburgh Solicitors and they are a fixed fee of £380, as opposed to around £1000 elsewhere. Used them 3 or 4 times, and they have been really efficient. Don't be fooled by the solicitors in Edinburgh. They have high rents to pay in expensive offices, and that's one of the reasons they are so expensive. They offer you nothing extra.

Not at all sure that's right Duck. I agree with meep that the solicitors can be great at providing advice and insight into what can be a quite tricky market. It's not simply the conveyancing you're paying for.

Have to disagree with you there, Owlmother. I've bought and sold houses every couple of years for 20 years, and have never needed to ask a solicitor to do anything but submit my offer and process the conveyancing once it has been accepted. Surely you decide what you are going to pay/get away with paying, and you just ask them to tell the seller. If the seller says no, you have a think about whether you're prepared to pay more, and you tell your solicitor to tell the seller again.

Many thanks for your replies!

Agree with Wicketkeeper - MacMac are great, plus there's a lady who works there called Irene who knows the Edinburgh market like the back of her hand - she told us how much she thought we would get for our house and was amazingly accurate.

I found they guided us through the process brilliantly, did everything they said they would when they would and they do good schedules.

Agree with duck. You really don't need to pay for 'inside knowledge'.