Disastrous reviews for purchaser's solicitors

[Paleandetiolated]

I am in the process of selling my flat in the South-West of England and have accepted a low offer from property investors who also live in the South-West.

They have informed the estate agent that they're using a law firm in Manchester that has the most appalling reviews with repeated comments about their inability to respond to phone calls or emails and the fact that the conveyancing has been inefficient, drawn out and stressful.

I am really reluctant to enter into a contract with these people knowing that the process is likely to be even more stressful than usual, should I just refuse to sell to them?

Op, in all honesty I would, if this is an investment for them they are not in a rush to buy and it can take years.
I wouldn't sell to them, no.

For the love of god if it's Gorvins, run a mile. Biggest nightmare and lost us one sale and nearly lost our purchase - never answered calls and literally weeks of daily of calls and emails from us, agents and other side went unanswered. Exchange dates came & went and we ended up taking 6 months for a chain free freehold sale and purchase.

If it is company whose initials are ONP then either refuse to sell to this buyer or insist they change solicitor to a proper, local solicitor. I work in property and come across this company all the time and they are worse than useless, absolutely incredible that they are allowed to trade given the level of incompetence.

Depressing but not surprising to see there are other firms out there who are equally incompetent, the initials are BBL with the L standing for Law.

Don't sell to them unless they change firm. Our last chain very nearly collapsed due to our buyers poor choice of conveyancers. The reviews were awful, and absolutely spot on. We ended up contacting the owners through LinkedIn and social media to get any movement. It was so stressful and I was so annoyed with our buyers for picking such an awful firm.

Our house move on our side was fine. But the solicitor that our vendors used were awful. They exchanged and completed without telling them of checking the date. Which meant they ended up homeless. The mortgage people wouldn’t even deal with them. They can cause so many problems. I would say no.

I think I'd walk, especially as it doesn't seem like it's even a good offer. Have you had trouble getting offers?

Don't sell it to them. Especially as its a low offer.

Our estate agent told our buyers, when they were just offerers, that he wouldn’t recommend we accept their offer unless they changed solicitor. They did. The new ones weren’t great, but they weren’t as bad as the previous ones! I don’t see why you couldn’t send the same message.

Before pulling out if the whole deal, you could just get the agent to tell them that in order for the transaction to proceed they need to change to appoint reputable solicitors, maybe foreard a link to the reviews, and see what they say.

Thank you for the suggestions and personal experiences, it's reassuring to know I'm not going mad. I have told the estate agents that I am not entering into a contract with the purchasers if they insist on using these solicitors. They know that I have read the negative reviews but keep sending me links to the positive ones, unfortunately they just don't have the same ring of truth as the ones that give the details of the shoddy service that people have received.

The manager of the estate agents assures me that he will personally oversee the process and has demanded to know how I wish to proceed. I already just told him that I will not deal with these dodgy solicitors but he doesn't seem to believe me, does he think he can bully me into it? I have experienced this sort of behaviour so often, is it because I am a single woman or do they treat everyone like this?

Curiously enough, they were absolutely charming and agreeable when they wanted my business.

Stick to what you’ve said; the agents are working for you and you’d think they’d want you to be happy and for the sale to go smoothly.

Just to say, we are in the SW and our buyers are using a local well thought of firm that were also recommended to us and they have been atrocious, I think they might well cause the sale to fall through. I get the impression all the solicitors are very busy and maybe not up to their usual standards.

We dropped out of our sale due to the buyers instructing similar solicitors. The ones they used were a purple bricks recommended firm and the reviews were awful. Luckily it only took us 2 weeks to realise what a disaster this was/could become so we pulled out of the sale with them.

@ABCDEF1234

We dropped out of our sale due to the buyers instructing similar solicitors. The ones they used were a purple bricks recommended firm and the reviews were awful. Luckily it only took us 2 weeks to realise what a disaster this was/could become so we pulled out of the sale with them.

Our vendors used purple bricks to sell, and their solicitors. It was an utter nightmare. They used Premier Property Lawyers, and they were so horrendous that I would absolutely walk away from any chain that had them involved.

What should have been a 2-3 month sale took 6 months because they were utter dicks

We used BBL as we were FTB and they were on our mortgage providers list of recommended solicitors. It was awful. No survey or issues or negotiations that could have dragged out the sale as we were buying from a family member and so we knew 100% where the holdups were coming from and the process took 4 months.
They wanted every payment made over the phone and it took 10 days of calling three times a day every day (before work, lunch and after work) and leaving messages before someone was able to take my money to pay for the searches. Every single stage takes so so long.

The estate agents are now hassling members of my family, I am dumbfounded by how unprofessional and rude their behaviour is, surely this isn't normal?

I have told them categorically that I am not dealing with the solicitors and they seem to think I don't mean it, what is that about?

I would have no dealings with purple bricks. Theyre the cheapskate choice for folk who won't pay a proper estate agent.

If the EA was hassling my family, I'd talk to my solicitor about them. That's well out of order.

I have never dealt with Purple Bricks as a seller but as a buyer it was one I tried to avoid, along with Foxtons. Their agents are disastrous!

The whole property buying process needs reform.

The whole thing is a bloody shambles.

In other countries the whole thing is done and dusted in a few weeks, so it clearly can be done.

We just insisted that our buyers used a decent solicitor and that was a condition of the deal. EA communicated that, we both checked out the proposed practice, we agreed they were suitable.

Perfectly normal especially after the stamp duty holiday which really showed up how shit some conveyancers are. Hold firm.

Our chain nearly collapsed because of a similar firm, initials L P L.

Had to resort to some VERY unorthodox methods to push the sale through. Honestly I’ll never know how some business stay afloat despite such sheer incompetence.

@JellyBelly10

If it is company whose initials are ONP then either refuse to sell to this buyer or insist they change solicitor to a proper, local solicitor. I work in property and come across this company all the time and they are worse than useless, absolutely incredible that they are allowed to trade given the level of incompetence.

Oh god, this lot are on the other side of our purchase and there's a very real chance it's all gonna fall through as a result. Wish we'd known to walk away sooner!

The situation has got infinitely worse, the agents have got my family members to put pressure on me to sell as well. I'm finding it really hard to get my head around it, nobody else but me has any financial interest in the place and yet they all think they can tell me what to do.

I have told the agents I'm withdrawing it from the market but they have ignored my emails.