We are trying to complete our house purchase, but increasingly our solicitor is frustrating us.

Background is we are purchasing a probate sale at a good price. The sale arrangements have been in progress since august.

Searches came back on the 14th october stating there was a possibility of contaminated land within 25m of house – relates to a sawmill on a historical map.

We thought nothing of it as it wasn’t on the land we were buying and solicitor took no action until it came to exchange and completion on same day (29th November) when the day before he tells me the mortgage provider won’t loan with an uncleared land search.

Obviously the vendors are livid and are threatening to sell to a lurking developer who we fear may be a cash buyer. Initially he offered more, but very charitably they preferred to sell to a young family.

Since the 29th nov our solicitor seems unable to do anything swiftly – I had to ask him if there was a chance of indemnifying against the contaminated land – he didn’t have the forethought to do so. Admittedly he has found a policy, but has been very lethargic in following it up to see if it satisfies the mortgage provider.

Since then I have managed to find out from the contaminated land officer at the council that they have visited and assessed the site in the recent past and have no concerns about it being actual contaminated land. I’ve forwarded the email reply to the solicitor on 3rd dec and he has passed it onto the relevant people but still appears reluctant to telephone the search company to try to enourage action to get a clearance certificate which would satisfy the mortgage provider.

Is there anything we can do to encourage our solicitor to stop going to client lunches and get off his backside?

If the sale falls through is there anything we can do as we feel he will have contributed by his inaction on the search results?

phone him up and tell him to get his arse in gear, after all you are paying him!

IME the only thing you can do is moan and moan and moan so you are the most moaniest person they deal with and they do it just to get you to STFU

No experience of suing but they all dragged their feet IME.

Very busy or incompetent I dont know tbh.

They rarely sue over small bills as it is not worth it in terms of their time…..erm so I was told.

If I was you, Arrange a face to face meeting for 9am with the solicitor, if he says he’s not availbe ask for the meting to be with the manger.

Go to the meeting with all the facts documented and your requirements and Agree a deadline for each.

Stay professional but put the pressure on.

You case is just another one of many he has, so you need to make sure it stands out, some may not care either way as they are getting paid whatever

Thanks we are phoning daily for updates, so far I’ve been relatively pleasant with him, I’m wondering how aggressive to get.

Unfortunately he is a singlehanded solicitor so no manager to contact…

Also unfortunately I transferred all fees and 25% deposit to him the day he told me of the problem as I was expecting completion the following day…

What is his explanation for the delay? as i read your op the search co need to provide a clear report for the mortgage provider to approve, or the mortgage provider needs to accept the indemnity policy that you will need to pay for . He really is just passing and chasing info at this stage so realistically the jam is either at the search co or the mortgage end or is inexcusable. If it is at the search co buy the indemnity if at the mortgage ring them or get whoever sold you the mortgage to do so . If it is him then ask him to expain what his timescale is and why . Bit rare to find a sole practicioner doing conveyancing?

No explanations but he seems to rely on email to correspond with the parties involved when we want him to pick up the phone and follow it up with personal contact -speed things along.

He doesn’t seem to be chasing very hard! the current stage is we still don’t know after a week if the indemnity will satisfy the mortgage company – for the sake of <200 quid I’d happily buy it to enable us to complete.

I’ve just sent a “strongly worded email” outlining my annoyance, reasons why and told him I want an answer from the mortgage provider tomorrow and he should use all means at his disposal to provide me with it.

That probably is a cop out but it it seems to be the only comunication channel he responds to!

If I were you I’d go and see him in person, explain your concerns (or reiterate as presumably he is already aware of them) and that you believe you are at real risk of the sale falling through. Taking paperwork with you is a good idea but hopefully he already has it so it might not be required.

It’s easy to put off email correspondence but face to face will hopefully help him understand the urgency and start to chase a bit more proactively. If it’s convenient for you then ‘drop by’ every day until things get moving.

We’re completing on a house next week, 2 properties in the chain so you’d expect it to have gone through really quickly. The solicitor at the top of the chain (we’re at the bottom) was dragging their feet on some stuff and it took me blowing up in the estate agents office and getting our solicitor to apply pressure through the official channels to get things moving.

All of a sudden we went from maybe exchanging in a month to actually exchanging 6 days later. Could have been a fluke but I like to think that going from mild mannered buyer to ranting loon helped folks to realise they needed to move things along a bit faster.

The hold up was cleared in the end with some indemnity insurance.

If you’ve been calm, collected, and professional so far then it could be worth having a small (but polite) melt down. Have you explained all of this to your vendor? If not it might also help to have a good chat with them about it.

Gosh i hate email it is a rubbish medium of communication . Get on the phone to him ask him to make phone calls say you will call back in an hour to find out the position . You personally should approach the mortgagor about the indemnity (not as a mater of policy but to ensure it happens)
Get the vendors to get their solicitor to chase him ? i would be reluctant to do this for fear the vendors will get the sent of problems and look for another buyer but if you have a good relationship it may work.
The SRA are the nuclear option (solicitors regulation authority.)

I hated conveyancing and was rubbish at it and never treated it as urgently as my clients wanted, going to court is much more fun .

I ended up insuring our property against contamination in a similar situation (former brownfield site – council said “it will all have been checked when built in the 90’s we have no concerns” but search said “risk”… it also said a risk from an industrial site 200+m away downhill in case of a spill!

Anyway I never trust a solicitor to deal with mortgage companies. They need chased. Solicitors don’t do chasing on the phone.

Ask him how much interest he’s earning on your 25%.