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House sale solicitor ping-pong

Whilst there are small solicitor firms that are not great you are far more likely to have poor service from the big firms. Most have unqualified people answering the phone and contacting anyone with any sense is next to impossible. One of the main problems is that more and more refuse to talk on the phone and as a result something that can be sorted in minutes takes weeks. Having said this, the cost of indemnity insurance is eye watering and solicitors have to be very risk adverse as a result. This is often what drives pages of totally inane questions. My wife despairs at what the profession has become and the lack of professionalism she encounters day to day. To be fair this is not just solicitors but also the large licensed conveyancing firms.
 
The other side's solicitor was a big West End firm with someone nowhere near partner level.
Always going off to take advice before answering. Some of the points raised were laughable - even to me as a non solicitor.
May have been her Yank clients asking for things we we don't do in the UK.
Best would have been me and them sitting in a room without solicitors to finalise
 
Many small practice solicitors I know do conveyancing for quite a few partners at the big city firms. The reason being is that they may be experts in esoteric areas of law but know bugger all about bread and butter work.
 
Well slap me with a kipper and call me Mary, someone in the Housing Association found a battered copy of the relevant contract in a drawer and sent it to my daughter. Contracts exchanged within 24 hours and everyone smiling and happy, especially the solicitor who did naff all, nearly screwed the whole sale and will still get paid in full.
 
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hc25036 said:
Well slap me with a kipper and call me Mary, someone in the Housing Association found a battered copy of the relevant contract in a drawer and sent it to my daughter. Contracts exchanged within 24 hours and everyone smiling and happy, especially the solicitor who did naff all, nearly screwed the whole sale and will still get paid in full.
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Well done, a bit of good news amongst all the doom and gloom.
 
hc25036 said:
Well slap me with a kipper and call me Mary, someone in the Housing Association found a battered copy of the relevant contract in a drawer and sent it to my daughter. Contracts exchanged within 24 hours and everyone smiling and happy, especially the solicitor who did naff all, nearly screwed the whole sale and will still get paid in full.
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Not sure whether it's worth the aggravation, but poor service like this shouldn't be rewarded, IMHO. I think there's an ombudsman you could raise a complaint with? I think you'll probably have to have attempted some form of resolution directly with the firm in question first, though, so now the dust has settled, I'd be tempted to put in a letter of complaint about the mishandling and the stress it added to an already stressful experience, and see where it gets you. If they were genuinely incompetent, perhaps the Office of Supervision of Solicitors might take an interest.
 
Worth spreading the word locally about the level of service.

We had a complex land purchase involving four solicitors last year; their performance varied dramatically.

I've just instructed the best on a sale.
 
Sue, if it was me I’d be demanding the fee be reduced by £50 an hour for all the work we did on the solicitor’s behalf - including obtaining the document from someone she claims to have contacted 2 weeks previously for exactly the same document (which is why we didn’t approach them until we were desperate).

As it is, the buyer is delighted it’s finally over and won’t feel like adding to the stress so the lazy lawyer will just carry on to the next client....
 
hc25036 said:
Sue, if it was me I’d be demanding the fee be reduced by £50 an hour for all the work we did on the solicitor’s behalf - including obtaining the document from someone she claims to have contacted 2 weeks previously for exactly the same document (which is why we didn’t approach them until we were desperate).

As it is, the buyer is delighted it’s finally over and won’t feel like adding to the stress so the lazy lawyer will just carry on to the next client....
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Which is why I think complaining is important. The system is already stacked in favour of solicitors, so make them at least do the bloody job they are (handsomely) paid to do.
 
Part of the problem is that often you don't know the advice you're being given is right or not, so you don't even know you should/could complain. Worst case I've had is a neighbour's solicitor drawing up an agreement and stating it was all finished and it would be acceptable to (in this case) Land Registry (LR). I luckily send it to my solicitor to add in some small details and he came back to say a complete paragraph was missing, one which would mean it wouldn't be legally binding let alone acceptable to LR.

The neighbour's solicitor had taken 3 months to faff-about on something that my solicitor took 2 hours to pull apart but also correct.

CHE
 
I think one of the important issues here is that lawyers generally have their specialities. Our solicitor is great for things like drawing up wills and property matters. If heaven forbid I don't think I would ask him to represent me in court.

You wouldn't ask a brain surgeon to carry out a heart transplant. You can choose your own solicitor, but you have no control over the solicitor chosen by the other party.
 
It was going so well until the final slap with a wet haddock - it’s all taken so long that the valuation has passed its sell-by date. So, the flat has to be surveyed and valued again (£200 to you guv) and if the value has changed who knows what changes will have to be made to the paperwork. They may hang it out long enough for the valuation to run out again so that (cont. p94)
 
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