7 weeks - No updates from solicitors

[Moonrat]

Me and my partner had an offer accepted on a house 7 weeks ago, were FTB.

On our end the mortgage offer is in and we're just... Waiting. We've heard nothing from our solicitor at all. We've emailed numerous times and eventually called, at which point we were told we'd be updated 'today or tomorrow via email'. That was over a week ago.

Is it normal to hear nothing? We don't even know if she's received the property information from the vendors or anything.

At this point we're just frustrated.

Many conveyances are inundated right now / I'm a mortgage adviser and have heard this complaint form many clients so given the stamp duty holiday yes it is normal.

However, it is not right. They'll get away with what they are allowed to so my advice would be to call and speak to a manager until you get the answers you want.chances re they're waiting to hear back from third parties but that doesn't give them the right to ignore you.

I would imagine that they are waiting for searches as there is a backlog in most areas. But that is a long time without contact and not acceptable if this is a proper law firm and not one of the really cheap online conveyancers.

The sellers have to complete and return lots of forms and documents to their solicitor, together with ID and monies on account, before their solicitor can send a draft contract pack to your solicitor. In the beginning, it can and does take a while for all the preliminary paperwork to be put in place before the purchase solicitor can actually start work. Although you are right to be concerned that you haven't had an update in 7 weeks, I would assume this is because not a lot has really happened yet and the solicitor is probably inundated with work at the moment, with so many clients wanting to complete before the end of the stamp duty holiday. If this is the case, the solicitor probably doesn't have much capacity/time to update clients where no progress has been made.

Have you tried chasing through the estate agent? Always helpful to have another person in your corner. They may also get in touch with your vendors to give the solicitor a nudge.

Personally no I don't think k it's good enough that you've not had an update. I was a legal secretary for thirty years and part of my job was to keep clients informed of progress or otherwise. It takes a few minutes to look in a file and inform a client where they are up to in their transaction.

As others have said there's probably not much to tell if you are waiting on the other side but they should at least be able to tell you that.

My advice would be not to email. Ring and ask to speak to the conveyancer's assistant or secretary and ask them where they are up to and what the next step in the process is. They will be able to tell you this.

However, if you've used a cheap online conveyancer who doesn't accept these kind of enquiries then you get what what you pay for unfortunately.

Maybe your solicitor is the one our vendor is using...

We waited 6 weeks to receive the draft contract and have waited another 7 to so far have no response to our solicitors initial enquiries. Considering we were quite clear we needed to move in at the end of November I am livid and incredibly close to pulling out. No one wants to be ignored for months on end, it's seriously shoddy. Properly harass your solicitor and if they don't improve I'd get a new one because it won't get any better. Mine is generally fairly quick to respond, usually same day.

I'm also a first time buyer. We had to pull out of the house we were originally going to buy so this has been dragging on since February. It has honestly been the most miserable experience of my life.

I don't think its normal to hear nothing for 7 weeks no but there are widespread delays and people cutting costs by using very cheap online conveyencers who aren't always very good. I would say to EA as they can ask other side directly what is going on and if they've returned property information form etc. Searches are often not ordered until that is back and that will be your solicitor ordering though they can order now so you could push for that.

We are selling and I paid a solicitor I've used before as been excellent before. It is slower than usual. A week and a half in heard nothing so e-mailed EA to see what should be happening. He said your solicitor should be sending you forms. So I messaged and got them by e-mail a day later, they are complicated - we had 10 forms / letters sent to us, need to go in with passports etc then they set up account and process forms. All that took us to about end of week 4. So buyers solicitor got our PIF end of week 4, they returned queries in 24 hours and also had a mortgage offer in a week and a half and we got queries answered and back in 24 hours. We've had gas check, having EPC and electricty check, been sent contract and transfer deed, survey is on Monday so in 5 weeks a lot has moved on ours. I was expecting issues as other side using online conveyencers but they've been fine so far. Not sure if searches are ordered yet.

Our selling process went like this.
Sold house to first time buyers, no chain. Week 1.
Got papers from Solicitor and filled in buyers pack.
Mortgage visit. Week 4.
Buyers report. Week 8.
Problem with Land Registry. Week 13.
Provided solicitor with passports, utility bills etc. Week 14.
Contracts signed and exchanged end of Week 15.

We had a very old school solicitor who wanted everything signed on paper, not through emails and the buyers solicitor was a chain group who wanted everything done electronically.

It also didn’t help that since being back in office since August, our solicitor had 4 x 1 week holidays.

Our Estate Agent did most of the chasing.

We're using a local reputable law firm, as this is exactly what I assumed would happen if we went cheap/online.

We've still heard nothing so going to try and call again tomorrow, may also put a call in to the EA to try to get an idea of how things are going on the vendors end. Don't even care at this point if the solicitor tells me nothing has happened... At least we'd know!

I'm a legal secretary although not in conveyancing any more and I agree with the pp who suggested going to the secretary. It's really not on not to communicate with you at all.

However, having said that, our property department is totally overwhelmed at the moment and they are literally working seven days a week to keep up. Even the secretaries have been coming in at weekends.