When to chase solicitors when selling and buying?

[TrixieLox]

Hello,

Our solicitors have been a bit slow with the buying and selling of our house, doing things like sending search reports 4 weeks after they were conducted etc (this may be standard practice, who knows). I want to be a bit more 'on it' with them (in a polite way) and make sure things tick over as we want to complete by end of October.

All parties in the chain have reviewed searches and sent over fixtures and fittings etc (we just sent our fixture and fittings list over for the selling of our house, and saw the form for the house we're buying a couple of weeks ago). So I'm presuming the next stage is drafting a contract for us to sign? When should I chase for our contract? I was thinking in 2 weeks (so around 12 October or is this too late if we want to move 23 or 30 October)? How long after signing does the exchange usually happen?

Many thanks, Tracy

Every day...
They are all a nightmare and the only way things happen is if you 'check in' pretty much every day.
Ask them questions about what's having now, what are we waiting fit at the moment, what next etc. Then they know you are on their case but you aren't actually nagging them. Sometimes they need that too though...
Good luck

I agree, if you need things to move and they've already proved they're slow then you need to chase regularly. You're paying them a significant sum, they're working for you. Chase them if necessary!

I chase every day/check in ask if any problems that way they keep moving if you don't chase you end up at the bottom of the to do list.

I went with chasing every 48 hours but we didn't have a huge pressure on timescale. If you only chase after 2 weeks they will assume you are very relaxed about timescale and will keep your tasks at the bottom of the to-do list.

Searches (especially the local search) can take a long time to come back, hence the possible delay in that regard. The Seller's solicitor will actually draft the contract for your purchase, so it may be that your solicitor is waiting for that to come in. Where are you in the chain?

Where are things with your mortgage (if needed)? Has the mortgage offer been sent to your solicitor? Have all enquirers been raised and replies received?

Please remember that there are more people involved than just your solicitor. Chasing them daily won't necessarily speed things up and really just delays them from getting on with things (within reason), for instance if every one of a 50/60 case load rang daily, even just a minute each is a wasted hour. That progresses nothing for anyone!

Also, I appreciate your sale/purchase is very important to you, but completion by the end of October is ages away (honestly!). There is so much that happens behind the scenes.

Good luck, but it may, at this stage be more productive to chase on a Tuesday and a Thursday.

I just dropped an email every Monday morning asking how things were going and did I need to do anything to expedite the process.
My friend who has not long moved was an everyday caller and was surprised I was so laid back.

Chasing every day or so doesn't keep you at the top of the to-do list.

Solicitors gather the information from various third parties. When all the information they've asked for is in and is satisfactory, you will be ready to exchange (providing all the other solicitors in the chain are also ready). If they're still waiting for x or y, you are not ready for exchange.

Your solicitor should "report" to you when they have sufficient information (might still be waiting for one or two queries), with the draft contract/transfer for signature. This is held on file until everyone up and down the chain are ready and the remaining queries answered. One thing I will say, check the cost of postage when returning the contract - the Post Office will hold underpaid post for up to two weeks.

So how long does it take? As long as everyone involved takes to do their bit, put simply. Phoning every day doesn't make a third party produce a document any quicker unfortunately.

BTW I am a conveyancing assistant.

Exactly what Spickle says. Phoning every day just makes you a nuisance to be honest.

Just to clarify open said all searches and surveys done so ready to exchange contracts just didn't have contracts so yes I would phone and find out what was holdng it up. Obviously wouldn't do this early on but if I wanted to move in a set time frame I would k d want to know why when everything was done I didn't have a contract.

Speaking as someone on whose sale and purchase nothing has happened unless I have chased, I say be a nuisance if it gets things done.

When I say nothing has happened I mean exactly that. My solicitor didn't check in on the freeholder for a week so didn't know that the reason they hadn't come back was a genuine confusion which could have easily been resolved with one phonecall. She didn't send on a document I needed to sign until I had chased twice - knowing that we are trying to exchange any day.

I would be less of a nuisance if a) I trusted them to pick up the phone to any party and b) they were clear about where they were, what was done, pending and being waited for. If they want clients to be less difficult they could do what professionals in other fields do all the time - communicate proactively with progress reports and manage expectations.

Here is what you need to chase and when:

• instructions/questionaires returned: chase sending or receiving draft contracts and commencement of searches immediately upon receipt; if leasehold also chase sending of freeholders questionaires
• at enquiries stage: have they made enquiries and if so what? (Or received if you are selling). What further enquiries are they going to raise? Have these been resolved? Has the freeholder come back?
• at mortgage offer stage: send out the mortgage paperwork and anything relating to deposit.
• once the mortgage offer is out I push for a draft contract. Even if some enquiries are pending.
• once we are down to no outstanding enquiries or only trivial ones I push for exchange every day.

So the amount you should chase depends where you are in the process. Never less than twice a week and at least daily by the end. This whole system where they send an enquiry by letter, leave it a week and chase by another letter is absolutely ridiculous when they could email enquiries, chase or check by phone the next day and have everyting confirmed by reply.

my solicitors turned things round in a day. Yours sit on paperwork for a month.

sack them. Or if not, start doing all the work by chasing every day. Raise a complaint to the senior partner insisting that hair stops being flicked and fingers are pulled out.

you pay them. They work for you.

They don't work for you. At all. They work for the firm. You don't pay them. You pay the company who employs the solicitor to provide a service. There is a difference.

But as people who actually work as solicitors or conveyancers have commented above you do yourself no favours by phoning every day.
And they are providing a service to probably a 100 other people that week too. So yes, if you are unhappy with their service and you know the fault is with the solicitor and not a third party then complain.

I say be a nuisance if it gets things done. Unfortunately, being a nuisance often delays the solicitors time to such a degree that things don't get done.

You might think that by chasing them that you are "doing their work for them" but unless you are physically dropping off documents to your solicitor that they have requested from the sellers, sellers solicitors, managing agents, freeholders, Land Registry, your mortgage lender, the Local Authority etc, you are not helping at all. In terms of questionnaires/instructions/mortgage offer you can, of course, make sure you respond promptly and do everything on your side of the transaction to speed things up. You can't however, make the other side's solicitors, the vendor, the mortgage company, the Local Authority, Land Registry or a management company respond to their part of the transaction any quicker just because you want to exchange/complete by the end of the week.

mandy214 that's exactly how it is.

but the OP's solicitor have form for sitting on documents for a month for no reason!

all those points are valid but if the OP has the lazy hair-flickers, she needs to get them moving.

top customer service tip - don't want to be chased up? manage expectations and keep people informed. It's not really that hard.

doing things like sending search reports 4 weeks after they were conducted etc (this may be standard practice, who knows). This is not sitting on documents for a month - this is collating numerous documents from third parties (not just searches) in order to make a report to the client with the majority of information rather than sending one piece of information every time a third party sends something. It involves the solicitor taking the time to read through the documents in order to report his findings to the client so that the client is aware of any potential "red flags" which could be deal breakers.

Let's take the Local Authority Search for an example. Your solicitor requests it and has to wait several weeks for it to come in. Then the solicitor reads through and discovers that planning permission was granted in 2008 for an extension, so then the solicitor will want to see evidence of building regulations compliance certification and completion certificates, so he requests these documents from the seller's solicitors who then request the documents from their client, who, surprise surprise, cannot find them. So then the vendor has to pay the solicitor or the local authority for duplicates to be sent which takes a further couple of weeks, or an indemnity policy is requested and both the seller and the buyer argue over who is going to pay for it...... Alternatively, the local authority search doesn't reveal that a wall has been removed or that an extension was built but the EA details clearly show that a wall was removed or an extension was built in their sales particulars....

Do you seriously think buying a property without proper legal scrutiny of all the information is sensible? Would you really be happy to move into a house only to discover that it is the house that Jack built? It's not just about solicitors having to turn things around quickly, it needs to be done properly because they are representing you, their client, in the legal disposition or acquisition of property.

Our firm uses an online system to keep clients informed as well as communicating by email as much as possible - it still doesn't stop clients phoning constantly and we don't have the manpower or hours to telephone everyone individually once a week just to touch base. Ideally, we would employ extra staff to cope with the constant phone calls but then our fees would have to double to pay the extra wages for the additional employees.

Very well put Spickle. People just don't understand what solicitors do.

Exactly the reason I left. I was real estate in a city firm and in a smaller firm also. Honestly, the uproar there would be on MN if a teacher/shop assistant/Other 'can do no wrong' job on MN was treated the way solicitors are by clients every day.

Disgusting, as typified by attitudes displayed above. Sorry to rant.

must have been just my solicitor able to put separate bits of info in different envelopes, then. After having read them, and added a useful covering letter flagging up what she thought I needed to know. So I almost never had to call her/email her because she told me what she was expecting to happen when. Smart woman. (Not a conveyancing body shop and not a lazy old family firm, either - price in the middle but still a good deal)

so if I got this kind of service, don't see why everybody else can't have it too.

search reports and all the other bits are relevant to whether the purchase continues and DO need to be drip fed. If something comes up that is a problem, the customer can pull out at that point and stop further wasteful work.

of course if the solicitor does wasted work the customer still needs to pay.

repeat; customer service is about managing expectations. Tell people what is going on and they are less likely to get pissed off. Not a guarantee of course, but that's life.

Spot on the money about customer service, specialsubject.

I understand perfectly well what solicitors do - and it really, seriously, isn't rocket science. Calling up someone to check they have understood and are acting on a letter - and thus resolving a problem - rather than just sending out chasing letters weekly isn't difficult. I'm sure you are different Spickle but there are a lot of really slack practitioners out there.

I've said this on another thread and by saying "it really, seriously, it isn't rocket science" demonstrates a complete lack of understanding. There are not many professions that demand a 3 yr degree, plus 1 year of professional study, then 2 years of on - the - job training before you can call yourself "newly qualified". Would you dare say it's not 'rocket science' to a doctor or to a tax specialist?

Yes of course there are straightforward transactions but the vast majority are not. And if course there is a need to manage expectations - but many people don't have realistic expectations / become understandably invested in a property transaction which makes them fret / impatient. A solicitor will get in contact with you normally when there is something you need to know and when other transactions allow him/ her the time to contact a client. A report may have landed on his desk but there are other transactions that take priority that morning. That's the part that people obviously fail to comprehend. They have to manage their workload in a way that is effective / satisfactory for all their clients, not just one because they phone everyday.

And it isn't about drip feeding, as Spickle says up thread, it's about providing a comprehensive report on any issues about the property so a buyer has all the information (good and bad) to make an informed decision about going ahead with the purchase. Simply sending out letters or search results as and when you receive them isn't generally the best way to go about that.

And specialsubject I've challenged your insults about "lazy old family firms" before - it really is unacceptable to be make such rude sweeping generalisations.

Mandy,

Yes I would dare to say that to a doctor or a tax specialist if the thing they weren't doing and needed to do was clarify something by phone.

I don't believe in "professional knows best" in any walk of life, be that the medical care I receive, the sale and purchase of a house, the social care an elderly relative receives or anything else. It isn't the 1950s and I know too much about law to be mesmerised by your powers of asking questions by fucking letter and doing nothing to unstick problems. As with medical care or anything else, it is a partnership with me, the client. There is no excuse for not communicating effectively and managing expectations. I would be sacked for treating my clients the way residential conveyancers have treated me.

Yes, all the above is very sharp elbowed middle class but I make no apologies for that.

Lady but that is exactly the point. You don't know (and actually cannot know) without being involved in this particular transaction whether it was just a question of clarifying something by phone.

Obviously you're an expert and you may only need a 30 second conversation, regardless of how complex the issue is, but the OP (remember her?) doesn't appear to be as she's asking what is standard practice, how long she should wait before chasing the contract etc.

And actually you're wrong that it is a partnership. As everyone has tried to explain, it is not just about you and the solicitor - there are a number of 3rd parties involved. But i agree its absolutely about expectations and communication - so if you adjust your expectations to appreciate that 3rd parties are involved who csn be slow & that the solicitor has 100 other clients besides you, and both parties communicate effectively (which as above, does not mean phoning every day) then it will be a smoother transaction for you next time hopefully.

Or how about the solicitors learn to pro-actively manage my expectations that a) they manage the file b) they don't get things wrong c) they don't patronise me d) they don't take a fucking week for the most basic tasks and e) that they should give progress updates, like everyone else does to clients.

The high street solicitors firms are dying
Good fucking riddance.

Nice

mandy214 and a bandage for your sore head!

TrixieLox Apologies for the way this thread has degenerated into a bun fight. Please listen to the posters who actually know about conveyancing. Advice from people who don't know anything about how buying and selling other than from their own moving experiences are misleading to say the least. If you want lots of contact by phone with your solicitor, pay more money and choose one that doesn't have hundreds of clients and has more time to update you personally on progress every day. While it won't necessarily ensure that the transaction happens any quicker, you will at least know on a daily basis what hasn't been received and what they are still waiting for.