Please help!!! Really confused re conveyancing!!

[Yolo2018]

We accepted an offer on our property last week. Since then I have been looking for a conveyancer but am sooooo confused! My brother (who is a probate lawyer) says I should use a solicitor - he has recommend one but he is really expensive! I have had a number of quotes, one I really like (Conveyancing firm), it has a really good website that talks about costomer focus, but as it is the cheapest I am concerned that I wouldn't get the same standard of work as the expensive solicitor 😣 Brother says that it will be monkeys doing the work and it probably wont be done as fully as the guy he has recommend! My other concern is that the conveyancer offers no sale, no fee and no hidden charges. Could we end up paying out a lot more with a solicitor?? I have visions of being charged for letters and stuff on top...
Can someone please guide me through this haze????

*customer

Glad you’ve asked this question, as I’ve got same concerns. We’ve previously used our usual solicitors for sales and purchases, but when I recently checked an online quote checker, they are 3 times more expensive than the middle quote from a conveyancing firm!!

Interested to know how others have found using conveyancer versus solicitor. Thanks!

Who did you use to buy your current property? Why cant you use them?

A conveyancing company may not be able to deal with unusual situations that crop up. I used one, they didnt read all the correspondence properly and ended up costing us thousands more than expected. Their explaination was that they expect your house sale/purchase to run in a particular way. If it doesnt they often dont have the knowledge to deal with complex issues.

However using a solicitor takes longer because they often have many other clients theyre working with. Some clients are big money makers and they will get priority on their cases.

I would go with a solicitor next time because I know about the issues with our house deeds and they will need to draw up specific contracts for us. If your house is a straightforward sale and purchase with no expected issues then a conveyancer will be fine.

Thanks ReinettePompadour. We bought our current property from our landlord, had lived here for 6 years so just used the first fixed fee solicitor we came across. My brother has since had dealings with the same conpany and has told us to avoid at all costs.

Thanks for sharing your experience, it's kind of what I'm worried about - what if the conveyancer misses something that will cost us more in the long run.

There is about £1000 in the price difference.

How expensive is really expensive?

Are you selling and buying at the same time? If you are only selling then it might not matter so much.

If you are selling and buying another place then I'd either go with the recommendation of your brother or a solicitor who is local to the house you are buying.

I prefer being able to go in to the office to discuss things if need be; I'd always avoid an online conveyancing outfit. I do think you get better service with a small local firm of solicitors. That's just my opinion of course.

When we bought this place, I wanted a real proper solicitor looking at it (it has some quirks regarding access), so we used the solicitor that we'd used the previous time we'd bought a house. We went in and had a chat about the access and it was obvious he'd read the deeds thoroughly and could explain everything. That kind of service is very important to me.

Be very careful about hidden fees. Some places quote a low price initially and then add everything on as they go. I much prefer a proper quotation with everything itemised from the get-go.

Sorry, cross-posted.

£1000 is a lot of money. A huge difference.

I'd keep looking. You could ask a couple of solicitors local to the property for a quote.

I'm a conveyancing solicitor. I'm not sure where you live but if the three firms I've worked for the process would be as follows:

Receive instructions and get a quote (usually £400 - £500 fixed fee for our area) plus disbursements which are fixed and nothing to do with us, we just pay them ( such as stamp duty, land registry fees, searches etc)

If the sale/purchase doesn't go through usually we will either not charge you on the basis you come back to us when it does sell etc or charge you a lower figure than the fixed fee, but still something for setting up the file and doing all the initial work.

Unless it's a very unusual or commercial sale or purchase or a number of remortgages at once, it's unlikely we would charge lots of extra letters on top (although I understand that's how probate works - on a time charged basis rather than conveyancing which is a fixed fee).

Please check with your own solicitor as different firms might have different policies but you shouldn't get a completely different level of service. We are all bound by the same regulations.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask!

I have used conveyances and have found them to be great. They move along at a better pace and have kept me informed well on progress. I could be lucky with our local firm though.

Not all conveyancing firms are just online, some are in local offices the same as a conveyancing solicitor.

I've used a decent local Conveyancer and had a very professional process, whereas I'd not go near a company who are purely online.

For the avoidance of doubt, the firm I work for is a small solicitors office, one you can drop into. I have heard good and bad about online outfits but have had problems myself getting replies from some.

I haven't had enough experience with online conveyancing outfits that I could give any advice, just what I know from my own experience. Good luck!

We used a small local solicitor who handled our last purchase. There were no issues with our sale (because he was so on the ball when we bought it - it has one slight access quirk) but multiple issues with our purchase and I'm glad we used someone thorough and knowledgeable. We had many conversations with him and he basically held the chain together several times. It was fixed fee, too.

So, to some extent I think it depends on how straightforward your transactions are. I'm quite sure there are decent online outfits available but equally sure there are some conveyor belt ones which won't be able to handle anything unusual that crops up.

I've found you get what you pay for. I always use the same 2 solicitors. Both are brilliant but not the cheapest.

On several occasions the other party buyer or seller has used a cheap conveyancer and they have been terrible! Slow and often got things wrong and have added on a lot of time to buying or selling.

Actually that's a good point, which I forgot to add. The vendors of our most recent purchase had the most awful solicitor handling things. They have an office in town which was the only reason the sale didn't fall through - one of the vendors was in there most days at one point. The case handler had no experience, it was her first case of dealing with the various things that came up. That's fine, everyone starts somewhere but whoever was supervising her was rubbish, things were missed, not followed up, misunderstood and complicated forms weren't signed off for ages because someone senior needed to check them. They were absolutely terrible and nearly cost the vendors the sale.

Thank you for your responses. I am almost at my decision! One last question, you may be able to answer @Starlive22... We are buying 200 miles away from where we are selling, is it okay to use different solicitors for sale and purchase?

No same solicitor for both. It will complicate things otherwise and both solicitors will probably charge more.

@Yolo2018 absolutely, you can use solicitors you might feel know your new area better, it's often cheaper to use the same solicitors for both the sale and purchase (and less hold up on the chain as money will go to one firm rather than many). If it was me I'd be minded to use the same ones for both, if only for simplicity but if for any reason you want different firms there is no problem with that whatsoever, what works for you is best, after all you are the client!

There is a happy medium. Solicitors, unlike surveyors , don't need to be local. You can pay a fortune and still get some idle dinosaur who can't delegate and finishes work at 3pm. I've had those on the other end of transactions.

Questions to ask

• what happens if sale falls through? Some costs are lost but some are not
• how long to turn documents round?
• how long to return calls or emails?
• delegation arrangements. It is reasonable for your solicitor to go on holiday or be sick. It is not reasonable if there is no delegation arrangement.

And dont go with a firm that charges extra for photocopies. Ffs...

I genuinely believe you get what you pay for. I was naive the first time and nearly paid a huge price because of something overlooked. The second time I went for quality and they were brilliant.

Listen to your brother. He obviously knows what he is talking about. Of all the things to scrimp on, your solicitor isn't the one.

And use the same solicitor for sale and purchase. It will be an absolute nightmare if you don't.

When I sold my last house I made it a condition of sale that the buyers used a reputable solicitor and not an online conveyancer.

The purchase is more difficult than the sale: you need to double/triple check what you are buying but you know what you are selling. I would recommend that you get a solicitor based where you are buying (unless you are buying somewhere crazy-expensive like London).
Get several quotes and choose the one that is the best balance between competency and price. Make sure that you are comparing like with like: some are good at hiding extras that others don't charge for (they include it in the fixed fee) eg registering the title with HMLR.

I would recommend a High Street presence, not an internet firm.

Always a solicitor if you want a quick easy transaction and the same one for both sale and purchase.

Definitely don't use a mainly online firm whether they be a conveyancer or solicitor.

If they are doing it very cheap then it is likely they need to have a huge caseload due to break even. Often in some firma the main fee earner doesn't deal with the file until the end when they check which can then result in loads of new enquiries being raised which had been missed.

They can often just keep churning out standard letters which are pointless and because the set up some firms have 48 hours turn around.
They raise an enquiry (eventually) it's gets replied to immediately,, 48 hours later they raise another enquiry, gets replied to straight away 48 hours later. A letter yes a letter not am email gets produced saying the matter has been dealt with. That is a working week pretty much wasted.

No matter how much the client gets cross that is their agreed service level.

There are certain firms where we will refuse to act if they are on the other side. I could name them but I won't......

Beware of hidden fees such as filling in the sdlt form dealing with a Mortgage.

There is an old saying - you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

Depends a lot on the solicitor - we used a local one for last purchase and they were slow and useless - needed a stick of dynamite up their bums to get moving. I think I'd be a bit wary of online conveyancers, though. Best thing IMO is a recommendation from someone else who's used the firm recently - if you can get such a thing.

A lot will depend also on how uncomplicated your purchase is. If it's leasehold that's always less straightforward for a start.

When buying her first property a dd used the EA's recommended solicitor, which I'd never have thought a good idea, but I don't think it was more expensive than any other, and I was amazed at how quickly it all went through - from offer accepted to completion in 6 weeks. I had told her to expect 3 months.