Just thought I could add my thoughts to this thread from our experience. We had a buyer, searches and queries asked, we had our eyes on a lovely house that we were very keen on getting. Then our buyer just simply dropped out. No explanation or anything so back on the market we went mid April. A couple of weeks went by with some viewers but our seller was getting restless so we told our agency to have an open day and drop the price by a whacking 10k, this is on a 325k asking price. On 1st may we had a buyer, shook hands on the deal there and then with 1st June as a completion date aim. Things dragged on as they do, we used an online solicitor...never again!
So in the 2nd last week of May still have not got the exchange, then we eventually get the 29th as the exchange with completion on 31st! Talk about sailing close to the wind. But that is not all, trying to book removals a few days before and this was a 130 mile relocation was expensive. But wait, there's more. On completion day we hang around wait for the 'call'. Mid-day we find that the bottom of the chain has only just started to move the money up the chain. Meanwhile, we have a removal van sitting around the corner with a 4PM deadline. Come 3PM we have the money transferred to our seller! Phone up the removal guys and they off-load.
What I find frustrating in all this is the slowness of completion. In this day and age surely the money can be lined up in all the banks/solicitors etc before completion then at 9AM a button is pressed and it all ripples through!
But it was all worth it. We are now happily settled just 3 weeks later but it feels like an age. Hope others can get a resolution on your dealings with the legal profession. I know that we relied a lot on our agency to communicate with all the parties that I suspect an online agency would not manage.