Has anyone had good experience with the online conveyancing firms e.g. Fridays Move or am I better off with a more expensive but tried and tested local solicitor?

We’ve just sold a flat and are in the final process of buying a house. We’ve used ‘online’ solicitors both times.

The conveyancer who dealt with the sale was very good but the one we’re using to buy the house (on recommendation of the estate agent) is pretty useless. I think we were lucky with the first one.

To be honest, for the cost I don’t think you can complain about online solicitors but if you pay peanuts, you do often get monkeys.

I’d use online solicitors again unless I was buying something that I knew would need some proper sleuthing, in which case I’d pay more and try and find someone locally with a good reputation.

I’m happy to let you know who I used (for the good service), if so just drop me an email.

I used one – went fine – bog standard newish (90s) build estate house, clear plans, all boundaries clear etc etc etc etc

used a local for last house, older, private road etc etc etc

I used an online one for a remortgage a couple of years ago – costed about half of a local solicitor and didn’t have any issues.

Using a local one for our current house move.

If you’re a union member, ask about using the union solicitors as they quite often have negotiated discount rates and if they’re crap you can moan to the union about it too.

Our buyer went online, we went local.

Our buyer reckoned we made the right choice.

The cost of conveyancing is really low now, no need to use an online firm when a proper local solicitor is a few £100

Note the purchase/sale is much more complex and potentially risky than a re-mortgage, so whilst you might go online for a re-mortgage (and a lot of banks use their in-house/panel legal anyway) I would strongly suggest local solicitor for purchase.

Ive just sold my house, I used an online solicitor and they were great.
My buyer used a local solicitor who was hopeless, on completion day they managed to transfer the wrong amount of money to me resulting in the buyers sitting on my drive for several hours while it got resolved.

The cost of conveyancing is really low now, no need to use an online firm when a proper local solicitor is a few £100

Really? Perhaps a dedicated conveyancer at a solicitor firm? I last used moved 7 years ago and the solicitors I spoke to charged a %age of the property price (1/4 to 1/2%) whilst the online ones seemed to be mostly a fixed fee.

I tried using Countrywide in January.
Gave up & now using a local company, where I get to speak to the actual legal assistant doing the work not just a call centre. Which I prefer. Being local also means I can collect documents/go in as needed, which may help speed up things a small amount.

Do NOT use Simply Conveyancing.

I had about three different agents deal with our sale/purchase during what was a very simple transaction, each one seemingly clueless about what the last one had done (or rather not done). On the day of completion they went totally AWOL and I was left talking to someone that later turned out to be a junior admin person – she made ‘promises’ that were later rescinded by her superiors and left minutes away from our removal people driving off for the night with half of our stuff in their van and the remainder on the lawn outside the house that was no longer legally ours.

I ended up paying them overtime and for a second van (as they didn’t then have enough time to unload the first lot and load the second). After a big fight I did manage to get reimbursed for it but I’d much rather not having to deal with it.

We used a local conveyancer when buying our house. Would happily use them again as opposed to a solicitor. My impression of solicitors is that they conveyancing is bottom of their many piles, whereas a dedicated firm that only does that only has the one pile. May have helped that it was a small company run by a father and son.