Is it a good idea to use agent's solicitor?

[tenapenny2018]

To be fair, the agents are not very pushy. They just provided me with a quote. Theirs is about £150 cheaper than the independent solicitor.

Is it too good to be true?

Never do that. They will have inside info on you that they will share with EA who will use this to secure any deal which may not be in your best interests. £150 is a minuscule amount in relation to house buying / selling.

Nooooooo don't do it.
Get recommendations (ask on local Facebook groups if necessary).
When it comes to conveyancing, you don't want to base the decision on price.

No

No way !!!!

Thanks all.that's really useful!!

We used the agent solicitors and found it useful as they knew each other and when things weren’t moving as fast as we would have liked they were able to push things along a bit faster...we completed our sale in 8 weeks with first time buyer

We did but wish we hadn’t, they have a conflict of interest and I don’t think they act with complete impartiality.

Don't write them off just because they're recommended by the agent and others have had bad experiences in similar circumstances (although I agree to exercise some caution).

Like PP have suggested, ask on Facebook for recommendations in the local area, have a look online at local firm's reviews. Then take it from there

No, no and thrice no. The agent will be getting a bung for recommending them so it’s no guarantee of quality. My parents did this against my advice and bitterly regretted it as I almost has to do the solicitor’s work for them.

You're their client once. The agency are their bread and butter. I wouldn't, personally. What's £150 compared to the cost of eg fighting with a neighbour over a badly defined boundary?

I would always have said no, until a FTB dd did. New to the area, she didn't know of any other, and the last high street one we'd used for a purchase had been useless, so we couldn't recommend, either.

Her purchase was all wrapped up, from offer accepted to getting the keys, in 6 weeks. Which was important, since she was in expensive and inconvenient short term accommodation. AFAIK there was no pressure to increase the offer - she would certainly have told us - nor was it any more expensive than usual.

I would never say no on principle again.