Conveyancing - exchanging on a house

Yes, Ken Hastie was on top of our conveyancing all of the time. Phone calls, letters and face to faces; he was brilliant. Sadly he passed away a few years ago 😟
He’s gone now, but he’s was a bit too old fashioned when he did mine five years ago. Stuff like needing to wait for his secretary to get back from dinner to check if an email had came, or write a new one. Saying they’d emailed the other agent 10 days ago, but no response so nothing they could do. Until I pointed out the people they were emailing were 10 doors away.
 


We’ve only ever moved twice and I don’t remember any problems either time. First one we were first time buyers and the vendors already had their new house to move in so no chain. Second one we had cash buyers for our place and the house we were buying had been empty for 2 years as the old bloke had died and his wife, the vendor, moved back to Malaysia.
same here. first time buyers on first house so no chain and solicitors were quite good.
second time move into house we were in now we used same solicitors and not so good. they said they'd sent the money through but problems with someone else meant it hadn't arrived but found out the date stamp on the transfer proved they were telling porkies. cost us another months interest on the mortgage. they also tried to rip us off with the land registry fee which they claimed was double what it was. paid the bill minus what they'd overcharged us. iirc they sent out a snotty letter threatening all sorts of stuff for non payment. i can vaguely remember getting chucked out of their office after losing it with the main partner. ended up reporting them to the law society iirc. they don't exist anymore.
we bought a place in portugal a few years back and despite having a lot of concerns found that one to be the easiest of the lot despite our initial worries.

edit, isn't it the case that a lot of documents need physical signatures to be witnessed regarding house moves?
 
Last edited:
same here. first time buyers on first house so no chain and solicitors were quite good.
second time move into house we were in now we used same solicitors and not so good. they said they'd sent the money through but problems with someone else meant it hadn't arrived but found out the date stamp on the transfer proved they were telling porkies. cost us another months interest on the mortgage. they also tried to rip us off with the land registry fee which they claimed was double what it was. paid the bill minus what they'd overcharged us. iirc they sent out a snotty letter threatening all sorts of stuff for non payment. i can vaguely remember getting chucked out of their office after losing it with the main partner. ended up reporting them to the law society iirc. they don't exist anymore.
we bought a place in portugal a few years back and despite having a lot of concerns found that one to be the easiest of the lot despite our initial worries.

edit, isn't it the case that a lot of documents need physical signatures to be witnessed regarding house moves?
Think I mentioned already but at the final stages I got a letter saying my name had come up on a bankruptcy search in grimsby or somewhere and can I confirm it wasn't me. It was sent 2nd class and I received the letter the day before exchange. I had to sign and return it before exchange could take place. No email. No phone call and 2md class letter. Had to courier the fucker back.
 
Think I mentioned already but at the final stages I got a letter saying my name had come up on a bankruptcy search in grimsby or somewhere and can I confirm it wasn't me. It was sent 2nd class and I received the letter the day before exchange. I had to sign and return it before exchange could take place. No email. No phone call and 2md class letter. Had to courier the fucker back.
ouch.
 
It will make you canny unpopular with the office like but I just started ringing my solicitor twice a day when it came to crunch time. I said if they could start doing the same with the sellers solicitors to get things sorted then it might not take so long.

I know it's complicated business like but as someone else has mentioned why can't they just set some meetings and dates at the beginning and stick to them to make sure it gets done. They've done the same thing hundreds of times over.
 
Last edited:
It will make you canny unpopular with the office like but I just started ringing my solicitor twice a day when it came to crunch time. I said if they could start doing the same with the sellers solicitors to get things sorted then it might not take so long.

I know it's complicated business like but as someone else has mentioned why can't they just set some meetings and dates at the beginning and stick to them to make sure it gets done. They've done the same thing hundreds of times over.
Yeah was same. Had to call her twice a day to keep on top. Was a joke really.
 

Back
Top