Solicitors- come and rant

[iloveyoubutilovememore]

Can someone please explain to me why some not all solicitors seem to drag their heels when it comes to buying or selling a property? We are around six weeks into buying and selling, chain of four and our sellers solicitor is being incredibly slow and difficult. Luckily, I am in contact with our seller who is very nice and cooperative, She has messaged me today to say that when she asked her solicitor if they had the searches back for the house she is buying. They have told her they will have them no sooner than 7th November! Bear in mind that ours in the same area took five days. Why are they dragging their hills?! Anyone else in a similar situation?

You think these solicitors are bad. It took 2 years to produce probate for my relatives estate. A very simple one. A house and a couple of Bank accounts. We provided a house valuation when first engaging them. It was ridiculous. I will say no more or my blood pressure will go up again.

Recently I was buying and was in danger of losing the property if things did not crack on a bit. All that was needed was for my solicitor to chase up an outstanding piece of paperwork that my buyer's solicitor was being slow about. I asked my solicitors if she might get in touch with them and ask when this paperwork might be expected. She replied that she could do that but it would be "reflected in my bill."

So .... it seems that a solicitor does not include chasing things up in their role - quite unbelievable!

In my professional role I used to assume that my job was to see things through to the end, do all I could to facilitate that and to reach a good conclusion. Solicitors are different it would seem!

Does your estate agent employ a dedicated sales progressor? They were excellent at chasing people up and getting things moving.

Our solicitor was great - proactive and sensible. In chats about our buyers, he diagnosed the problem quickly: their solicitor was a muppet who didn’t understand conveyancing (his description) but he did say it’s always badly paid in relation to other work, so it lands on juniors in great piles. Get what you pay for I guess

We went with the most expensive solicitors in our local city. They have an excellent reputation and we wanted a quick sale.
We accepted an offer on ours on 4th July, had our offer accepted on our new house on 9th July, exchange happened within 10 weeks and we completed on 15th Oct.
Each time there was a query I phoned our solicitor and she answered straight away, dealt with it that day and hit back to us. She even went on holiday for a week when we exchanged but her colleague filled in with no issues. You really do get what you pay for.

I was hoping this was a thread for the solicitors to rant if I'm honest

Me too @purplebeansprouts .

Really? As I have just done mine with no issues. Just as the previous poster said, it's all very simple. Other party's solicitor hated it though and was very resistant.

Has it been registered yet @DavidBattenburgh ?

Sure. But at least one of you needs to be a solicitor.

People conflate solicitors with conveyancers. They are not the same.

Pay for a cheap conveyancing factory located in Leicester or one of their subsidiaries then more fool you and you well deserve the scorn that will be poured on you from everyone else in your chain.

It’s not the conveyancers @Champere. It’s the business model that’s the problem.

I’m an experienced residential property solicitor. I joined a licensed conveyancers when it was still run by 2 people who had started the business from scratch. It had a good reputation. Since we got sold to one of those firms (not the one near Leicester), our reputation has plummeted.

Unfortunately the business model is a byproduct of clients not valuing the service provided by residential property lawyers and how commoditised it has all become. It's mad that people will pay a ridiculous % of the sale price to the estate agent, but begrudge their solicitor more than a few hundred quid fixed fee (and guess who gets sued if things go wrong!)

Edited to say, I know you know all this PP!

I think those stories would be much more entertaining (IANAL but have been known to browse Roll On Friday for amusement)

Indeed they do @Cardboardeaux . Clients have got ridiculously demanding since I was last a fee earner. The only reason I’m still in the industry is because I do technical support.

Glass Door is also an interesting read 😁

edited for typo

I am trying to sell my house. Does anyone know, if I act as my own solicitor, can I write I write to the solicitor of the other person who has shares in the house?

@Bachly when you say act as your own solicitor, do you mean your a conveyancing lawyer/property lawyer/experienced case manager yourself?

No, I mean I share a house with my sister. I want to sell and move on. She has a solicitor she is dealing with. I don't. Although it is not a straight forward sale, we have different shares in the house, I would like to get the house on the market so that things can start to move forward

Why can’t you use the same solicitor as your sister @Bachly ? Even divorcing couples normally do.

@Bachly I have been quoted £1642 to sell my house by the conveyancer. I think it is money well spent as I wouldn't be confident to do it myself. I think legally you are allowed to do it yourself.

Our solicitor and buyers solicitors for selling our property have been great, sale is all ready. It’s the vendors solicitors that are really slow, still haven’t received draft contracts 8 weeks into purchase.

My sister has ordered her solicitor not to converse with me. Using the same solicitor is not an option

Ours was awful 😅 kept emailing me asking the same questions (which I answered) every day, yet ignoring the sales coordinator who was then ringing me asking what was going on.

The best part was when she went on annual leave the day of completion, didn’t tell us she was going and didn’t hand the work over to anybody, so we had a huge panic on the day and finally got someone else at the firm to agree to help as nobody wanted to step in, eventually completed at 16:45 on a Friday, all our stuff was in removal vans on the drive and there was an irate buyer waiting to move in. She nearly broke the entire chain with her incompetence!

I’d instruct your own solicitor then @Bachly . There’s a risk of her telling her solicitor something that is untrue that the solicitor is unable to check.
Are your shares in the property properly documented?

I am acting forysrlf at the moment. My sister's solicitor and I have established that my sister does not always tell the truth and that she frequently renages on what she agrees to. Hence I want a paper trail with her solicitor.
My sister and I were about to update the Land Registry on the house and we're about to create a Deed of Trust in preparation for this.