Conveyancing - exchanging on a house

[Hawkings Boots]

Glad I don't deal with residential anymore.

Fees driven down and and down to the point where you have people juggling hundreds of active matters and not able to provide a decent service which leads to threads like this

 

[CraigyLee]

Glad I don't deal with residential anymore.

Fees driven down and and down to the point where you have people juggling hundreds of active matters and not able to provide a decent service which leads to threads like this

yep I imagine that’s the sticking point too many cases per surveyor

it’s f***ing torture being on the receiving end mind

 

[HellsBells]

Glad I don't deal with residential anymore.

Fees driven down and and down to the point where you have people juggling hundreds of active matters and not able to provide a decent service which leads to threads like this

Like I say, we have gone online, who I imagine e have a ton of cases, and they seem to have been the best of the lot. The main issues have been buyers solicitor taking August on holiday then sticking a load of further queries in on September 1st, and seller’s solicitor deciding that only one person in the office can phone their client to get his agreement, and then not being available for half the day. Ours have been okay.

 

[Goat Eyes]

Even when they do send each other emails they seem to take ages to do anything about it. We should have exchanged on Monday. You’d have thought someone would have stuck a diary invite out to everyone to get together and agree we could proceed. It will literally take 5 minutes.

A Conveyancing solicitor is duty bound to make “your” exchange their top priority. I.e. they can’t frustrate or obstruct the process in favour of another.

I’d look at the Conveyancing Code of Practice and stick that in front of them. Nowt to lose.

SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs

The standards that we, the SRA, and the public expect of individuals (solicitors, registered European lawyers and registered foreign lawyers).

www.sra.org.uk

yep I imagine that’s the sticking point too many cases per surveyor

it’s f***ing torture being on the receiving end mind

The code of practice states workload shouldn’t be your issue either I think.

It’s what my conveyancer said to me.

 

[HellsBells]

A Conveyancing solicitor is duty bound to make “your” exchange their top priority. I.e. they can’t frustrate or obstruct the process in favour of another.

I’d look at the Conveyancing Code of Practice and stick that in front of them. Nowt to lose.

SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs

The standards that we, the SRA, and the public expect of individuals (solicitors, registered European lawyers and registered foreign lawyers).

www.sra.org.uk

The code of practice states workload shouldn’t be your issue either I think.

It’s what my conveyancer said to me.

Aye, but if they have fifteen all exchanging today and they can’t get hold of fourteen other solicitors, then I can see why they’d leave a voicemail and go on to the next case.

But really if they just scheduled fifteen ten minute conference calls they could have it all done by lunchtime.

 

[Goat Eyes]

Aye, but if they have fifteen all exchanging today and they can’t get hold of fourteen other solicitors, then I can see why they’d leave a voicemail and go on to the next case.

But really if they just scheduled fifteen ten minute conference calls they could have it all done by lunchtime.

It’s not a case of “getting hold of” surely. These should all be planned appointments surely.

Anyway, I doubt they’ll embrace Zoom for as long as they can charge x amount for every letter they do etc.

The whole process is goosed in England anyway from listings to offers to completion. Such an antiquated and shite system.

 

[Nookie Bear]

Last time I bought I just cut out the solicitors and agents and contacted seller direct , we made much more progress that way. They were being told we were the hold up and vice Versa once we knew the real position much better places to push from both sides

 

[monkeytassle]

Getting final agreement from everyone that we can go ahead and exchange I think. Buyers solicitor was only available till 1.30. Sellers solicitor wasn’t available till 2. I don’t understand how they do t get the concept of a conference call to agree this shit.

Mate my deposit cleared at 1717 the day before completion. Solicitor was uncontctable. I asked for a ten percent reduction in fees given I'd done lost of the legwork snf they agreed.

 

[DoctorMick]

We found out our completion date the day before, no advanced warning or anything. Spoke to the seller on the day and they’d known for weeks, turns out our solicitor just couldn’t be bothered to tell us! Thankfully we were renting the previous place and planned on keeping it on for a month to move gradually anyway.

 

[Cockney Mackem]

Has anyone had a good experience with conveyancing solicitors?

 

[b1gals]

When we bought our first house in the early 90's my then Girlfriend, now Wife and future ex-Wife worked at a building society, so we were 1st time buyers with a guaranteed mortgage. Our offer was accepted on a Wednesday morning and her boss called in loads of favours for us ... we got surveys done, solicitors stuff done and mortgage sorted, all free of charge and within days. By the following Tuesday afternoon we had the keys.

Not every house purchase is traumatic

 

[monkeytassle]

Has anyone had a good experience with conveyancing solicitors?

My first purchase was very smooth.

The fact you can exchange and complete in a week is far too quick imo.

 

[zebediah]

It took mine 5 days to forward an email on to me from the other solicitor.
The email from the other solicitor hadn't even answered my question properly, abject laziness all round.

 

[mysticmackem]

It's the solicitor's job to keep apart two parties who are both eager to do a deal.

They like to hold your money in their account for as long as possible. The real fun is when they are holding the monies of a deceased estate. More time wasting, and dirty tricks, than Bristol Rovers

 

[BlackOps]

When we bought our first house in the early 90's my then Girlfriend, now Wife and future ex-Wife worked at a building society, so we were 1st time buyers with a guaranteed mortgage. Our offer was accepted on a Wednesday morning and her boss called in loads of favours for us ... we got surveys done, solicitors stuff done and mortgage sorted, all free of charge and within days. By the following Tuesday afternoon we had the keys.

Not every house purchase is traumatic

Not get any searches done?

 

[b1gals]

Not get any searches done?

Left in the hands of the solicitor, it was in the middle of a housing estate so probably straight forward. Also a previous sale had fell through so maybe the info was already available.

 

[Millfielder]

My neighbour is a conveyancer solicitor. With Covid, they were taking turns on furlough and then they went through a huge redundancy process cutting them down to one partner, one associate and one paralegal for each department. She was lucky she wasn’t made redundant but her workload now is huge. And if there’s an instance of sickness when someone else is in leave then it’s going to get even more messy.

Hope you get sorted though, it’s bloody stressful.

 

[HellsBells]

Has anyone had a good experience with conveyancing solicitors?

Ironically enough, our own solicitors (Juno) are actually, so far*, the most competent of the lot.

*Note: I fully reserve the right to u-turn on this opinion prior to completion.

My neighbour is a conveyancer solicitor. With Covid, they were taking turns on furlough and then they went through a huge redundancy process cutting them down to one partner, one associate and one paralegal for each department. She was lucky she wasn’t made redundant but her workload now is huge. And if there’s an instance of sickness when someone else is in leave then it’s going to get even more messy.

Hope you get sorted though, it’s bloody stressful.

It’s weird because the housing market seems to be booming right now. Removal firms are absolutely rammed, if my experience is anything to go by.

 

[Bob Fleming]

Everything does seem to have to happen via snail mail. Though bizarrely mine has written to me but then said reply via email. Can't understand why they cannot have just emailed in the 1st place. They were just questions. Mortgage company were painfully slow too. Every query taking the maximum amount of time permissible. I think I had my offer accepted in mid June.

Went in to the new place last night since they have moved furniture out. Fuck me the it's more of a challenge than I thought. The furniture was hiding some shite. Immediate thought was to pull out. But I do like a challenge and it just makes the transformation even better.

 

[HellsBells]

Everything does seem to have to happen via snail mail. Though bizarrely mine has written to me but then said reply via email. Can't understand they cannot have just emailed in the 1st place. They were just questions. Mortgage company were painfully slow too. Everything query taking the maximum amount of time permissible. I think I had my offer accepted in mid June.

Went in to the new place last night since they have moved furniture out. Fuck me the it's more of a challenge than I thought. The furniture was hiding some shite. Immediate thought was to pull out. But I do like a challenge and it just makes the transformation even better.

What kind of shite?