To change solicitor/conveyancer?

[MrsR2018]

Hi all

How long would you leave it with no contact from your solicitor/conveyancer before considering taking business elsewhere?

We have been trying to contact ours for over a week now, have sent emails to their email, the main email and left messages with reception but had zero responses.

Would you consider going elsewhere?

We have absolutely no idea what stage we are at, if searches have been started, what’s needed from us etc. Totally in the dark!

have you raised it with who is listed as the complaints person? I think i would do that after a week.

Yes if you are very early in the process then it's worth considering. I ignored the early signs of my solicitor not replying emails and now my purchase is dragging on in its 6 months (mostly due to delays on our side.....).

If you kick a fuss they will eventually have to come back to you, but it'll be a very stressful process

As a conveyancer, a week with no communication isn't on, even if it isn't strictly necessary from the conveyancer's perspective. I work with a few conveyancers who don't update their clients without something to say which can be weeks without any kind of massive update on the file but it isn't on from a customer service perspective.

Is there a switchboard number for the office or another department you can call to see if you can be transferred to someone who may be able to look into your case status for you or to ascertain whether your conveyancer is on some kind of sickness absence/annual leave that they haven't updated you about?

Thanks everyone. I have just sent a very strongly worded email expressing how disappointed I am with the lack of communication and asked for a response “as a matter of priority.” I wanted to put by close of business tomorrow but my husband said no 🙄

I have approached another conveyancer for a quote so if the current one hasn’t responded by Friday I think I will open up a complaint and put the request in to move.

Can I ask who your current conveyancer is? A large group got hacked on Tuesday, which could explain your delay a bit (although probably not).

We changed solicitors and I am so pleased we did. I wish we did it earlier. If they have applied for searches then I would wait until you get those back then move. If they haven't, move now.

I kept giving them more chances and I really regret it. They did absolutely zero work apart from getting searches in 2.5 months. Our new solicitors have now completed everything and we are ready to exchange in 4 weeks.

I also really recommend calling the main switchboard instead of their direct number. If you keep calling them, they put pressure on the solicitor to answer whereas the direct number they just ignore because no one else is being bothered.

Hi all. Thanks for the advice.

As previously said, I emailed last night asking for a response “as a matter of priority”

Solicitor rang today and said she’d actually been off sick last week really ill but gave a lengthy update and we have the ball rolling again!

Not sure why the receptionist couldn’t just say that instead of she was “out of office/not available but should be available soon”

@MrsR2018 they have to say out of office/not available because of confidentiality - it’s up her if she told you she was sick

Hi there! Can I ask if you needed anything in order to change solicitors…like a handover essentially or did you just change? Ours aren’t even getting back to us after we told them we were leaving and I’m wondering how much correspondence is needed or we can just drop them completely and move on?

@blacklilypad Hi there! Can I ask if you needed anything in order to change solicitors…like a handover essentially or did you just change? Ours aren’t even getting back to us after we told them we were leaving and I’m wondering how much correspondence is needed or we can just drop them completely and move on?