Can you only make complaints about a solicitor you’ve engaged or can you complain about any you’ve had interaction with?

Our buyer is, on the advice of her solicitor, insisting on a indemnity because you cross another driveway to access our plot. However, the right of access is detailed in the deeds that everyone has seen. This now seems to be causing delay and expense for both us, and the buyer.

I cant advise peeing through their letterbox, no matter how much better it makes you feel.

So let me get this straight…you want to make a complaint about a lawyer who has formed a different view from your lawyer?

Welcome to the law, enjoy your stay 🙂

In all seriousness, you’ll need to point to conduct if you’re going to get anywhere.

(also – please tell your lawyer to be more persuasive. If this really is that obvious to all parties and there’s no risk attached, a simple explanation to the other side’s lawyer will suffice)

The normal process is to complain to the firm (your lawyers should give you details of their complaints process) and although the opposing firm don’t owe you a duty of care, if their unreasonable conduct is delaying matters then you may be able to complain to them, but that’s about it, and don’t expect them to take it too seriously – many firms get complaints from third parties just because they’re on opposing sides in litigation :roll:.

If you have an issue with your own firm and they don’t deal it you can complain to the Legal Ombudsman. If you suspect the other party’s firm of misconduct (such as telling porkies, misusing client money etc) then you can complain to the SRA, but again I wouldn’t expect too much…

If it was a difference of opinion, I’d understand but it’s detailed in the deeds clearly enough. It must be clear, I can understand it. It’s been implied at one point that we may have doctored the deeds but no reason has been given.

I can’t see you have a complaint here the other sides solicitor is advising their client to protect themselves against a risk . on what you say it seems an over precaution but that is really a matter between solicitor and client and not really your business . If things are as cut and dried as you say get your solicitor to hammer that home.

So basically we have to accept that some people are **** and some of these **** happen to be solicitors?

So basically we have to accept that some people are **** and some of these **** happen to be solicitors?

Not really.

He or she really doesn’t care about pissing you off or being awkward for the sake of it. They do care about protecting their clients interests though, so if they perceive a risk then they have to ensure that their client is aware of it and advise adequate protection. Whether the client wants to pursue it or not is a different matter, but you can usually assume with a housebuyer, they’ll just take their lawyers advice.

That lawyer obviously sees a risk that your lawyer doesn’t. If they drop the point just because people are getting grumpy about the delay, they’re only opening themselves up to a PI claim further down the line.

IMO (from your description) it probably boils down to two things, either:

the issue is clear cut with no risk to the buyer – YOUR lawyer needs to do a better job at getting this across, that’s what you’re paying him for; or

it’s not that clear cut or there is some risk involved, in which case the other lawyer is perfectly entitled to advise the buyer to dig their heels in.

I don’t think ours is th best, or the strongest willed but once you present the other side with the needs, what more can you do? The buyers solicitor can’t/won’t even tell us what the perceived risk is, just that they want an indemnity.

If the buyer is requesting something unreasonable then put it back on the market and sell to someone else. If the buyer is really keen they will then provide revised instructions to their solicitor (and the solicitor may well clarify his advice was just covering very tiny risks), or if the solicitor is convinced there IS an issue he will advise them that you are doing this because you can’t offer the indemnity (and thus the risk he told them about is serious). Of course if there is some niggle then you could be asking the solicitor who acted for you when you made the purchase why they didn’t identify the risk at the time…

For all you know it could be the buyer’s mortgage provider that is insisting on the indemnity. Whatever the issue, I understand your frustration but as everyone else has said the solution is not complaining about the buyer’s solicitor.

Why would you waste your time arguing with somebody who does it for a living, and charges through the nose for the privilege! You’re very unlikely to get anywhere…just take a deep breath and get through the experience as quickly as possible.

Get the indemnity or get another buyer.

We had this two years ago – a right of way had been established through use and no prior complaints etc etc. But we were asked to sign an indemnity as such so just did it – no big deal and no subsequent issues, even though present owners in the development now causing more issues (we now live just across the road so see issues all the time).

It’s a happy coincidence that the more they can argue about the more they can charge. Surely intimating that you may have doctored the deeds is something worth flagging.

I would get onto your solicitor and insist they contact your buyers solicitor pointing out the access is in the deeds and therefor no indemnity is required. I would also have them point out that you are not used to having your integrity questioned. The suggestion the deeds have been doctored is both ridiculous and offensive.
Your solicitor sounds a bit rubbish….

I would get onto your solicitor and insist they contact your buyers solicitor pointing out the access is in the deeds and therefor no indemnity is required

We tried to say just that (when we bought the house we were satisfied that the right of way was clearly written in the deeds) but when we sold their solicitor insisted on the indemnity.

But surely if there is no risk that the outcome against which you are being asked to indemnify them will happen – why are you kvetching about signing the clause ? If it does happen, you were wrong. If it doesn’t who cares ?

It is like that underarm deodorant ad “only works if you need it”. Which is asinine.

i am a bit puzzled by the it’s “in the deeds point” conveyancing is most obviously not my thing but where is this house? is it not registered land ?if so would not the right of access be recorded on the register ? therefore the deeds point would be a massive red hearing. If there was a document giving a right of access that should have been registered but was not I would a be suspicious and b want an indemnity.
when did you buy the house and what advise did you receive about the point?

“It’s a happy coincidence that the more they can argue about the more they can charge”
99% sure they will be on a fixed fee so the argument is coming out of the solicitors pocket not the clients.

I did hear something on Radio 4 about the massive rise in indemnities recently. I wonder if solicitors get commission for referring people?

onehundredthidiot – Member

It’s a happy coincidence that the more they can argue about the more they can charge. Surely intimating that you may have doctored the deeds is something worth flagging.

Two points – firstly, if it’s a standard resi conveyance it’s going to be on a fixed price so the more work the lawyer does the less profit they make, and secondly I cannot seriously think that a lawyer would “intimate” someone had doctored deeds unless they had evidence to support that contention, as to do so would be professional misconduct if unsubstantiated. With all due respect, OP may have got the wrong end of that particular stick.

That lawyer obviously sees a risk that your lawyer doesn’t.

Wouldn’t YOU expect YOUR Lawyer to do exactly the same? No risk for you, once you’ve sold up but for the Buyer…

Which is why it’d be worth flagging.

Get the indemnity or get another buyer.

This. We had a similar situation with our last house, and decided to not have a sale fall through because of a £100 indemnity policy.

If there was a document giving a right of access that should have been registered

In our case the deeds had the wording in it. It was a small collection of former farm cottages with a shared (unadopted) unmetalled road servicing them all. I don’t recall the wording but it was something along the line that no one household could temporarily or permanently block access to other residents nor add any temporary or permanent fixed structures and that all residents and their agents should be afforded 24 hour access.

johndoh
my conveyancing is really rusty but:-

deeds= massive bundle of documents giving history of land and transactions back to year dot . pain in bottom to read understand or store.
hence registered land . deeds input on to central registry in summery form .
registry issues certificate in three parts who owns it , what charges there are on it and what the land is ie plan etc.
so if something such as a right seems to exist in deeds or document but is not shown in the certificate that would be a potential problem .
if the certificate showed a right but it was poorly defined or inconclusive as to it’s ambit or how it existed that too could be a problem.
Solicitors like other people they don’t make work for no reason especially on a fixed fee but conveyancing solicitors are risk adverse as they get sued by clients and mortgage lenders for other peoples errors . Lots of the case law about land is mortgagors suing the solicitor for effectively not spotting the mortgagors bad lending decisions . a solicitor getting sued on a 200 – 300k transaction will be in deep poo a solicitor getting removed from a mortgagors panel will be at risk of going out of business.

Whatever – my experience is purely anecdotal based on, well, my experience.

We had this type of issue when we moved – you had to cross a pavement to access the house through the back garden. We were told we would have to raise a contract that could cost hundreds… or get a signed letter from another solicitor to say that we had not had any issues accessing our house before that cost us ~£30.
We thought next time we move we are going to get our then buyers solicitor.
We did not complain to any ombudsman but we did write on some paperwork that our solicitor wanted what we thought of them. When I went down there to give them information they wanted. I was told that I could not drop it off and needed an appointment. They were surprised to find out I wanted their first available appointment. For some reason the house sale went through quite quickly after that – not sure why… we were really pissed off with the constant letters that arrived on a Friday,we did not get them to the evening which was then too late to act on, despite asking them to ring /email us (as well) if there is a problem etc. Imagine how surprised they were to see me a few months later when they were touting for business at our work place.

I’ve found the best way to choose a solicitor is to email them, if they don’t answer, they are clearly too old school to be worth dealing with.

it sounds to me like the buyer’s solicitor (on the info you’ve given) is right: the access might or might not be on your deeds but is it registered or on the other landowner’s deeds?

I did hear something on Radio 4 about the massive rise in indemnities recently. I wonder if solicitors get commission for referring people?

I don’t know what standard practice is but if they were getting a commission, they’d have to inform their client.

Solicitors are like politicians and clergy…..VERY FEW of them are any f…ing use to society.

They also all have the complaints thing sewn up. You complain and nothing will happen, no matter how crooked they have been.

I have only dealt with two decent solicitors in my time…and one of those was crooked!

just digging this up as I thought I remembered quite a few grumbles about conveyancers on here.

I lost my rag today (7 weeks in and getting nowhere) and sent an email to my solicitor, the buyers solicitor and cc’d the agent (just included to keep them in the loop as they were the only ones giving me feedback) telling them that if they all didn’t sort this out quickly I would be pulling out and re-letting the flat (not my choice, will be forced to remortgage if it goes on any longer). It may not have been the best way to go about it and I may have pissed everyone off but I wasnt standing for all this messing around any longer and I got the contract and buyers questions through this afternoon 😀

Putting rights and wrongs aside for a moment, how much is the indemnity insurance?

In my experience it’s not expensive (the last one I bought was £12 and i think I paid another at around £120) so in the grand scheme of things it might not even be worth getting stressed over 🙂

Various indemnifies came to just over £500. There was also no evidence that these were ever purchased, money it seems, was just handed over to the opposition.