If there’s a mass murder at a solicitors office soon, it’ll be me. And I’m happy to do the time as well.
Mistakes made to the tune of £9630…. not in my favour obviously. Then they get annoyed when I tell them their calculations are ‘not even close to correct’ and argue. Good job I’ve spotted them before any damage is done.

Arrrgghhhh.

+1 mate.
How do they get away with it?
Each time I’ve had to deal with them it’s been a litany of incompetence and disinterest.
I can only assume that they know there are never any repeat customers, so they just don’t care.

Good luck,

Alex

They’ve sunk to the bottom of their profession and want everyone to know they’re not happy about it. It’s never their fault. Incompetent, unprofessional, obstructive to the core and utterly devoid of initiative. I had one once who went on holiday at a crucial point in the process and never came back!

Then there’s surveyors. And estate agents. You have my sympathy.

I have bought and sold 6 times since 1995 and only had one decent performance, from a professional conveyancer not a solicitor. He was diligent, on the case and hard working. Unfortunately for the next move he had retired and the three I have had since then, all solicitors, have been utterly woeful with similar mistakes as yours, including one who only registered the leasehold and not the freehold I bought at the same time. That took some repairing. Another seemed to be openly conspiring with the mortgage company to do me over to the tune of about 30K. Another just did not meet any deadline, with no real excuse or reasoning and left us hanging, she also wanted to commit to exchange before we had a guarantee of drawdown from the lender – which is a fatal mistake that I luckily spotted.
My wife is studying DIY conveyancing right now and is thinking of training as one so that we can do our own next time.

We went to ours wedding.

The seller’s on the other hand must have been the cheapest they could find, the paperwork was photocopied with fill in the blanks!

Professionals in not being professional shocker!

Tbh I’m not surprised in the slightest. I feel your pain in your ass.

When we bought our solicitors were also acting for the sellers but forgot to tell us

I’m currently dealing with 4 sets. One has just spent 4 weeks doing a 1 week job to find they aren’t on the approved list for the bank they’re dealing with.

Laughable.

Oh yes, lots of money for broken rope.

I’m currently loving the ‘there’s a problem that we need you to sort out and will only take you 30 seconds but we’re not going to tell you about it’ approach ours are taking.

If there’s a mass murder at a solicitors office soon, it’ll be me.

Death is a easy get out – they have to deal with estate agents all day! 😈

It never ceases to amaze me how badly conveyancing is done. In the vast majority of cases it simple filling in of standard forms. How they make such a meal of it is beyond me.

HErs another example. The house we’re buying is brand new, built on some land that was attached to another house. The developers bought the lot, did up the existing house and sold it on. Then they built ours. In the area leasehold with 500-1000 year leases are common, and the house and land they bought was leasehold, but they bought the freehold too. Our house was advertised as freehold. When our solicitor (who can’t add up but seems fairly decent otherwise, if slooooooow) asked if they’d be extinguishing the leasehold and selling us a freehold house, their reply was, and I quote, “we can’t see the point of this”

THE POINT IS THAT YOU ADVERTISED A FREHOLD HOUSE YOU MORONS.

It’ll all be sorted in the end but right now not only are we moving house, we’re waiting for the new house to actually be finished, we’re relocating from Hampshire to Sheffield, and we’re both looking for new jobs. In for a penny….

Death is a easy get out – they have to deal with estate agents all day!

To be fair both our estate agents and the sellers estate agents have been superb. They’ve not put a foot wrong, they’ve kept us informed, known us when we’ve called them, passed on messages and queries exactly as asked and been nice, present prrofessional people.

I have no hesitation recommending Bridges in the Farnborough area and Sorbys in Barnsley.

On the flip side our last conveyancing solicitor was outstanding. A pleasure to deal with and not too expensive either.

At least our solicitor knows which forum to use

FFS. Solicitors. GNNANNAAARAARRTRRRRRRARRS…

Ours was stupidly slow at compiling the solicitors pack and only got it to us last Friday despite us and the seller wanting to complete this Friday coming. According to both sets of solicitors, there is no electrical safety certificate…despite the fact my wife and the estate agent visited the property when it was taking place, corroborated by the occupants AND it being normal practice when the property is bought as part exchanged by the developer. So someone is either incompetent, lazy, lying, or all three.

Also, I’ve had to send the completion certificate back THREE TIMES in one day because they a) don’t know what I’ve paid them already and b) don’t know the difference between the value of the property and the value of the mortgage.

JUST DO YOUR F’ING JOB PROPERLY YOU MORONS.

As with everything you get what you pay for. Many practices leave residential conveyancing to unqualified staff. Some clients are also unnecessarily a pita and imagine they’re they are they only transaction on going. As a rule of thumb I tend to add at least an extra 100 to 200 quid for teachers.

OP – I reckon you’re safe with killing them all. Surely a jury will have enough people that have had to deal with these lazy con merchants that you’ll never be convicted?
If you’re still worriedm I’ll happily provide an alibi.

I hate them. I hate dealing with them. I hate the lying to me. I hate them not even being a tiny bit remorseful when I catch them out lyinging to me.

TL:DR? : SCC99 is not a fan of conveyancing solicitors.

If you kill than all they’ll be replaced by an offshore call centre of foreign conveyancers, with an even more limited grasp of conveyancing. Joseph Heller missed a trick here.

We’re currently using online conveyancing, which is basically ‘ you do the conveyancing and then we’ll invoice you for it’ despite the ballache at least we know it’s getting done

You’re all appointing the wrong people.

Pay a couple of hundred quid more and use the real estate team of a proper law firm rather than a high street conveyancing practice.

Do you research, use some initiative before you choose and stop complaining when you can’t be bothered/go cheap and get crap service. Same with anything.

Mine are brilliant.

I’m also in the “you paid peanuts and are now surprised you got monkeys” camp.

There is no money in residential conveyancing. It’s a volume game – they’ll have 80+ live files on the go at any one time. The whole system of land transactions in the England and Wales is still very paper based.

Like curto says – if you want gold-plated attention for what is non-complex but rather fiddly work, then appoint and pay accordingly. And as for those who have repeated their experience and apparently not learned from this, perhaps you’ve got the service you deserve….

Was meant to complete our remortgage today. Was phoned by our conveyancing clowns at 16:45 last night to be informed that “there was a £2750 shortfall in the redemption. Would I like to pay it?” Not a single word from them before that. They’re the new lender’s recommended fools. How the smeg did they not spot that before?

if you want gold-plated attention for what is non-complex but rather fiddly work, then appoint and pay accordingly

As you note its not hard or complex so why do we need to pay thousands to get it done when its basically admin level of work

Junkyard – lazarus
As you note its not hard or complex so why do we need to pay thousands to get it done when its basically admin level of work

Bikes are simple, so I should be ok to use this shiny supermarket downhill bike at Fort William….

See the analogy? 🙂

Our Bank mortgage advisor couldn’t get her sums correct when doing our mortgage offer (lost over a £100,000).

Then she couldn’t get the monthly repayments correct and I had to screen shot their own website to prove I was correct as she didn’t believe my workings.

Due to complete tomorrow but despite setting this date a month ago the first time buyer at the start of the chain has cocked it up. Her solicitors haven’t signed off the file and as a result haven’t requested funds from the bank. I’m assuming she’s using a cheap conveyancing office and has now cocked the entire chain up.

Arrrgggghhhhh. Long day of phone calls ahead.

Bikes are simple, so I should be ok to use this shiny supermarket downhill bike at Fort William…. on a perfectly level bit of road I’ve ridden twenty times this week already

See the analogy?

Is probably more analogous

There is no money in residential conveyancing. It’s a volume game – they’ll have 80+ live files on the go at any one time. The whole system of land transactions in the England and Wales is still very paper based.

This.

By and large it’s straightforward but there’s often something that will lurk and catch someone out.

perditus – Member
As with everything you get what you pay for.

This, every time.

The trouble is, people say “oh, it’s just form filling, it’s so easy” where, in fact, there are a large number of potential pitfalls that using a decent conveyancer will guard against.

It is, however, very difficult for them to convince the public that it is worth paying a premium to guard against these seemingly intangible risks.

That is not to say that there are not a large number of barely competent individuals providing the service. To the public, there is no discernible benefit in using a more expensive lawyer when compared to a high street practice. The distinction only becomes apparent when things start to go wrong.

It’s not just conveyancing where the drive to the bottom has lowered standards in law, but it is the most obvious as most of us will have some contact with a property lawyer at some point in our lives.

I was profoundly shocked when I used the estate agent’s recommended (local) solicitor when we sold our home. The level of service was non-existent, and resulted in me telephoning the managing partner on a Friday afternoon, to enquire as to precisely why, for the third time, we hadn’t exchanged when I had been told we would. I was told they wouldn’t be able to exchange until the following Wednesday, as Monday was a Bank Holiday, and “the office was closed on Tuesday, because no solicitor works the day after a Bank Holiday”. When I pointed out that I was, in fact, a solicitor, and I would indeed be working on the day after the Bank Holiday, we finally managed to exchange on the Tuesday…

That is not to excuse failures in the basics, however, such as correctly calculating a completion statement!

I sold a flat on Friday, buyer wants to move in on 17th November.

Cash buyer but I can’t see how numpty solicitors will be able to get the sale through in 3 weeks.

anyone care to name and shame these poor conveyancing solicitors, so we can avoid in future?

There is no money in residential conveyancing. It’s a volume game

True except when it’s not.

One of my best mates is a residential conveyancer. He largely handles multi-million pound London houses and some country estates. He bills about five hundred quid an hour, and probably doesn’t get out of bed for much under ten grand these days. For that sort of money however, he can get a cash purchase done inside 48 hours, and will do conference calls at 2am. His clients send him cases of champagne on completion days. 🙂

For that sort of money however, he can get a cash purchase done inside 48 hours, and will do conference calls at 2am

I think I need his number.

The whole system of land transactions in the England and Wales is still very paper based.

This. Another example of the broken UK public administration. I bought property in Denmark and the whole lot was done in a few clicks on the internet.

The whole system of land transactions in the England and Wales is still very paper based.

Scotland is getting there, but the focus remains that solicitors act as middlemen for all transactions, when you could question that for straightforward dealings, they are not required – once everything has been moved from Sasines to the Land Register that is.

You’re all appointing the wrong people.

Pay a couple of hundred quid more and use the real estate team of a proper law firm rather than a high street conveyancing practice.

That’s what we did this time.

They were shit too.

Just more expensive shit really.

When we bought our solicitors were also acting for the sellers but forgot to tell us

and your point is ?

Gary_M – Member
I sold a flat on Friday, buyer wants to move in on 17th November.

Cash buyer but I can’t see how numpty solicitors will be able to get the sale through in 3 weeks.

Hardly the “numpty solicitor’s” fault if you want a transaction to go through quickly. There are certain things that have to be done in order to facilitate a transaction to ensure that the client is adequately protected. If you want to forego that protection, then it can be done extremely quickly, but that doesn’t meant that the solicitor isn’t still on the hook when something goes wrong. If you are prepared to pay the proper rate for it to be done properly and quickly, then as BigDummy says someone will be able to do it for you. It’s when you want it done quickly and properly, but want to pay high st conveyancing rates that you’ll be disappointed.

I’ve lost count of the number of times this week a client has demanded something to be done yesterday, but they themselves haven’t given me the information, or completed the required administrative papers, or even responded to very basic emails seeking instructions.

“If you are prepared to pay the proper rate for it to be done properly and quickly, then as BigDummy says someone will be able to do it for you. It’s when you want it done quickly and properly, but want to pay high st conveyancing rates that you’ll be disappointed.”

As above. I recently purchased land and buildings for a client at 2.9m. I had the papers from the seller’s solicitor obo the banks receiver at 5.50 pm on the Friday evening and we exchanged on the following Monday afternoon with completion 7 days later and this included the site visit prior to exchange etc. My fee were 1/4 of `1% of the purchase price and I have a sensible and well organised client.