Should you use solicitors who don't have a "no sale no legal fee" policy

[Lunapuf5]

We've spoke to a solicitor and they told us that they don't have a no sale no legal fee guarantee- is that a red flag? The property we are selling is leasehold so in case something happens and the sale falls through we would like that guarantee. Should we keep looking and is it a red flag when solicitors don't have this policy?

I'm not sure why everyone seems to take this personally? We've seen that there many solicitors who offer this guarantee but found one that didn't so we thought that the policy is the usual and the ones that din't offer this were the odd ones out. Estate agent fees, conveyancing, stamp duty, and deposit it all adds up so obviously people try to save where they can. When we were first time buyers we went with our broker's recommendation who didn't offer this deal and they were an absolute nightmare

A "no sale no fee" arrangement means the lawyers take 100% of the risk for the transaction not proceeding for a reason which will be nothing to do with them.

For that to work in any commercial sense there would have to be a "success" uplift if the sale DID proceed - meaning fees are twice as high.

Some firms do offer different pricing structures but I've never heard of any kind of contingency for residential property work

Are you sure they’re not selling you an insurance policy to cover their fees? That’s what the high street firm in Norfolk I worked for 13 years ago offered. It was about £20.