Expectation for a conveyancing solicitor

[Onaladder]

I and my partner are in the process of buying a leasehold flat, and we are having rather stressful exchanges with our solicitor and want to check if we have a bad solicitor or if we are expecting too much

We are working with a not so cheap conveyancing firm in London called Bishopsgate law. They had a good review on Trustpilot and was quite expensive so we thought they would be reliable.

The strangest thing is the conveyancing solicitor refuses to provide straightforward answers to any of our questions that ask their opinion if something has a legal risk to us.

E.g., according to their initial report, the lease does not allow us to sell, let, or sub-let the leasehold. And that the leaseholder must offer the first right to purchase the leasehold to the landlord (freeholders), they just pointed this out like it was no problem so we asked them if this is a standard lease clause and if it is common, they refuse to answer (we found it egregious, but we are not lawyers…)

Also we asked if there are other clauses that has any significant negative implication for us? The solicitor just answered that we should read the lease and review documents ourselves and ask specific questions from the area we found concerning

But to be honest if we are to review all the legal documents and try to understand the legal implications why are we paying for a conveyancing solicitor?

There have been so many back and forth with the solicitor and we are about to give up now. The thing is we are very close to the exchange and don’t want to change them, but before giving them a review, we wanted to check if this is how it is in the UK property market and how conveyancing solicitors operate

The solcitior will prepare a report on title for you closer to exchange which should comment on clauses in the lease, search results and results of enquiries from the seller. If they are on a fixed fee they don't want to be doing extra work at this stage and if they aren't then they are keeping costs down for you. The person you are asking may be a junior clerk who may be waiting for a solicitor to review it before the report on title is prepared.

If there is anything that is a potential deal breaker you have spotted tell them this is the case.

I'd just go to the client care partner and say you've asked X, Y and Z but haven't had a definitive answer and want one. I worked in civil litigation and felt that I had to cover my backside until a more senior partner gave me the go ahead to answer honestly. The only time I could say "if it werr me" was when in meetings. It used to piss me off but I couldn't say anything definitive for risk of being sued.

Who are you buying the flat from? Has your seller had to offer the lease back to the freeholder? Sounds weird to me.

@SeasonFinale yeah so they gave me the title report early on in the process. I read the whole thing. In the report the solicitor just wrote that under the lease, the leaseholder cannot sell, let or sub-let and also have to give the landlord the first right of refusal to sell but no comments whatsoever

to be honest the title report just feels like a random copy and paste of the lease report but not really opining on anything

so I asked them questions on what is written in the title report and they said read the lease and the documents, and ask specific questions…

to be honest, I have worked on legal contracts before and work with complex terms all the time. Hence I prefer simple language when it comes to explaining implications. So it’s baffling why my solicitors refuse to provide a simple straightforward explanation or guidance which I thought was their role…

@superdupernova yeah you are right possibly I am dealing with very junior solicitors, but they are a team of two but only one has been responding to us. The other person I googled only passed the trainee stage in 2020…so yeah prob not very experienced either

@alrightnowthen I am so puzzled as well. At this rate, I might just email the vendor’s solicitor and ask how come the vendor was allowed to let and sell when the lease doesn’t allow them to do so…

They’re all shit. No good solicitors go into residential conveyancing because the pay is so much worse than other areas of law. Sometimes you might get an ok trainee on their way to a different area of law but in general they’re pretty terrible I’m afraid. Check everything and chase chase chase them! Something like 90% of professional negligence claims against Solicitors are about residential conveyancing…

The Report on Title does usually come just before exchange. It does sound like they are just cut and paste as you say. If the person did their TC in 2020 they should be better than that by the time they are 2 years post qualification.

Even junior solicitors (post qualified) should have more experience than you'd imagine- qualifying is a long process. Having said that, in my experience if someone can't put a legal document into simplified everyday language when reporting to a client then they probably don't fully understand it.

As someone said above, it is drummed into you not to give 'opinions' at the risk of being sued. As a junior solicitor I'd imagine they are particularly cautious about this. However it doesn't really sound like you're asking for opinions - it isn't an opinion to say "in the leases I've come across this clause is/isn't standard". What they shouldn't be doing is saying "I don't think you should go ahead because of this clause" - its their job to clearly explain a clause and the implications of it so that you can make an informed decision.

For example, it's also drummed into you to 'sufficiently scope the client retainer' which includes identifying the clients plans for the property. In this case if I was writing your report my comments would vary depending on whether you'd told me you planned to live in the flat long term as your main residence or whether you were buying as an investment to rent out. I hate standard precedent reports for this reason, they simply aren't tailored enough.

The clauses you've specifically referred to aren't incredibly unusual, but nor are they in almost every lease. Basically it gives the freeholder control over the tenants with an aim to minimising the risk of a tenant causing issues with other occupants of the building. Some freeholders want that level of involvement, some don't.

One thing your solicitor should definitely have told you is that just because a lease says "you can't do x" it doesn't actually prevent you asking the landlord for permission to do those things. If they provide their written consent for you to sub let etc then you can still do it.

I strongly belive you should have a solicitor you trust to be acting in your best interests in property transactions. At the end of the day you are making a big purchase and you need to be able to rely on them. Leaseholds especially tend to be more complex than freeholds and there is much more scope for things to be missed/go wrong. For that reason alone, I'd be sending in a complaint and asking them to transfer your file to someone more senior.

Having said all that, it is unreasonable that you don't think you should have to read the documentation - a report won't regurgitate the whole of the lease, it will highlight the bits they think are most important (hopefully in detail) but something might be important to you that they consider to be standard/not worth mentioning. The report you get isn't a replacement for reading the documentation which you will be signing to say you agree to. At the risk of sounding boring, I never sign anything I haven't read thoroughly myself (and I mean never) and it amazes me how many people are happy to sign without reading something. You aren't paying the fee just for them to explain the lease, reporting on the main points is one small part of a lot of legal work involved when buying a leasehold property.

Sorry this is so long!

When I bought a leasehold flat , I did read the entire lease document myself . It was about 30 pages I think but I don't remember it being hard to understand and I have no legal background at all. I don't think it matters whether something is usual or not in a lease. Surely the main thing in thing is whether you are ok with it or not?

@Cakedoesntjudge @alrightnowthen I took your advice to heart and decided to read the whole lease again. I did skim through it before but I admit my plan was to more focus on the solicitors' report...
We are so close to exchange and this one is not going to be a forever home (the plan is to live here max 5 years), so as long as the lease will allow us to sell the property, and does not have egregious ground rent / has sufficient terms left we will end up buying it.
But seriously why is there something called lease in this country, the whole system is so strange...

Some of us like residential property and are good at our jobs thank you very much @EzzieM

Is it a shared ownership flat or is there some reason why it might only be sold to people with a local connection or similar OP? Otherwise the right of first refusal is unusual.

@MinnieMountain no just a straightforward(?) leasehold flat
it looks like our solicitor just made mistake in their report bc on our repeated queries on the matter, they refuse to provide answers then at last, they confirmed that we can now sell, and let but just not sublet....

and they acknowledged that the right of refusal was mistakenly added in the report..

I think I just have the bad ones (they don't seem to have read the materials carefully)

Bishopsgate Law have lots of happy reviews on Trustpilot but there in a suggestion that many might be fake. There are also very many horror stories. My house buyer is signed with them and our solicitor struggles to get hold of them. They rarely answer the 'phone. I think they are a 'factory' operation