Should I change solicitor?

[AYearOfCushions]

Offer accepted 1st May
Mortgage approved 10 days later
Everything submitted to solicitor straight away.
Survey completed and now it's just deadly silence.
Haven't heard back about the searches, emails to solicitor with questions went unanswered until we made a complaint.
Even then it was two week later.

We're not in a long chain, we're FTB's and vendor is buying a chain free property.

The reviews for this solicitor were great but it seems like nothing is happening. We know vendors solicitor has tried to chase ours, estate agent is calling us for updates and we don't have anything to tell!

What would you do in this situation and does changing solicitor set thing back?

I probably wouldn't change at this point. Are you just waiting for searches to come back? Have you been given an estimated date when these will be complete? This is what I would be trying to chase and then getting a timescale for exchange.

Did your solicitor tell you why there's a hold up? If not, email and ask what information they.re currently waiting for to proceed with exchange. You might find theyre waiting for searches to come back, or your seller's solicitor to reply to the queries theyve raised. Or they might just be very slow solicitors, plenty of bad ones around!! :(

They are probably just working on the matter. I'm sure being asked for updates etc slows them down. Just let them do their job. If not heard back in another 2 weeks call up and ask to speak to manager but until then I'd let them get on with their job and contact me with news when they have it

Normal for things to go a bit quiet whilst searches are carried out and vendors need to fill in lots of things. No harm asking for an update but buying will take at least 3 months in a straight forward transaction so hang on in there!

Just wondering if you were to change at this stage would you need to pay anything?