I have bought and sold a few houses now so I know that the legal part of the process is nearly always a complete pain in the ass. In my experience the conveyancers need constant chasing just to do their jobs, I have used cheap ones and more expensive ones, the cheap ones were so bad they agreed to give half our money back and the more expensive ones a bit better but still quite painful.
The current company I am using I have used before and they were "ok". But shortly after I instructed them, our named conveyancer has gone off sick, I was told someone else had the case then, a locum had the case, now getting "out of office" replies from the locum. Alarm bells are starting to ring!
People in my chain are getting impatient and I am worried my conveyancers are going to cause undue delays.
Always feels like they have you by the balls in my experience, because once you have started giving them money and they start the process you are pretty much stuck with them.
Anyway, half a rant and half a plea for any advice about how to... motivate them? Same firm handling my sale and onward purchase.
I should just say that I am sure all these firms are short staffed and over worked but they do seem to manage to make my blood boil all the same!
I feel your pain.
I work for a law firm one day a week, that has a conveyancing department and I still had to chase continuously. In my case they were just snowed under with work… but chasing and ensuring that you aren’t just going to sit quietly while they prioritise their workload is likely going to be more fruitful. I’d just keep them reminded, a lot - provided you’re on a fixed price conveyance and not paying by the hour.
It's just a matter of time...
Sorry, no advice to make them move any faster, they all seem to have one pace, which is slower than most would like.
The last few I have used have had online messaging portals, ie easy to see all messages/chasers in one place, i asked for their timeline and if they didn’t meet them, then a message periodically asking for an update. I would hope that someone would see the number of messages and question the timing, or at least give me an angle to pressure them if needed.
The only advice I can give is to expect the task to take longer than you expect and manage the 3rd parties accordingly. If there are any estate agents in the process and they are chasing you, give their Sales Progressor your Conveyancer details and ask them to chase too.
One thing we found was having a back channel to your buyer / seller was very useful. You could get them to apply pressure from their equally useless legal goitre and check that messages had been transmitted and received (usually the message had been sat in a junk folder, not been sent or sent to the wrong place).
Not foolproof of course and even after flubbing a bunch of paperwork, thinking they could submit it at the last minute only for the receiving ends computers to go down caused us to nearly not complete in the day, they will had the iron pods to ask for another £700 months after we completed.
It was a while ago when I went through it, but this was used with the firm I had, it was really good, really efficient, you could see the progress as it went along the process and what was outstanding and what was next, worked well.Originally Posted by Captaincook
Cheers..
Jase
We've only moved twice and used the same conveyancing firm each time for a set fee. They did the job they were paid to do within an acceptable timeline. We used them last February and no complaints.
When we moved the problems sat squarely with the estate agents, who did next to nothing for their not-inconsiderable fee, took an age to respond with really basic information and had the communication skills of a plank.
The conveyancers were Browns Solicitors (Buckinghamshire) if anyone's interested. We don't live anywhere near them but they were recommended by a family friend.
I got friendly with the solicitors secretary, can now contact her directly to get to the bottom of any issues (in fact just WhatsApp'd her this morning about a sale going through and had an instant update!)
And a back-channel to the other side via the agent or whatever is also a great way to speed thing along
Agreed. In the course of my last experience as a seller the estate agent was very good at co-hassling the conveyancer. They don't get paid until the sale goes through after all, and I always conceived of his role as not just showing prospective buyers around but adding to the pressure. I think with pretty much all conveyancers it's the case that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and the more squeaks the better.
I used RMNJ when buying in London and they were extremely efficient and proactive, even chasing me for stuff.
I just bought a place in Scotland and used a small local firm as they were a good £500 cheaper , the house buying process is slightly different in Scotland but the conveyancers were very good at advising me and even heading me off from spending money on an unecessary survey ( the homebuyers report had an in depth survey that was totally trustworthy and indemnified , I had assumed I’d need to do my own for safety and not be able to to trust the sellers but seemingly its chain of liability is more water tight in Scotland)
I see it slightly differently in that you get what you pay for.
if you want absolute dedication to the cause, enlist the help of a lawyer that specialises in conveyancing. However, if you go to a conveyancing company you're effectively buying a cheaper, conveyor belt solution. You also have no idea whether the member of staff allocated to you is completely overloaded or not.
You pays your money...
The trouble is you usually pays a lot of money - and many seem pretty incompetent- continually asking for info you’ve already supplied
I have found zero correlation between price and quality when it comes to solicitors . One of the worst I ever experienced was a QC and was also the most expensive .
Generally if I feel they are lacking I’ll find another that I feel better has my back and drop the first one. This works pretty well in my experience and I usually expect to drop my first solicitor about 1/3 of the time. And on that score they are probably no better or worse than any other trade.
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