Solicitor communication during house sale?

Starblue

Hi all, buying our first house at the moment and like the title says, wondering about communication times from solicitors. Find it so hard to get ours to reply to queries either herself or her secretary. What sort of turnaround time should we be expecting in getting a response to a query? The bank have contacted me three times now to ask when we will be drawing down funds and I still haven't managed to get an answer...

snowflake1989

Starblue wrote: »

Hi all, buying our first house at the moment and like the title says, wondering about communication times from solicitors. Find it so hard to get ours to reply to queries either herself or her secretary. What sort of turnaround time should we be expecting in getting a response to a query? The bank have contacted me three times now to ask when we will be drawing down funds and I still haven't managed to get an answer...

Im the same 🙄 constantly on at ours for updates etc and am waiting for a closing date atm .. sorry i have no advise but its very annoying!!

Starblue

It's mad, you think it would be easier for their secretary to send off a one-liner of an update rather than letting the situation fester

snowflake1989

Starblue wrote: »

It's mad, you think it would be easier for their secretary to send off a one-liner of an update rather than letting the situation fester

I know and the annoting thing is that there is no delay on the sellers side!! Its just waiting on my solicitor uh.. anyways best of luck hope you get a reply soon

Cushie Butterfield

snowflake1989 wrote: »

I know and the annoting thing is that there is no delay on the sellers side!! Its just waiting on my solicitor uh.. anyways best of luck hope you get a reply soon

Are you communicating by email?
If so make a phone call, make an appointment to see solicitor.
See what transpires.

Starblue

I have replied to her once by email, sent my own email subsequently and made two phone calls, during one of which I got her secretary who was supposed to come back to me that day. The whole reason for going for a local solicitor rather than one of the people I know who practice elsewhere was for ease of communication

Claw Hammer

If the solicitor is doing the job at a fixed price they are going to spend the minimum of time in communicating developments and will quite likely sandwich the conveyancing work in between other jobs they have on. Court related work with deadlines will have priority.

mugsymugsy

Without wanting to appear rude this is just a normal everyday transaction for them and they are dealing with how many different requests from different people like yourself! For you this is a big deal. Unless they are being unprofessional I'm sure they will get back as when required and when they have updates.

listermint

To be honest, this is very normal. Solicitors are notoriously poor at communicating updates.

worker bee

Similar situation here with a solicitor and a mortgage switch.
She has dragged it out for months - to the point we nearly had to get another valuation done and nearly lost out on the 2% cashback offer.

We called and sent an email in November and a follow up in January and finally got a reply saying she should be close to finalising the switch very soon but has some more work on it. Funny really as at this point we have made 2 monthly mortgage payments to our new lender and have checked with the original bank and they are satisfied all is closed off with them.

Bloody useless - and seems intent on letting us know how valiantly she has worked to process this whole thing to justify a massive fee.

Want to give me your solicitor's initials? or PM the name to me? Be interesting if it was the same one!

Starblue

The answer I have been trying to get has been for the bank who want to know the drawdown date of the mortgage and has been ongoing since early January, it's not me asking for an update.
Whether people feel that conveyancing is important or lucrative or not isn't the issue, the issue is what is an appropriate response time to a valid query from a customer, even if it's only a holding email or quick call to say I'll get back to you whenever. If it's not worth their while doing it for the fixed fee and they are going to be exasperated by being bothered with mundanities then why do it at all? This is a practice too so I would say it is very unlikely that the solicitor is juggling my conveyancing with a murder trial like a sole trader might be

worker bee

Yes, I have been asking my solicitor about the loan drawdown too. I wasn't looking for any updates other than a simple date/fact.

The new lender was telling me the money was available and had to be drawn down by a certain date. They said the solicitor had to do this.
The solicitor kept failing to get back to me. This was not a tight deadline - several months.

So, sorry I don't have a good answer for you - my answer is that it can take months if you have a lazy or incompetent solicitor.

AppleBottle

Maybe we got lucky with our solicitor but have found her great!

During the start of the process, I would email her to see if there was any update. It took around 6 weeks to get the contract in. During this time, I just kept on it and would follow up every couple of days for an updates and would get a response quick enough. As we are in the process of closing now (should be closing friday!!), any queries, emails, phone calls are answered either same day or the next morning.

I would continue to chase, using emails and phone calls are regular as you can.

dudara

Our solicitor was likewise excellent. Regular comms, and would always respond within a reasonable time to any qureries we sent her. Most comms came via her secretary who I got to know better than some of my family

Phileas Frog

dudara wrote: »

Our solicitor was likewise excellent. Regular comms, and would always respond within a reasonable time to any qureries we sent her. Most comms came via her secretary who I got to know better than some of my family

What would you call a reasonable amount of time to respond to an email?

realdanbreen

Starblue wrote: »

Hi all, buying our first house at the moment and like the title says, wondering about communication times from solicitors. Find it so hard to get ours to reply to queries either herself or her secretary. What sort of turnaround time should we be expecting in getting a response to a query? The bank have contacted me three times now to ask when we will be drawing down funds and I still haven't managed to get an answer...

Another thing you need to do if you haven't done so already is find out how much this solicitor is going to charge for looking after this. We tend to be fairly astute about charges when it comes to hiring a plumber or carpenter but when it comes to solicitors we seem to be in the dark until the bill comes in the door!

annoyedgal

Must have got lucky here too although we had a recommendation. Would reply to emails within a day and phone back that day or the next at a push. Excellent communication. Probably could have got cheaper but so glad we didn't as had a complicated buy and sell.
I would be very frustrated with the level of service you are getting op and I would be outlining this to my solicitor. They aren't working for free so a reasonable reply time should be the least they can do!

NewMrs2b

Same as a lot of people, we had great comms.

She had all in order on Monday eve and we were in the office at 10.30am Tuesday morning to sign everything.

I asked how long etc we should be waiting she said approx. 4weeks, when I asked how much notice etc we get for closing date she gave us again an approx time & advised us that she makes the calls for that stage after 2pm on the day (can't remember why!) but she was extremely clear - when it came to asking about collecting the keys she rang the builders solicitor and arranged that there would be someone available at the evening time so we didn't need to arrange any short notice time off work.

Paid a slight bit more as she is closer to home but absolutely worth it.

Happy to recommend if anyone is interested she is Dublin Based

dudara

Phileas Frog wrote: »

What would you call a reasonable amount of time to respond to an email?

Shorter responses often came within a few hours, a day max. The more formal stuff might take a few days. I was happy out, never had to chase her

worker bee

Ok, ours takes 2 weeks to a month to reply.

Has sent an estimate bill but notes that the final bill might be higher depending on the work they HAVE to do.

The lender has said they don't even require all the checks, documents and balances OUR solicitor is asking for.

Def looking like we need to complain once this is all done.

Henry Ford III

Tell your solicitor you're not happy, not us.

annoyedgal

I would complaining now and in writing.

worker bee

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Tell your solicitor you're not happy, not us.

Thank you, as I mentioned, when the whole process is completed I will be making an official complaint.

I was using this thread to see if the situation is normal or if our solicitor is indeed behaving poorly.

Sorry to have taken up your time.

realdanbreen

worker bee wrote: »

Ok, ours takes 2 weeks to a month to reply.

Has sent an estimate bill but notes that the final bill might be higher depending on the work they HAVE to do.

The lender has said they don't even require all the checks, documents and balances OUR solicitor is asking for.

Def looking like we need to complain once this is all done.

Like I say we would not put up with that kind of vagueness about the cost if we were hiring a plumber or carpenter to do a job for us but we-as a society- seem to put up with this crap when it comes to solicitors.

worker bee

Yes, we did kind of put up with it for fear they would delay the process even longer and we would lose out on a cashback offer which came with an expiry date. They raised so many fake problems and queries that it just ran on and on.

We didn't just sit back though - we have repeatedly called and emailed them. And we have logged all the dates and times of calls and delays.

fg1406

Having been on the other side of that kind of treatment, I can tell you it’s nothing short of awful. Our solicitors were fantastic. They would get back to you in a day or 2. The sellers solicitor was a nightmare. We went 13 weeks with no reply, asking for contracts. There were emails, letters, phone calls and my solicitor even drove to their office to try speak to them. As they weren’t acting for me, I wasn’t in a position to make a complaint to the law society.