Aggressive Land Law solicitor sought

[Dinnerplatedahlia]

Does anyone know of a property lawyer who is red hot about covenants and stands no nonsense? We are being pulverised by our affluent neighbours’ solicitor and our solicitor is no match. She sadly dropped the ball during the conveyance process and it has only just come to light. She doesn’t want to go there but unfortunately we’ve got no choice. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks

However it works, they've missed it and fucked up.

They should be checking and double checking. Covenants are pretty easy to spot on title deeds, after all.

I feel for the solicitor, she’s a good person who tries to do a good job. I’m a professional and I live in fear of making a mistake but the worse thing you can do is deny it and make the mistake worse. It’s late now and I’m exhausted but I’d like to revisit some of these posts tomorrow and perhaps ask further questions and ask for more advice especially from the professionals, if I may. It’s good to understand what we should ask and prepare for from the complaints procedure or an alternative legal professional. When this is over, I’m going to resurrect this thread and fill in the blanks. I want this to be a warning. In the meantime, amazingly, some people lie on legal forms… God I’m naive. CHECK THE REGISTER YOURSELF. Never allow yourself to be rushed.😞

In future I would always check the title and searches myself instead of relying on a solicitor. Got burned the last time I bought a house unfortunately.

I am really sorry for you, it’s stressful enough buying a house when things go right.
IMO and experience the law is not about right and wrong as it should be, but who’s got the deepest pockets and with respect from what you say, you haven’t.
So forget nicety’s, your conveyancer won’t be saying ‘ they are a nice couple that I messed up their purchase” The practise will close ranks and hope you go away. Therefore the first approach will to be the practice, no point asking questions due to they most likely won’t want to commit themselves, the only thing you need to know is their complaints procedure, followed by contacting the law society.
You have to be aware that even if the situation was reversed and your neighbours were in the wrong, if they have deep pockets their counsel can and probably would drag the case out to a point you run out of money. This as just happened to a friend, he was 100% in the right. However the other party just keep dragging it out and finally it got to a point he couldn’t afford to pay yet another load of money to his legal team to continue.

Never a truer word…

@takeaflight God that’s depressing. Poor guy. Injustice is soul destroying. The meek won’t inherit the earth, they’ll get peed on from a great height.

Takeaflight - I quite agree , those with the most money win.
And yes to following the complaints procedure.
I might be wrong but the appropriate professional body to deal is the SRA, not the law society.
And as far as I know the SRA won't right wrongs or seek recompense . Their role is regulating conduct and taking action against solicitors who have acted incorrectly. Sanctions vary but solicitors can lose their registration and job.

Not sure why you'd contact the law society or even the SRA. They've made a mistake not done something that means they should be punished by the regulator.

Solicitors as in all other professions have PI insurance to deal with this. Go to compliance and go from there. They will have to notify their insurers.

I think people are getting confused between the SRA and the legal ombudsman, which is who you would contact if they didn't answer a complaint in a satisfactory manner.

In this case they need to initiate a professional negligence claim

@NeedSomeAnswersPlease sorry my post was a red herring really. Prompted by mention of law society.
In this case they need to initiate a professional negligence claim
I'm sure that's right.

@kirinm IMO no point involving the SRA at all, and especially not at this stage.
And I suppose mistakes aren't always caused by negligence anyway.

Yes the SRA are generally concerned with conduct not mistakes (speaking as a solicitor).

Yes, it's definitely LeO, not the SRA you refer on to if unhappy after the formal complaint response.

Urgh. Sounds like a typical retaining wall in Malvern issue. God speed OP.

Thank you all, especially the professional people. It’s helpful to try to make some sense of all the issues, of which there are several. I just really hope that the firm in question can agree that this is human error, and deal with it honourably. We don’t want anyone’s blood, just to be put back in the position we would have been in if we’d have known.
@kirinm is that Legal Ombudsman LeO?

They'll have to turn it over to their PII and then their solicitors get involved. Expect it to change - there will be no more direct comms with the firm in question. You'll go through your sol and their insurer's sol. They will do the talking. After some Time the question of quantum will come up - how much are you set back? Figure that out, that's your claim. You'll never again speak with the solicitor who acted for you in the conveyancing - it'll be taken over by the litigators now.

@SphincterSaysWhat OK thanks for the pointers. Do you have any idea how long the process takes, or is that impossible to predict? Are we talking weeks, months, years even?

I was going to ask you - what is your loss? What would you have done with the information had they raised it? (I am asking out of curiosity rather than from any legal perspective- although that is what you'll be asked).

It will take as long as the solicitors will take to agree who is to blame, then quantum. If those issues are settled early, then it can be within a year.

If cause and effect is agreed (the cause was professional
Negligence and the effect is a loss to you of £70k) then your sols will submit their offer, say £70k damages due to you plus your costs, the other side will come back with no, £30k and so on.
If you cannot agree, it goes to court. But no firm wants that.

You will have to prove she reasonably should have seen the risk and you reasonably weren't expected to see it for yourselves (mitigation). Has she accepted
Blame?

You won't get all your damages, there will be some give and take.

It will be, hands down, the most horrific time for your original conveyancing solicitor (is she a solicitor?) - that's not taking away from your loss at all, just don't think that it's passed to the PII guys and then it's all happy days, back to work. She'll lose sleep over it, but she's never gonna make that mistake again and you must be put right. It's why people use solicitors - we have outstanding PII cover. The public must never be worse off for using us. Hopefully her firm will support her, because we are all just human. I really hope your damages get covered - or nearly so. How much are we talking? Is it a retaining wall issue?

We wouldn’t have bought it, certainly not without a survey to inform us of the condition. For us to go ahead with the purchase, it would have had to have decades of life left in it before work was required and even then we’d have been unsure. TBH, we’d have been gutted but realistically would have had to pull out knowing we would never find that money. We have sent photos to a specialist who has said we are unlikely to have change out of 250-300k but could be more once proper survey is done. Granted this opinion was from photos but very respected firm. He said that was a conservative estimate. I knew it wasn’t good news when he started the call with, ‘I’m sorry you’re not going to like this…..’ Horrific shock.

This isn't my area but I have cases that can appear very simple but can take years (sorry),

As for another post above, yeah the conveyancer will be losing sleep over it - we lose sleep over a lot of things and it can be incredibly stressful if you've made a mistake but that is part of the responsibility that comes with being a solicitor. (And will apply in lots of other jobs too),

Wow. I'm so sorry.

You'll struggle fighting the buyer beware side of things.

What bearing does the covenant have? (May I ask?).

I agree and I can’t help feeling bad for her because I still believe totally that she’s a good solicitor. And yes it applies to my job and as I said earlier I live in fear of this. It wasn’t deliberate, there but for the grace of God etc 😔

Is it an SRA reg firm? Will they be adequately insured? It's not a conveyancing firm, is it? I mean CLC or a paralegal firm?

@SphincterSaysWhat The covenant was buried in an historical deed. This is where the obligation comes from for us. It’s not a retaining wall no. Sorry to be evasive.

No proper solicitor firm.