How long is acceptable for solicitors to respond?

[violetpixie]

Currently going through a lengthy enquiries process, in 3 weeks I'm evicted from my rental. We haven't exchanged yet and I'm overwhelmed with stress that we are going to be homeless.

Solicitors are telling me they do everything in date order and they will get back to me when it's done, seemingly unaware of my eviction date although I've informed them many times. No matter what I do they don't seem willing to accelerate the process, even slightly.

Vendors have sent the third round of responses on Monday early afternoon, they went through over the phone with their solicitor and seem sure they are satisfactory. They are getting very impatient.

2 whole days have gone by and my solicitors still haven't looked at them.

I have no family I can stay with if I am evicted so I will have to move into a hotel and put my belongings into storage which is obviously expensive and not maintainable.

How fucked am I? What can I do? Contemplating writing a bad review on trustpilot just to try and get some attention to the issue 😭

Contemplating writing a bad review on trustpilot just to try and get some attention to the issue

No! That is a very bad idea.

Some solicitors will let you pay extra for an expedited process. Ask if you can do that.

When you say evicted, do you mean people are are going to turn up to physically turf you out, or do you mean that is when your lease ends?

I got given a section 21 for my rental

Someone more experienced than me will come along and advise, I suspect. You do have the option of telling them you are unable to leave on the date they have given you. If they have to go through a formal process to get you out, via a court, it could take months and months and cost a lot of money.

I have only had to do it once, I just emailed my LL and said 'I have been sick and unable to house hunt, I have transferred two weeks rent to your account and will leave by X date.' He was hopping mad because he intended to move his family back into the flat and claimed to have removals arranged, etc (it was about a week ahead of my end date), but I was sick as a dog, unable to even go out, and, I guess he knew two weeks was better than court, so he sucked it up.

@KievLoverTwo I forgot to mention in my post that the vendors mortgage offer also runs out around the same time, so even if I can stay longer things might fall through if it goes on much more

I would check with your broker now, you might be able to get it extended by one month.

The vendor's mortgage is something they and their solicitor may be able to extend, if exchange is fairly imminent.

However, the landlord cannot evict you. Only the courts can (or you have served notice to quit yourself) and this is a lengthy process so it would give you many months before the court appoints bailiffs to evict you. Was the Section 21 served correctly? If the landlord has omitted something, he will have to start again. This is the reason the solicitors are not in a hurry. Legally your landlord cannot stop you from staying put.

Obviously the solicitor needs to do his due diligence on your purchase and won't be prepared to exchange unless they and any lender are happy, but more importantly, in a legal sense you have every right to just stay in your rental until you complete on your new home.

If the landlord wants you out, then ask him to pay you a sizeable amount of money for the convenience of you moving out according to his wishes and timeline and for the inconvenience of having to rent an AirBNB or holiday let to bridge the gap. If the landlord won't do this, then tell him you cannot leave in three weeks and instead invite him to start the court process. You can tell him you'll go when you have the keys to the new property.

Oh and don't write a bad review about your solicitor. This is out of their control and nothing to do with the legal conveyancing they are doing for your purchase. When you instructed them to act for you in the purchase, that is all they are instructed to do, not become named and shamed just because your landlord has served a Section 21 on you.

That definitely isn't why I wanted to write a bad review, I have had a ton of issues outside of this.

Mortgage offer was received 3 months into the process because they were removed from my lenders panel and decided to wait weeks after being made aware to reapply.

Lost email of draft contract so never sent any pre search enquiries. Delayed sending enquiries after search results for about 2 weeks because they were waiting for a document me, the estate agent and then vendor had already told them wasn't available. We were forced to make the vendors solicitors phone them themselves to make them listen. Don't reply to any emails, unavailable on the phone loads of the time, long turnaround time to look at anything. I requested they fill out a form to withdraw my LISA, took them over a week.

We are 4 months in now.

Actually I wrote a bad review for mine on my first house and suddenly (after over 6m) the whole thing happened within 3 days.

However I only did so as I noticed that people had changed their reviews and had the exact same issue as me.

reallt sorry your in this position OP