solicitor issues - how to get things moving

[Eachpeachpearplum1985]

Hi there, I'm looking for some advice about how to get our house sale/purchase moving. Our buyer has stated she is looking at other houses as the process is taking so long! our buyer is renting and we are buying a dead woman's house so there isn't a chain.

We have gone with a cheap solicitor without knowing much about them. It turns out that they apparently have a bad reputation. Our estate agent says the solicitor refuses to have any communication with them and the ea keeps on at us to put pressure on the solicitor which we are doing.

Our buyer asked us some questions back in January which we responded to through our solicitor straight away. Our buyer is still asking for these questions to be answered! We got in touch with our solicitor who assured us that the information was sent and that this pressure is a common tactic of estate agents at the end of the month (?)

My partner decided to contact the buyers solicitor directly the next day. She told him she had received the info overnight. I'm assuming that he lied to us about sending this originally but who knows? This was last week.

Today we get an email from the estate agent saying out buyer is still waiting for her answers and isn't prepared to wait much longer but her solicitor said this had been received?

Prior to all of this the ea updated us that our buyer was now in a position to move forward so this all seems a bit off as nothing was mentioned about these questions not being answered then.

I don't know what to do and feel completely powerless! Who is lying? Why is everything taking so long? Does anyone have any suggestions of how to rectify this before this all crumbles to dust?

Thanks

you can only really talk to your solicitor (who you pay) and the agent. The agent only gets paid when the deal is done so has incentive to bang heads together. But you can do some thumping too.

First, tell the EA to tell the buyer to get the answers from her solicitor. Then ask the EA to confirm what else needs to be done.

then, speak to the senior partner at your solicitor and ask why they aren't talking to the agent.

The buyers solicitor seems to be telling the buyer that they don't have the info and telling us they have.

Unfortunately our solicitor is the senior partner. I feel like putting in a formal complaint isn't going to make thing move faster.

There are just three questions the buyer is waiting for answers for. The same bloody questions we responded to in January.

Think I'll just go and scream into a pillow.

I wouldn't blame you!

this is nuts. Can you contact the buyer yourself and say that their solicitor has the info? If not, get the agent to do it.

Your chain could realistically fall through because of the solicitor. Ask for their complaints procedure (all firms have one).

We had a similar situation and because not much had got going sacked our solicitor and engaged a new one same day. The next week our buyer pulled out as they had had second thoughts. Whilst I was gutted (at the time), at least I knew that I had done everything possible to remedy the problem and it wasn't my fault. Needless to say, new solicitor did not mess about.