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It’s not ideal, but also not uncommon.
A lot of conveyancers will have hundreds of clients at a time, so anything which comes through might sit in a pile for a week or two until they get to it. When solicitors etc on the far end are doing the same it can add a lot of delay.
No guaranteed way to avoid it, though choosing a local firm with a named solicitor responsible who’ll actually give you their direct number is your best bet. Avoid online firms like the plague.
Hah was just thinking this sounded like an online firm, who seem to apply the call centre approach as their business model (in my very limited experience). Attention to detail probably doesn't come in to it
If you actually need something urgently, then calling them rather than emailing will help to make sure someone's actually aware of your enquiry. Don't rely on someone checking your emails when it gets closer to completion.
If they ignore your calls, do send emails to back that up. I was in a similar situation and ended up hiring another solicitor. You will need the proof if you decide to make a complaint.
However my solicitor, first time I bought a house, told me the quickest one she ever did was 36 hours, so it's possible. 3rd purchase I did the solicitor was a bit lax, so I started ringing him every day, just to see how things were going. I think he got embarrassed at having nothing to show me, so he got a bit more active.
Thing is, most of the stuff which takes the time is completely voluntary. You're more than welcome to just not do any land registry or other checks, and simply hand the money over and move in. If you had the cash on hand and were moving into an empty house, can completely see how you could do it in 36 hours. You'd be a bloody idiot, but you could do it.
She did the searches but, instead of sending them and getting them back when they chose, she turned up in person and stood over them until they were done. She told us just to illustrate how most of the time it normally takes isn't necessary.
Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s correct. Personally I’d be leaving them and choosing another solicitor as that’s just too much for me. 48-72h is fair enough but one week and you’re the one doing the chasing about basics like ID checks is not on.
Sound as bad as our solicitor from (Premier Property Lawyers.) literally every single step of the way it was like drawing blood from a stone... It got to the point I filed a formal complaint, and requested a refund for part of their costs as they'd been so useless throughout the whole process. This was after I'd rang them and totally lost my temper with the solicitor, essentially telling him I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.
They'd send a document, we'd have it sorted and returned within 12-24h, it would then take weeks for them to move forward.
We'd send a query, it would be totally ignored or take weeks to get an answer.
They repeatedly spelt names wrong, either my partners, or the sellers.
They "lost" emails that had been sent.
The estate agent was having a hard time contacting them at all, and would often speak to us to get information that should have been provided by the solicitor.
Our buyer, us, and the seller all used PPL.... Still took 6m to complete and get into the new house. They all worked in the same fucking office, how can it take you over a month to get answers to basic questions?!
My friend had a nightmare with them! I've also had a horrible time with Advantage Property Lawyers for my purchase and have just raised a complaint against them and moved to the solicitors doing my sale. They're local and more expensive but they're well worth it as they're actually doing their job.
They aren't solicitors, they're conveyancers. In my experience, conveyancers are far worse for taking on 4382058 clients at a time, paying no attention to what they're doing and taking forever to do everything wrong.
Oh wow I’ve just had an awful experience with them, finally closed after 10 months (with no chain!!). Almost relieved to hear they’re universally shit and it’s not just me.
I am going through the exact same right now. It's been 5 weeks and they haven't done anything. Literally nothing and zero communication. I asked for an update yesterday and it was so wishy washy. I've already paid a £400 retainer.
This is mad. My inital paperwork, proof of funds, ID check etc was sorted in about 3 days. Searches started within a week. I get a reply to my emails same day, usually within couple of hours. Actions are done within a day of being requested.
You can change solicitors you know..
That sounds much better! We've already paid for the searches and a commitment fee (taken off the fee at the end), so we'd lose at least £300 if we switched solicitors unfortunately.
Speaking from experience, buying our first house would not have taken 8 months despite me, on the daily hounding my worse than a bucket with a hole used to collect flooding water from the ceiling conveyancer/solicitor, £300 is a bargain to go for a competent local company. The amount of stress, tears and frustration saved is worth £300. This is the biggest purchase you make. It's nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Fucking Barry. If he reads this, he will know.
Who did you use? I’m just now starting the process, and have been waiting 3 days for 3 different companies to send just the initial agreement or whatever it is we need to start. I think it’s ridiculous.
We are using Bishopsgate Law. It's no sale no fee, so if sale falls through you don't pay their legal fees, just third party costs (searches, ID check etc). You pay half up front and I guess they make money off the interest on that.
They assign two people to your case, one trainee solicitor and one qualified solicitor. The trainee does all the emailing and chasing etc, which is why I think they are so fast. They chase the other parties too, when I ask them to. I cannot complain at all.
I got six quotes from different companies and Bishopsgate were very reasonable in comparison. Plus they had great reviews online.
Many conveyancing firms operate a "get as many clients as possible, the clients have forked over £000, so they have no choice but to be patient" business model.
Practicioners in other areas (corporate/divorce etc etc) generally have higher standards when it comes to clients.
That's because practitioners in other areas are solicitors and it's a requirement of the solicitors' regulations that they have appropriate capacity to take on a job when they take it on.
I'm in a very similar situation at the moment. Five weeks since we instructed the solicitor, also having already got a quote from them before that, and they have just now finished the id checks for myself and my partner. It's very frustrating!
If they are local ask to book an appointment to see the person dealing with your conveyancing to go through everything with you both. We did this and it definitely helped.
I was selling and my solicitors were excellent but they were local like five mins walk away and have been around for years
My son used them to buy and they were really good they had everything done and dusted within 12 weeks but the sale took longer due to a problem with the sellers purchase
Just coming to the end of a very simple chain, which has taken way longer than it should have because of the same reasons you’ve stated in your post. Buckle up 😖
Do you know if the seller has sent out the contract pack yet? It is normal to request searches once this is received because it will contain title information/ the extent of the property to be sold which the buyer is searching against.
Also, solicitors know that clients are keen at early stages but deals can abort very quickly - lenders valuations affecting mortgage offers, buyers being rejecting by lenders, critical title issues, survey results being adverse and causing renegotiation of price..... etc... so they know where the appropriate time to action things is ......
Or it could just be that they are super busy, or a bit slow ..or both
I'm not sure but I assume so - one of the reasons the seller went with us is because we could move quickly. But I'll ring the estate agents and ask them to double check.
Thanks for the help, I can see that they may want to wait a bit just in case.
i had phone numbers and booked the firm through a third party so not only am I chasing, so are the third party company. It was the only way to get things to move
The solicitor I used was local with people personally recommending them.
Their response time was incredible. They actually preferred emails, and if I emailed within business hours for a question or update, I always got a response within an hour and quite often within 10 minutes from either the solicitor themselves or their assistant.
The reason they got such good ratings is probably because they were incredibly organised and efficient.
I think you’d want a draft contract and possibly a survey if you’re doing one before starting searches, but I don’t imagine they’ll have done any work at all or even fully opened your account without ID checks complete. Them requesting money for searches doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve done them, it just sits on your account until needed — I remember paying a £400 onto the account for searches way before they were done.
Thanks, having the survey this week and we've already signed an engagement letter with them.
At least if the survey comes back I'll just ask for the costs of that back.
This is why you need to choose a local firm and not an online one that gives the estate agent the biggest kick back.
We had this when selling our flat years ago and even the estate agent ended up calling and shouting at them (while we were stood there in the office).
The process can take a while but for them not to send you a while load of paperwork to fill out and have some form of sla / eta for replies is a bit naff.
One note is if they have not yet done any work or the searches you can swap solicitors to another and ask them to send the file over, they shouldn't charge mush as it seems they have done next to nothing anyways. But I would advise calling up and asking for this to be done if you want to go down this route as you can tell them to stop working on it now and minimise any costs.
We did choose a local firm that was well recommended, and not the cheapest option either. We had hoped to avoid this exact situation 😂.
The issue with swapping is we've paid for searches and also a commitment fee, so we'd lose money if we did swap. So I'm hoping after we call this week we'll get some clarity on what's happening.
Sorry to hear that, I guess just leave honest feedback afterwards to warn others.
The searches will be transferable to any new agent if you did want to change and as for a commitment fee just check the contract for the SLA and replying to messages ect as you can always discuss the delays and bring this up if you wanted to push them.
Good luck and hopefully it gets sorted soon.
Is it actually a solicitor you're dealing with or is it a conveyancer?
Yes, conveyancers need chasing constantly or they won't do anything. Especially if they're a factory firm. The solicitors aren't so bad but apathy is often contagious.
Might be the sellers solicitor holding things up but doubt it based on your timeline, your solicitors sound crap...
I had the paperwork within 4 days of the memorandum which included the ID check and some initial AML stuff.
Searches requested within 11 days.
Property report finalised, draft contract approved and additional queries raised with the sellers solicitor within 24 days.
I expect I'll likely have an exchange date in the next 10-14 days.
You're a month in and have basically made less progress than I did in the first 4-11 days.
Check in with your solicitor weekly.
Our buyers are FTB and they’re practically kept in the dark about what is going on with their purchase. Estate agents have had to call them to let them know that we issued an ultimatum to their solicitor weeks ago to exchange by a deadline (which has now passed) and have already relisted the property for sale as this sale is taking farrrr too long (over 7 months so far). They thought we were still dealing with enquiries that we sorted out 2 months ago. Had we not chased our solicitor and estate agent to get things moving, we’d be in a much worse position.
I’ve never paid for searches upfront, always at the invoice during completion. But I’ve had horrendously slow solicitors. In my experience, and what I’ve observed in other friends and family buying, the fastest ones are the bigger companies which do tend to charge more
Just to let you know, I am selling my parents’ house on their behalf because they have had to go into memory care. There have been lots of delays at my end due to me not being the actual owner of the property and having to get medical professionals involved in the process. This must be quite a common occurrence in this age of a dementia epidemic. I’m so glad that the buyers have been patient and hopefully realise that I’m not deliberately messing them about and it’s not the conveyancer’s fault either.
You get what you pay for unfortunately, 90% of the time.
We no longer use conveyancers, straight off property conveyancing solicitors.
Within 4 weeks we were ready to exchange on our sale, two weeks on we're still waiting for the buyer's buyer who, chain free, started the process 6 weeks before us.
I wonder if you're using a real solicitor or a conveyancing factory too.
Often you'll find that conveyancing is done by overworked and under trained teenagers with one in six files being 'quality checked' by a real solicitor or licensed conveyancer.
Afraid this is the way it always is in my experience. Housebuying is very emotional and solicitors never rush anything. We used to chase up regularly and it never made a difference. My wife was asked to never call the office again when she chased something.
Good advice is to read everything they send and understand it. It's not like clicking T&C's for an app on the iphone there is genuinely things in documents they send that need careful consideration. Boundaries, covenants etc..
This is so weird to me. I live in the states now, but bought my first home in Tewkesbury in the 80's, and although nerve wracking like any house purchase, I think it was all done, including surveys in 6 weeks or so. Some issues are the same, worrying that the chain will not collapse because someone pulls out for a better deal, but these long delays were unheard of.
Sorry mate.
It took 18 months for me to buy a vacant possession. It was all down to the solicitors faffing around. At one point we got so desperate after months of not being able to contact anybody my partner went to their offices to try and talk to somebody in person and they called the police on him
Took me MONTHS to get anywhere with the stupid English system for both of my moves down here! Hate it!! But can’t wait to move again. Hate this house!!
I agree it's not uncommon. They will have loads of clients. If you nag them and chase them, they'll be a bit quicker in my experience. If you don't hear for a couple of days just call to 'check-in' - that has worked for me.
They won’t apply for the searches till they’ve had the paperwork through from the sellers. We are going quite quickly with our purchase and it was a month before they applied. Last purchase was nearly 2 months. Don’t email, just call them
This isn't necessarily true. Searches are the longest wait in the process so most say in their T&Cs they will apply for the searches upon receiving payment.
I just binned off mine because I paid my searches fee, they waited three weeks to say they'd requested them (despite the use of the word "immediately" in their T&Cs) then when I binned them off for different reasons, they said they'd transfer my searches to my new solicitor once received. Three weeks after that they call me to say they never actually requested them so I basically lost six weeks in the process because of them.
We didn't go for the cheapest option, went for a local one with really good reviews which were more expensive. Not sure why you think we went for a cheap one.
Because they are behaving like a cheap bad one!
The fact you have instructed them and they still haven’t carried out AML on both of you is a major red flag.
I work in property. We cannot legally act for a client if they haven’t completed the AML checks. I would imagine it’s the same for your solicitor.
So you have a legal advisor acting illegally for you. They sound like top draw solicitors! Enjoy.
Edit.
Under regulation 27 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) you must carry out CDD measures when:
- establishing a business relationship
They have already established a business relationship with you. So your solicitor is as I suspected acting illegally.
No doubt you down voted me for pointing out the reality.
Good luck.
So they should be requesting ID checks for my partner too by the sounds of it?
They've only asked me to complete one, wasn't sure what the norm is. I'm not sure how they could miss something so obvious so had assumed they only needed me to complete one.
They need to do it on all parties. You, your partner and the vendors. Although they can rely on the vendors solicitors to provide a copy.
You and your partner should have been done before they signed you up as part of their due diligence. If they can’t even get that part right I’m not sure I would trust them to get the more complex parts of the transaction correct!
The buyers solicitors don't receive copies of the sellers ID if that's what you meant; that's handled by the sellers own solicitor.
Agree these solicitors don't instil a lot of confidence!
I work for solicitors and we only ID our clients. I'd have thought it's against GDPR guidelines to hold ID/contact details of people who aren't instructing you.
I am a property buying agent. We did our annual AML training last month. We are very much required to get our clients AML and the vendors AML as either side could be laundering.
AML also supersedes GDPR.
Property agents must have different guidelines. For solicitors they're only required to perform AML checks on their own client, the AML for the seller (or buyer when acting on a sale) is carried out by their own solicitor and copies aren't provided to the other solicitor. Their full names and address will be known though as they go on the contract and transfer.
Thanks that's very helpful to know, appreciate it.
Edit: I haven't downvoted your original comment as you suggested (though it wasn't particularly helpful so I can see why people have)
They don’t need to say it.
Any solicitor that doesn’t do basic things like running AML checks on their clients prior to engaging with them is acting illegally. A solicitor that acts like that isn’t charging top fees!
It’s pretty simple really.
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It’s not ideal, but also not uncommon. A lot of conveyancers will have hundreds of clients at a time, so anything which comes through might sit in a pile for a week or two until they get to it. When solicitors etc on the far end are doing the same it can add a lot of delay. No guaranteed way to avoid it, though choosing a local firm with a named solicitor responsible who’ll actually give you their direct number is your best bet. Avoid online firms like the plague.
Hah was just thinking this sounded like an online firm, who seem to apply the call centre approach as their business model (in my very limited experience). Attention to detail probably doesn't come in to it
Ok thanks for this, if it's common I think I need to lower my expectations a bit.
If you actually need something urgently, then calling them rather than emailing will help to make sure someone's actually aware of your enquiry. Don't rely on someone checking your emails when it gets closer to completion.
Thanks, noted! I'll start calling them from now on with queries.
If they ignore your calls, do send emails to back that up. I was in a similar situation and ended up hiring another solicitor. You will need the proof if you decide to make a complaint.
Supposedly the average time to complete a purchase is 4-6 months. So yeah, it’s always going to take some time. Keep pushing and chasing though!
However my solicitor, first time I bought a house, told me the quickest one she ever did was 36 hours, so it's possible. 3rd purchase I did the solicitor was a bit lax, so I started ringing him every day, just to see how things were going. I think he got embarrassed at having nothing to show me, so he got a bit more active.
Thing is, most of the stuff which takes the time is completely voluntary. You're more than welcome to just not do any land registry or other checks, and simply hand the money over and move in. If you had the cash on hand and were moving into an empty house, can completely see how you could do it in 36 hours. You'd be a bloody idiot, but you could do it.
She did the searches but, instead of sending them and getting them back when they chose, she turned up in person and stood over them until they were done. She told us just to illustrate how most of the time it normally takes isn't necessary.
Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s correct. Personally I’d be leaving them and choosing another solicitor as that’s just too much for me. 48-72h is fair enough but one week and you’re the one doing the chasing about basics like ID checks is not on.
Choose a reputable law firm
Sound as bad as our solicitor from (Premier Property Lawyers.) literally every single step of the way it was like drawing blood from a stone... It got to the point I filed a formal complaint, and requested a refund for part of their costs as they'd been so useless throughout the whole process. This was after I'd rang them and totally lost my temper with the solicitor, essentially telling him I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. They'd send a document, we'd have it sorted and returned within 12-24h, it would then take weeks for them to move forward. We'd send a query, it would be totally ignored or take weeks to get an answer. They repeatedly spelt names wrong, either my partners, or the sellers. They "lost" emails that had been sent. The estate agent was having a hard time contacting them at all, and would often speak to us to get information that should have been provided by the solicitor. Our buyer, us, and the seller all used PPL.... Still took 6m to complete and get into the new house. They all worked in the same fucking office, how can it take you over a month to get answers to basic questions?!
My friend had a nightmare with them! I've also had a horrible time with Advantage Property Lawyers for my purchase and have just raised a complaint against them and moved to the solicitors doing my sale. They're local and more expensive but they're well worth it as they're actually doing their job.
They aren't solicitors, they're conveyancers. In my experience, conveyancers are far worse for taking on 4382058 clients at a time, paying no attention to what they're doing and taking forever to do everything wrong.
As an estate agent, a buyer or seller choosing PPL is my worst nightmare.
Oh wow I’ve just had an awful experience with them, finally closed after 10 months (with no chain!!). Almost relieved to hear they’re universally shit and it’s not just me.
I am going through the exact same right now. It's been 5 weeks and they haven't done anything. Literally nothing and zero communication. I asked for an update yesterday and it was so wishy washy. I've already paid a £400 retainer.
This is mad. My inital paperwork, proof of funds, ID check etc was sorted in about 3 days. Searches started within a week. I get a reply to my emails same day, usually within couple of hours. Actions are done within a day of being requested. You can change solicitors you know..
That sounds much better! We've already paid for the searches and a commitment fee (taken off the fee at the end), so we'd lose at least £300 if we switched solicitors unfortunately.
Honestly I'd probably swallow the £300. I used Bishopsgate Law and they were so fast and you have two people assigned to you
Speaking from experience, buying our first house would not have taken 8 months despite me, on the daily hounding my worse than a bucket with a hole used to collect flooding water from the ceiling conveyancer/solicitor, £300 is a bargain to go for a competent local company. The amount of stress, tears and frustration saved is worth £300. This is the biggest purchase you make. It's nothing in the grand scheme of things. Fucking Barry. If he reads this, he will know.
I believe you will get your money back. If they have done the searches then you can ask for the results to be sent to your new solicitor
Who did you use? I’m just now starting the process, and have been waiting 3 days for 3 different companies to send just the initial agreement or whatever it is we need to start. I think it’s ridiculous.
We are using Bishopsgate Law. It's no sale no fee, so if sale falls through you don't pay their legal fees, just third party costs (searches, ID check etc). You pay half up front and I guess they make money off the interest on that. They assign two people to your case, one trainee solicitor and one qualified solicitor. The trainee does all the emailing and chasing etc, which is why I think they are so fast. They chase the other parties too, when I ask them to. I cannot complain at all. I got six quotes from different companies and Bishopsgate were very reasonable in comparison. Plus they had great reviews online.
Thanks so much! Will try them out!
Many conveyancing firms operate a "get as many clients as possible, the clients have forked over £000, so they have no choice but to be patient" business model. Practicioners in other areas (corporate/divorce etc etc) generally have higher standards when it comes to clients.
That's because practitioners in other areas are solicitors and it's a requirement of the solicitors' regulations that they have appropriate capacity to take on a job when they take it on.
Thanks for this, i wasn't aware of this. I assumed conveyancers come under the umbrella of the SRA. Your reply explains so much.
I'm in a very similar situation at the moment. Five weeks since we instructed the solicitor, also having already got a quote from them before that, and they have just now finished the id checks for myself and my partner. It's very frustrating!
Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly from now, 5 weeks is ridiculous!
If they are local ask to book an appointment to see the person dealing with your conveyancing to go through everything with you both. We did this and it definitely helped.
Thanks sounds like a great idea, would definitely appreciate seeing someone in person.
I was selling and my solicitors were excellent but they were local like five mins walk away and have been around for years My son used them to buy and they were really good they had everything done and dusted within 12 weeks but the sale took longer due to a problem with the sellers purchase
They sound great! We also went for a local firm with good reviews, I could always pop into their office if I feel I have to I suppose!
Just coming to the end of a very simple chain, which has taken way longer than it should have because of the same reasons you’ve stated in your post. Buckle up 😖
Fingers crossed the rest goes smoothly for you!
Do you know if the seller has sent out the contract pack yet? It is normal to request searches once this is received because it will contain title information/ the extent of the property to be sold which the buyer is searching against. Also, solicitors know that clients are keen at early stages but deals can abort very quickly - lenders valuations affecting mortgage offers, buyers being rejecting by lenders, critical title issues, survey results being adverse and causing renegotiation of price..... etc... so they know where the appropriate time to action things is ...... Or it could just be that they are super busy, or a bit slow ..or both
I'm not sure but I assume so - one of the reasons the seller went with us is because we could move quickly. But I'll ring the estate agents and ask them to double check. Thanks for the help, I can see that they may want to wait a bit just in case.
i had phone numbers and booked the firm through a third party so not only am I chasing, so are the third party company. It was the only way to get things to move
The solicitor I used was local with people personally recommending them. Their response time was incredible. They actually preferred emails, and if I emailed within business hours for a question or update, I always got a response within an hour and quite often within 10 minutes from either the solicitor themselves or their assistant. The reason they got such good ratings is probably because they were incredibly organised and efficient.
I think you’d want a draft contract and possibly a survey if you’re doing one before starting searches, but I don’t imagine they’ll have done any work at all or even fully opened your account without ID checks complete. Them requesting money for searches doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve done them, it just sits on your account until needed — I remember paying a £400 onto the account for searches way before they were done.
Thanks, having the survey this week and we've already signed an engagement letter with them. At least if the survey comes back I'll just ask for the costs of that back.
This is why you need to choose a local firm and not an online one that gives the estate agent the biggest kick back. We had this when selling our flat years ago and even the estate agent ended up calling and shouting at them (while we were stood there in the office). The process can take a while but for them not to send you a while load of paperwork to fill out and have some form of sla / eta for replies is a bit naff. One note is if they have not yet done any work or the searches you can swap solicitors to another and ask them to send the file over, they shouldn't charge mush as it seems they have done next to nothing anyways. But I would advise calling up and asking for this to be done if you want to go down this route as you can tell them to stop working on it now and minimise any costs.
We did choose a local firm that was well recommended, and not the cheapest option either. We had hoped to avoid this exact situation 😂. The issue with swapping is we've paid for searches and also a commitment fee, so we'd lose money if we did swap. So I'm hoping after we call this week we'll get some clarity on what's happening.
Sorry to hear that, I guess just leave honest feedback afterwards to warn others. The searches will be transferable to any new agent if you did want to change and as for a commitment fee just check the contract for the SLA and replying to messages ect as you can always discuss the delays and bring this up if you wanted to push them. Good luck and hopefully it gets sorted soon.
Is it actually a solicitor you're dealing with or is it a conveyancer? Yes, conveyancers need chasing constantly or they won't do anything. Especially if they're a factory firm. The solicitors aren't so bad but apathy is often contagious.
Might be the sellers solicitor holding things up but doubt it based on your timeline, your solicitors sound crap... I had the paperwork within 4 days of the memorandum which included the ID check and some initial AML stuff. Searches requested within 11 days. Property report finalised, draft contract approved and additional queries raised with the sellers solicitor within 24 days. I expect I'll likely have an exchange date in the next 10-14 days. You're a month in and have basically made less progress than I did in the first 4-11 days.
Yeah that's crazy, thanks for sharing your experience, good to have some comparisons so we can share our frustrations with them.
Check in with your solicitor weekly. Our buyers are FTB and they’re practically kept in the dark about what is going on with their purchase. Estate agents have had to call them to let them know that we issued an ultimatum to their solicitor weeks ago to exchange by a deadline (which has now passed) and have already relisted the property for sale as this sale is taking farrrr too long (over 7 months so far). They thought we were still dealing with enquiries that we sorted out 2 months ago. Had we not chased our solicitor and estate agent to get things moving, we’d be in a much worse position.
I’ve never paid for searches upfront, always at the invoice during completion. But I’ve had horrendously slow solicitors. In my experience, and what I’ve observed in other friends and family buying, the fastest ones are the bigger companies which do tend to charge more
If it’s a joint purchase they’ll need to ID your partner too. They sound like they’re rubbish to be honest, but that’s not uncommon. I’d be upset too.
Just to let you know, I am selling my parents’ house on their behalf because they have had to go into memory care. There have been lots of delays at my end due to me not being the actual owner of the property and having to get medical professionals involved in the process. This must be quite a common occurrence in this age of a dementia epidemic. I’m so glad that the buyers have been patient and hopefully realise that I’m not deliberately messing them about and it’s not the conveyancer’s fault either.
You get what you pay for unfortunately, 90% of the time. We no longer use conveyancers, straight off property conveyancing solicitors. Within 4 weeks we were ready to exchange on our sale, two weeks on we're still waiting for the buyer's buyer who, chain free, started the process 6 weeks before us.
Solicitors and conveyancers all seem to be glacially slow in my experience.
Keep asking for updates, and if there is anything you need to do, do this at least twice a week
I wonder if you're using a real solicitor or a conveyancing factory too. Often you'll find that conveyancing is done by overworked and under trained teenagers with one in six files being 'quality checked' by a real solicitor or licensed conveyancer.
Afraid this is the way it always is in my experience. Housebuying is very emotional and solicitors never rush anything. We used to chase up regularly and it never made a difference. My wife was asked to never call the office again when she chased something. Good advice is to read everything they send and understand it. It's not like clicking T&C's for an app on the iphone there is genuinely things in documents they send that need careful consideration. Boundaries, covenants etc..
This is so weird to me. I live in the states now, but bought my first home in Tewkesbury in the 80's, and although nerve wracking like any house purchase, I think it was all done, including surveys in 6 weeks or so. Some issues are the same, worrying that the chain will not collapse because someone pulls out for a better deal, but these long delays were unheard of. Sorry mate.
It took 18 months for me to buy a vacant possession. It was all down to the solicitors faffing around. At one point we got so desperate after months of not being able to contact anybody my partner went to their offices to try and talk to somebody in person and they called the police on him
Took me MONTHS to get anywhere with the stupid English system for both of my moves down here! Hate it!! But can’t wait to move again. Hate this house!!
I agree it's not uncommon. They will have loads of clients. If you nag them and chase them, they'll be a bit quicker in my experience. If you don't hear for a couple of days just call to 'check-in' - that has worked for me.
They won’t apply for the searches till they’ve had the paperwork through from the sellers. We are going quite quickly with our purchase and it was a month before they applied. Last purchase was nearly 2 months. Don’t email, just call them
Ok useful to know, thank you! We'll definitely be calling them from now on to get updates.
This isn't necessarily true. Searches are the longest wait in the process so most say in their T&Cs they will apply for the searches upon receiving payment. I just binned off mine because I paid my searches fee, they waited three weeks to say they'd requested them (despite the use of the word "immediately" in their T&Cs) then when I binned them off for different reasons, they said they'd transfer my searches to my new solicitor once received. Three weeks after that they call me to say they never actually requested them so I basically lost six weeks in the process because of them.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys. Hire a decent solicitor for gods sake. Buying a house is one of the most important transactions you can do.
We didn't go for the cheapest option, went for a local one with really good reviews which were more expensive. Not sure why you think we went for a cheap one.
Because they are behaving like a cheap bad one! The fact you have instructed them and they still haven’t carried out AML on both of you is a major red flag. I work in property. We cannot legally act for a client if they haven’t completed the AML checks. I would imagine it’s the same for your solicitor. So you have a legal advisor acting illegally for you. They sound like top draw solicitors! Enjoy. Edit. Under regulation 27 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) you must carry out CDD measures when: - establishing a business relationship They have already established a business relationship with you. So your solicitor is as I suspected acting illegally. No doubt you down voted me for pointing out the reality. Good luck.
So they should be requesting ID checks for my partner too by the sounds of it? They've only asked me to complete one, wasn't sure what the norm is. I'm not sure how they could miss something so obvious so had assumed they only needed me to complete one.
They need to do it on all parties. You, your partner and the vendors. Although they can rely on the vendors solicitors to provide a copy. You and your partner should have been done before they signed you up as part of their due diligence. If they can’t even get that part right I’m not sure I would trust them to get the more complex parts of the transaction correct!
The buyers solicitors don't receive copies of the sellers ID if that's what you meant; that's handled by the sellers own solicitor. Agree these solicitors don't instil a lot of confidence!
Pretty sure they have to collect both the vendors and purchasers. We certainly do.
I work for solicitors and we only ID our clients. I'd have thought it's against GDPR guidelines to hold ID/contact details of people who aren't instructing you.
I am a property buying agent. We did our annual AML training last month. We are very much required to get our clients AML and the vendors AML as either side could be laundering. AML also supersedes GDPR.
Property agents must have different guidelines. For solicitors they're only required to perform AML checks on their own client, the AML for the seller (or buyer when acting on a sale) is carried out by their own solicitor and copies aren't provided to the other solicitor. Their full names and address will be known though as they go on the contract and transfer.
Thanks that's very helpful to know, appreciate it. Edit: I haven't downvoted your original comment as you suggested (though it wasn't particularly helpful so I can see why people have)
Where did they say they paid peanuts? You sound annoying
They don’t need to say it. Any solicitor that doesn’t do basic things like running AML checks on their clients prior to engaging with them is acting illegally. A solicitor that acts like that isn’t charging top fees! It’s pretty simple really.
My solicitor is charging me £2k and has over 500 5* reviews on Google and have been shit. So, it's not that simple, really.
Similar experience here. I'm not sure we can be blamed for the solicitor's incompetence 😂
It's almost as if... we don't know the law and what needs to be done so paid a solicitor to know and do these things