Solicitor too busy to contact for 26 days

[Charmtaste]

We had an offer accepted on a house on the 4th May. Solicitor said she was initiating searches etc… she sent us the property forms in May, we responded with our queries for the vendor.

Our solicitor has now not responded to us or contacted us since the 30th of May. 26 days with no contact. We have no idea how our purchase is progressing, we don’t know if the vendors have answered our queries.

We have emailed her and we get an automatic reply telling us not to disturb them for general queries because of how busy they are due to SD holiday. I spoke with a secretary at the firm today and she agreed that no response for 26 days was poor. She tried to call our solicitor but came back and said she was too busy to speak to me.

So should I cut my losses and find another solicitor? I am reluctant to do that because we want to benefit from the stamp duty reduction in September. On the other hand if she is not actually progressing my purchase what do I have to lose?

Any thoughts welcome 🙏

My firm has a sales department, whose job it is to actively encourage people to instruct us.

There is no liaison between the sales department and the legal teams to find out if they have the capacity to do the work. Legal teams just get given new files as and when they come in.

@thecognoscenti not responding for 26 days and sending me and automatic message, saying that if I bother her it will take longer, is rude and unprofessional.

She should not have accepted my case when she obviously does not have time to work on it.

@Spickle a firm of solicitors unable to organise its own affairs is not an endorsement and certainly not the clients problem.

[quote Charmtaste]@Spickle a firm of solicitors unable to organise its own affairs is not an endorsement and certainly not the clients problem.[/quote]
I didn't say I endorsed it. I work in the legal department and have new work appearing on my desk every day. This is how my firm works and I do not have a say in how the (family) company organises its own affairs. I agree that this is not the clients' problem. I am one of the many employees who have to deal with too much work, together with dealing with angry, frustrated clients. So, even though I love my job, I get it in the neck from all sides and, somehow have to try to do a decent job as well (which I do to the best of my ability), but it is never good enough for some people.

[quote Charmtaste]@Spickle a firm of solicitors unable to organise its own affairs is not an endorsement and certainly not the clients problem.[/quote]
No, shouldn't be the clients' problem. But do you have any sympathy for the lack of control many of these people will actually have over their own workload? If you're an employee, you really just have to do as you're told, regardless of personal opinion on capacity for extra work.

..... and then having got it in the neck during the whole transaction (multiply that by 100+ clients) and did the best I can in the time available, it is so nice to read a bad review from a client who complains that no-one actually did any work on their files for months...

So. OP what are you actually going to DO about it?

I feel that a reputable company should a) on instruction explain how long things are likely to take i.e. searches and b) offer a regular update in these circumstances, say every two weeks. Mind you I have been awaiting a non urgent reply re my will for two months; no update, no apology.

Sounds very familiar. DS bought a house last year. Chain of 3, he was FTB and his vendor moved into an empty house. It took SIX months. Months would go by with zero contact. Email replies exactly like yours. He was naive and didn't chase as he assumed they were the experts / professionals and wasn't in a huge hurry.
In the end it seems they did everything the night before exchange. When I looked through everything afterwards it looks like they missed something important and we may have to get another solicitor to take them on.

Nothing to do with cutting slack!!!! It’s about managing expectations. They’re meant to be professionals. It’s a joke.

How do you manage expectations for clients who do not want take your advice on board?

Im sorry but that is ridiculous. We had an offer on our place on 10th May and we completed last week.

Yes solicitors are busy but it's no reason not to communicate. I would contact one of the partners and ask what is going on.

There is a really big difference between good firms and bad firms. We used an awful one last time and never heard anything from our solicitor and it took months and dragged on. This time we asked a lot of people for their experiences and picked a different firm and it has been like chalk and cheese.

@Charmtaste

I find this paragraph in the automated response particularly rude

“ If you are emailing with a general request for an update, we would politely remind you that the time spent in responding to such requests will detract from the time available to actually progress necessary legal work to move on transactions”

Sounds like she'd make a good GP!

I had this in February/ March, I also counted the days of zero contact, can’t remember what it was now. Wrote irate emails to the main partner that didn’t get replies. I left phone messages.

Eventually once the searches were in it was passed to someone who did talk to me and it progressed quickly. I think that they ignore you and then when it’s your turn everything gets done. Which is small comfort.

Regarding the ‘but their automated reply is true’ - how much time would they save fielding such questions if they just emailed an update or had a portal where you could track the main progress. Eg we sent your searches on x date, they typically take x to y weeks to come back, we’ll be in touch when they are in’.

@StrongArm

Im sorry but that is ridiculous. We had an offer on our place on 10th May and we completed last week.

Yes solicitors are busy but it's no reason not to communicate. I would contact one of the partners and ask what is going on.

There is a really big difference between good firms and bad firms. We used an awful one last time and never heard anything from our solicitor and it took months and dragged on. This time we asked a lot of people for their experiences and picked a different firm and it has been like chalk and cheese.

Getting someone to take you on in May for a June completion is extremely unusual at the moment.

There’s a number of professional indemnity insurance groups that insisted in April that solicitors didn’t take on any more work with a June 30 deadline so you are extremely lucky to get it over the line.

@Porridgeislife I disagree about the luck part. I have suffered through property transactions with solicitors who were pretty awful. This time I went out of my way to find someone who was going to be responsive. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault but you are paying for a service here. And as someone else pointed out, if they were not able to cope with the volume of clients, they shouldn't have taken more on. I had to sign a disclaimer saying I would not expect completion by 30 June which I was more than happy to do. All I wanted from a solicitor was someone who was responsive and gave good advice. It honestly drove me half mad last time waiting weeks for a reply and I didn't want to go through that again!

I appreciate it's a difficult time for people who work in the industry (I had a hell of a time finding a surveyor!) but they are also benefitting from it!

The average salaried solicitor isn’t benefitting though. It’s not a well paid part of law & bonuses that you’d get in other careers for doing huge amounts of work don’t really exist in conveyancing.

If solicitors weren’t taking on enough files as humanly possible there’d be threads whinging about not being able to find a solicitor. The reality is that transactions are up four fold and someone has to do the work. The whole profession is suffering at the moment.

@Porridgeislife

The average salaried solicitor isn’t benefitting though. It’s not a well paid part of law & bonuses that you’d get in other careers for doing huge amounts of work don’t really exist in conveyancing.

If solicitors weren’t taking on enough files as humanly possible there’d be threads whinging about not being able to find a solicitor. The reality is that transactions are up four fold and someone has to do the work. The whole profession is suffering at the moment.

Agree with all of this. It's not a glamorous area of law, they aren't earning megabucks. As an employee it's not just as easy as saying 'I can't take on any more work'. We all know how badly management take that kind of statement. I'll repeat that I have colleagues who are being made ill by how much work they are trying to get through at the moment. They aren't lazy people sitting there filing their nails and chatting over cups of tea.

But I think you are in essence making the same point as me @thecognoscenti and @Porridgeislife . I have been on the end of a firm who took on too much work and couldn't service its clients properly. There are law firms who don't work this way. Not all of them are not responding to their clients for 26 days. I'm not blaming the juniors at all.

It is definitely worth complaining OP and seeing how far they have got. You may find they are a lot further down the line than you think but have just not communicated that. If they've put the searches in, I would be tempted to wait it out but if they haven't, I would be considering your options. Their time should ease up a little towards the end of next week anyway hopefully!!

I have now received an actual email from her (all two sentences) stating that she will update me on my purchase on Monday. I guess I will find out on Monday if she has started the searches. I will also find out if she has received answers to the queries we sent the vendors.

The vendors solicitor is my mum’s next door neighbour. Would I be out of line to ask her if she has heard anything from my solicitor?

@Charmtaste

I have now received an actual email from her (all two sentences) stating that she will update me on my purchase on Monday. I guess I will find out on Monday if she has started the searches. I will also find out if she has received answers to the queries we sent the vendors.

The vendors solicitor is my mum’s next door neighbour. Would I be out of line to ask her if she has heard anything from my solicitor?

Legally the vendor's solicitor cannot liaise with you as you are not her client. It would be a breach of contract. If you/your mum are on friendly terms, she may give you a pointer, but I wouldn't push her if she's not comfortable talking about the case.

When I worked at a law firm the partner in charge of complaints used to bend over backwards to make a client happy, even at the expense of a fellow partner in charge of the department. I'd make a complaint. Worst case scenario you get a "sorry you feel that way" apology and the process moves more quickly with regular updates , best case you get a "sorry you have had this experience, let us work for free". They won't be able to absorb disbursement costs but you'll still avoid the legal fees.

We instructed solicitors on 3rd March and completed on the sale yesterday so it's perfectly possibly to get there before September. Only a chain of 3. Our solicitor answered every email on the day- or her assistant did. It was a local solicitors and we're in the SE and the market is manic.

@Charmtaste

I have now received an actual email from her (all two sentences) stating that she will update me on my purchase on Monday. I guess I will find out on Monday if she has started the searches. I will also find out if she has received answers to the queries we sent the vendors.

The vendors solicitor is my mum’s next door neighbour. Would I be out of line to ask her if she has heard anything from my solicitor?

You seem annoyed that at 8pm on a Saturday your solicitor hasn't sent you a lengthy response with pages of detailed information.

@thecognoscenti no, I am annoyed that I have received no update for 27 days now.