My solicitor is crap

[Fuuuuuckit]

Just needing a moan, and hopefully assurances that it's not me being unreasonable.

Selling my childhood home after my mum died very suddenly and unexpectedly earlier this year.

A chain of 3 - ftb, our buyer and us.

All my completed paperwork (including deeds) handed over mid May. Since then my solicitor has been almost entirely uncontactable. After a week of trying to contact her about missing paperwork (that I signed in the office) I found out that she was on holiday but nobody picked up her calls/emails, tried various ways to contact the firm, to no avail. It took making a stage one complaint to get a call back from anyone.

My buyers' enquiries were emailed to my solicitor 2 weeks ago, it took 4 working days for them to be sent to me, and it's now a week since I replied, asking for clarification on a couple of points. No response. The ftb and my buyer are ready to go apart from the enquiries.

AIBU to think it shouldn't take 4 days to send out buyers enquiries, and a week to respond to the reply?

Or AIBU that I'm in a highly emotional mental state anyway and I should chill a bit?

There was talk of completion by mid July but it seems vanishingly unlikely now.

I bought as FTB in September 2020. It was painfully slow. The other side was probate sale.

I always had vague awareness conveyancing solicitors are infamous for being slow. This firm was recommended by colleague who used them twice, so I wasn't overly concerned.

IIRC our named solicitor did disappear on holiday for a time. As we rolled into each month, I had to pay another month's rent. I really wanted the two to dovetail nicely and not pay twice unnecessarily.

I think offer was accepted in mid June, completing by mid September.

I did copy in solicitors manager and made it clear I wasn't happy with speed - or rather I was unhappy she was wasting time chasing the other side for gas safety certificates completed 2+ ago on an ancient Baxi back boiler. First on our list of jobs was replacing that.

That is not slow. Conveyancers often have very big workloads and only deal with a file reactively. If you are buying with a mortgage they also work for the mortgage lender and have to satisfy the requirements of the lender as part of the process. Different lenders have different requirements.

I do think it was poor for the OP's solicitors not to provide a point of contact when the person dealing with her sale wasn't available.

Keep chasing. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, so they say. Sorry they're being so shit.

A good solicitor is worth their weight in gold. Mine, who I have used on about seven transactions, is always available, always up to date and gets things done.
I bought last summer and had two failed purchases before finally getting one completed (the other two sellers pulled out). From offer to getting keys was five weeks. My solicitor looked up the deeds before my surveyor went to see if there were any boundary or drainage queries, she kept me informed and got it all done.
It's shocking what some people seem to put up with from conveyancing solicitors. I'd escalate your concerns to her superiors. Squeaky wheel and all that.

Complain to the seniors partners. I have done this twice for two different issues. It is amazing how quickly things improve.

I get how stressful it is when you're moving but TBH I think you are being massively unreasonable saying you're solicitor is "crap" as it took them 4 days to look at the enquiries, review your file and send some to you to deal with. You are not their only client and with the market conditions being as they are conveyancers are rushed off their feet and have been for months.

I'm not a conveyancer but I have worked with loads, good and bad. They are only human and can only do what they can do. 4 days is nothing, had it been 4 weeks that might merit a complaint but not this.

I'm with Measureformeasure I'm afraid. 4 working days to look at enquiries and forward them to you is nothing when they are simultaneously working on many other files. Chasing them up all the time will also delay how much work in the day they can do.

I appreciate that the conveyancing world is crazy busy at the moment, I really do.

But expectations can be managed. Any busy professional worth their salt can find simple, effective ways to manage expectations. An out-of-office if on holiday perhaps. Its the tiniest things. I am only selling (thank god), there are no searches, enquiries, finances, lenders or redemptions to be dealt with for a simultaneous purchase. It really shouldn't be this hard.

Your conveyancing transaction started mid-May, so approximately 6 weeks ago and during this time your conveyancer has been on annual leave. In that time, it seems they have opened the file and completed their ID checks, sent over the draft contract pack and the buyer's solicitor has reviewed the pack and raised enquiries, some of which were for you to answer and you confirmed that you have replied back. That's not bad going actually.

When you stated in your opening post that you had provided your solicitor with the deeds, do you mean that the property was not registered, are did you just supply old title deeds which are no longer relevant?

Enquiries may also need to be answered by third parties, e.g. your solicitor, the Land Registry, the Council, the Management Company (if there is one) etc. Your buyer will also need search results (compulsory if they are obtaining a mortgage), which will also need to be reviewed by the buyer's solicitor and additional enquiries may be made in the light of anything shown up in the searches.

Because it is your buyer's solicitor who is making the enquiries and doing the due diligence, it is also their choice when they are ready. Your solicitor has to wait until the buyer's solicitor confirms they are ready to proceed.

Whilst "there are no searches, enquiries, finances, lenders or redemptions to be dealt with for a simultaneous purchase. It really shouldn't be this hard", you cannot proceed to completion without the buyer's solicitors agreement that the searches, enquiries, finances, lenders are all satisfactory for them to proceed to completion on behalf of their client.

The solicitor was engaged mid April, and I was sent the paper at the start of May. I submitted the completed paperwork pack mid May.

It took 4 working days from receipt of the buyers enquiries to send them to me, I returned them in 3 hours requesting a call back to check a few points. It took a further 5 working days plus a follow up email from me to acknowledge receipt of them, and the solicitor claimed not to have received them (when actually the original email that I had sent was the one they were replying to).

I sent in the house deeds as released by the bank and kept securely 🙄at home for the past 10 plus years.

My EA is as frustrated as I am, there seems to be open communication from all parties apart from my solicitor; there are surprisingly few hold-ups in the chain, everyone is keen to move quickly and we'll soon be in another holiday period with no idea of timescales yet.