Conveyancing solicitor lack of communication :(

[Honey2]

I am getting increasingly frustrated with my conveyancing solicitor due to a lack of communication :(

The process began on 30 march - buying and selling a house. (4 houses in chain). Before the official searches were applied for I asked some initial questions of my own, about land at the front of the property which although is owned by the property on the plan, it has road signs + telegraph/electricity poles on, so I assume some access rights exist and I wanted to understand any restrictions.

Roll forward to 5 June and although I have asked solicitor if they have had replies to the initial questions they are refusing to say yes or no, as well as stating they will not give me any insights until ALL information is gathered from searches etc and the vendors solicitor has replied to ALL enquires. Not even what info they have and what they are waiting for.

Is this normal? I never get to speak to the actual conveyancer, just the person that answers the phone. Every time I call I get the same response, "we are waiting for answers to enquiries, we will let you know when we are ready to report". They have not proactively contacted me at all throughout the process apart from at the beginning to ask me to fill in the initial forms. I admit I now have started calling them once per week, for the last 3 weeks as I feel totally in the dark.

Well, it takes a lot more of their time to do things "piecemeal" and no doubt you expect them to stick to their agreed (usually fixed) conveyancing fee?

I'm an accountant, so similar in some aspects, and it really does add time to the job, and delays other clients, if a client wants some information before everything is ready, or gives us random information piecemeal. Far more efficient to have everything present before we start a job and before we give any advice/results to the client.

It also reduces errors as looking at "the whole picture" at the same time gives a much better "image" of all aspects. Cherry picking small bits of the puzzle often leads to mistakes etc.

At the end of the day, why does it matter for you to know about random bits of information in the middle of the process? It's not as if you're going to drop out of the sale (is it?) and it's not going to speed up the process.

Just be patient. It's a process they do day in and day out, and they can't proceed without everything in place, so the actual conveyancing solicitor probably doesn't even see the file until their secretary/junior has ticked off all items of information/documents having been received.

@Badbadbunny It's not as if you're going to drop out of the sale (is it?)

Actually, its more important than perhaps I made it sound. The area of land is the drive way up to the property, which we'd like to improve and fence in for safety and security. If we are not able to erect a fence or lay a driveway maybe it is a deal breaker. There was also a legal dispute on part of the land a couple of years ago when a house building company wanted to force the sale of some of the land to widen a path. (The owner won I believe).

I do understand giving piecemeal info could give a muddled picture, but they just seem reluctant to engage in any form of update!

Have you bought or sold before?
in my experience (4 house) this is the norm. They do bugger all unless you chase them. There’s a sudden burst of activity once a completion date is mentioned, sometimes it goes close to the wire as searches haven’t come back etc.

We did have one decent one though so they do exist!

Shouldn’t you have dealt with that before starting the formal purchase process? Should have been researched before agreeing to buy.

The lack of communication sounds really bad. 3 months is too long to hear nothing. Can't you find the information some other way since you might actually pull out in some circumstances?
Out of interest, is this one of the big cheap conveyancing firms, who have form for this?

Are you using a proper law firm or a conveyancing factory?

In my experience typical conveyancing practice. They’ll only contact you if they need more info from you.

Just let them get on with it.

You have raised your concerns, they will be looking into it and suddenly there will be a flurry of activity and boom … you’ll be exchanging and completing.

My last sale took 13 weeks which I believe is typical. Given the tricky details of the driveway, yours might take longer because your conveyancer will need info which is out of the ordinary from 3rd parties regarding wayleaves etc.

I'm having a similar experience and also have issues with the drive and boundary issues. @Badbadbunny very difficult to research these things in advance when you only find out once the paperwork lands in your hands. The boundaries the estate agent told us are completely wrong, and they told us the property owned the drive, which now we have the deeds in hand, it seems it doesn't. The deeds weren't available in advance as the property hasn't sold since 1970.

We are three months in and I'm getting no response from our conveyancer, who is a local firm, and the vendors are even worse. You have my shared sympathy!

I have bought houses before and it was nothing like this. Unfortunately my buyer has nabbed my usual conveyancer so I couldn't use her.

Your process started on the 30th March - that's actually not that many working days (approx 46, deducting weekends and bank holidays) when you have to take into account how long it would have taken the solicitors to receive the draft contracts from the seller's solicitors in the first place and how long it would take for a solicitor to review those draft contracts/accompanying documents and to raise enquiries about it.

Progress is often slow at the beginning because so many things are requested and waited for and solicitors cannot control when other parties reply/respond/provide documentation. It's therefore difficult for solicitors to answer your questions if they've not yet had satisfactory responses to enquiries they and you have raised.

Unfortunately it will take as long as it takes - you will need to be patient.

Something is fundamentally broken in the conveyancing system.

@Fibrous I agree, we've bought and sold before and it was nothing like this. Just the total lack of response, even to pertinent things. This lack of communication seems counterproductive to me as it results in heightened stress, mistrust all round and mad rushes at the end because something important wasn't dealt with due to clients being ignored for weeks on end.
I feel everyone's pain. Something has to change.

How much extra in solicitor fees are you willing to pay for them to review your files more often, communicate with you more often, etc. It all takes time so will add to your bill. This is the exact problem with competitive market, fixed fee conveyancing, etc., as it's got to be "streamlined" to be offered at cheap fees, hence solicitors not actually looking at the file until they have all the checklist ticked off re information and documents they need.

@Badbadbunny I agree with you re the competitive market. I would be willing to pay extra.
We are actually paying more than the online ones for a local firm, yet still have had a nightmare unfortunately.
Sometimes 5 minutes looking at an issue in a timely way would save a whole world of pain further down the line. It's just ignore, ignore ignore.... until "oh, there's a problem here.". Sometimes communicating is essential to avoid isssues further down the line. Surely that's in their interest too, to get it over the line.

We used an independent solicitors, lots of information disclosed, along with the survey being checked. They found a couple of problems with the survey, one being the boiler. We had a phone call from them at 10.30 on a Saturday to discuss this. Plus a problem with our purchaser, which they solved and informed us of the outcome. House sale and purchase completed in 6 weeks!

You would be waiting 6 weeks for the searches here!

Exactly so. Nothing happens ... nothing happens ... nothing happens ... ring up ... something small happens .... and so on ad nauseam.

We are not supposed to show any interest in this "service" we pay a fortune for, even if there are some really important factors (as with OP) that need sorting before proper decisions can be made.

Last time, the builders who were selling me the house were getting really fed up because their solicitor was waiting for something from mine and were getting no replies. They asked me to chase up. My solicitor said they would look into it but this would be reflected as an addition to the agreed fee. Nice work if you can get it!

Conveyancing solicitors have us over a barrel.... they know that once they have started on a case the client can't really change to a better solicitor as things would need repeating and that means more delays.

The whole house buying/selling system is seriously flawed and people are out through so much unnecessary stress.