loosing patience with solicitor. [angry]

[Gowlane8]

I'll try to keep this short! But I would really like to throttle my solicitor!

We have ''sold'' our house to cash buyers, who are in rented. The vendors of the house we are buying are going into rented. A very short chain. Our mortgage has been sorted, so it should all be fine.

But the solicitor we are using is being difficult, and is testing my patience. Lots of 'time delaying' tactics, and lots of pathetic niggles.

Solicitor returned the fixtures and fittings form, with a terse letter to say it wasn't complete. There was one box marked ''other'' which wasn't filled in! I mean really? Why not just ring me and ask, and fill it with a tick or cross? Why take 2 weeks to send it back?
It took them 4 days to find our welcome pack - all because someone hadn't marked it as received.
My estate agent has been fabulous, but the solicitor is not answering her calls, or returning messages, or answering emails. I'm getting the same treatment. And it is quite clear my phone calls are being ignored as I tried over 10 times to ring, and yet they answered my mobile straight away! They were shocked to find it was me calling, and so obvious they were ignoring me.
Yesterday I was told second hand that the solicitor did not have our official mortgage offer. Two weeks after I'd been told, and knew they did have it.
So when I did get to speak to them they said my file was somewhere else and they couldn't check! I mean don't spout facts, when you are wrong and don't have the facts! And what really, really flipping annoyed me, was they told our vendors agent! Surely they should've spoken to me first??

I rang the bank to get them to fax it, ( which they did) but they also said the solicitors DID have it 2 weeks ago. I rang the solicitors back, and said it was being faxed, and she said it would now have to be checked for clauses! But as she didn't have my file she couldn't check if it had already been done!

I really want to strangle this solicitor!!

I have written and sent an email to their complaints dept, and left a voice mail. Neither have been acknowledged!!
What do you do when the solicitor is being a right blooming cow, and an awkward b!tch to boot?!!!?? Apart from drink wine!!

Thanks for reading xx

Write to the "senior partner". Advise that you will use another firm if your case is not reallocated with 3 days. Use the three days to find someone decent by personal recommendation. Make sure you pay properly for the conveyancing - Paying more does not necessarily get you decent service, sadly, but paying peanuts does guarantee crap service.

You could ask your sellers' solicitor who they would recommend. This makes it harder for them to pull out due to lack of progress.

Sorry to hear of your frustration Gowlane8.

I do understand how annoying it is but the Fixtures and Fittings list has to be completed by you - conveyancers cannot fill it in for you. If you left a box out, however trivial, you will be asked to confirm your response - it is the buyer's solicitor who requests it when they go through the paperwork and spot any discrepancies. So, long story short, your mistake.

It also must very irritating that you couldn't get through on the telephone. The thing though that I am reading from your post is that the transaction is at an early stage. Whether or not they got your mortgage offer yesterday or two weeks ago makes no difference if there are other outstanding matters. Friday is the busiest day for completions which absolutely must take priority over a client getting the ache over a mortgage offer and F&F list. After completions (which take up the morning), the next priority is exchanges (which take up most of the afternoon). You are at neither stage, therefore not a priority.

Is your solicitor a fixed fee internet based one? If so, it is likely they will have many many clients, i.e. in excess of 200 clients. If you read the terms and conditions it will probably say that they undertake to provide a "good" service in the acquisition and/or disposal of property, which basically means that the fixed fee you are paying does not include phoning you every step of the way or writing daily updates on a tracker. If you want that level of service, you need to be paying by the hour.

Don't forget that your solicitor has no control over how long it takes for the seller's or buyer's solicitor (or their clients) or the mortgage lender to respond to requests so while you can make a formal complaint about your own solicitor, you can't take into account that e.g. it took the mortgage lender 5 working days to send out the mortgage offer or that it took the seller 5 working days to respond to enquiries and then a further 5 working days for their solicitor to send it to your solicitor.

They (Solicitors) are getting worse. I'm 69 and I've moved 7 times, so I go back a long way (first house in 1969) My last move was a year ago and it nearly drove my OH and I to a heart attack.
This is true. The Solicitor who was acting for my buyer hadn't registered the property with the land registry. I was issued with a summons for non payment of council tax!!
You would think that would be sorted out easily. WRONG. I was 2 days away from going to court on a property I no longer owned. I could shoot the lot of them.
I took on 2 legal aspects of my own buying to speed things up.

Thanks Spickle,

They had already sent the f and f list to the buyers solicitors, so told me not to amend it, but to fill one box in. So I found that rather daft!
It really did annoy me that she had told me 2 weeks ago that the mortgage offer was there, and all was fine. So to then tell the vendors estate agent she didn't have it made me really cross, and to then say she didn't have the file to check made me even crosser.
As you say she probably does have a lot of clients, BUT there is no excuse for not answering the phone calls, or emails, from me or my estate agent. And my e.a. always rings on a wednesday to avoid Friday's.
Thanks to you and Fridayschild.

Fingeronthebutton I'm with you there! Maybe it should be fingeronthetrigger lol!!!

Er, it's up to you to change the details on the council tax. I wouldn't expect a solicitor to do that.

The solicitor I used for my recent move was the best ever. She was recommended and was far from the cheapest we could have used. They are not getting worse, but like most things, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Oh dear Fingeronthebutton. You needed to inform the Council that you were no longer living there - not the solicitor. Your buyer's solicitor did need to register the property in their name but sometimes Land Registry won't make the change if something is not right, i.e. the old charge on the property hasn't been removed so there are delays.

owner of property and person who pays council tax are not always the same thing. For example, in every single rental property...

you need to tell the council that you live there and no longer live in the old place.

OP - if nothing happens in those three days, write recorded delivery to solicitor to fire them.