We sold our house in July, accepted an offer on the 6th, the buyers didn’t need finance and they were keen to get possession asap, which suited us as we were planning on living with relatives until we found something suitable.
Now the rub, it’s three months later and we still haven’t exchanged contracts, our buyers are as keen as ever to get in and have visited our property five times just so they can get a fix, they love it so much.
I’ve tried to sit back and relax with the attitude it’ll happen when it happens, but I’ve just about had it with Solicitors bullshit and incompetence.
👿
My name is twinw4ll and thanks for reading. 😀

You need to keep chasing them. They’ll do pretty much nothing unless you prod them. As you are selling pretty much all the work is with the buyer’s solicitor so you need your solicitor to chase their solicitor. Double whammy. Or tell the buyers to do it.

Guy I worked with micromanaged his solicitor. Called nearly every day. Asked what’s happening, what’s next &how long will that take. Then would call back has it happened etc etc. I’m sure he made himself a nuisance; I’m sure he got sorted quickly…

that’s my experience too. phone then everyday. You’re paying for their services, don’t accept shitty service.

My one experience of house buying, so if its not the norm, sorry!
If the solicitor gave me a timescale for x,y & z to happen I’d be chasing them once the timescale was up for a progress update. No need to be an arse about it, but just keep on top of them.

Seems to be getting worse. The house next to ours and the one behind both sold earlier in the year. Both took so long from the ‘Sold’ sign going up to the new people actually moving in we thought both had fallen through. Talking 3 to 4 months.

We should be exchanging today. Sold and went proceedable around end of June/start of July. The solicitor above us did nothing for the first 6 weeks! It’s very painful, but seems like we’re nearly there. I feel your angst.

We needed shit to happen quickly or it would have cost us 2 grand….

Probably spent 2 grand in ohone calls making it hapen with the solicitor

The last time we moved was the ONLY time it was seamless and painless from a legal point of view. We used a conveyancer rather than a solicitor employed bod. He was brilliant. Then he retired. We’re not moving again.

Thanks for the support, plenty of phone calls, our buyers solicitor apparently only works three days a week and appears to take buffoonery to new levels.

Guy I worked with micromanaged his solicitor. Called nearly every day. Asked what’s happening, what’s next &how long will that take. Then would call back has it happened etc etc. I’m sure he made himself a nuisance; I’m sure he got sorted quickly…

That’s what I did last time i bought a house. Very annoying but got it done. I got the estate agent to do the same to the seller as well.

Ewan – Member
Guy I worked with micromanaged his solicitor. Called nearly every day. Asked what’s happening, what’s next &how long will that take. Then would call back has it happened etc etc. I’m sure he made himself a nuisance; I’m sure he got sorted quickly…
That’s what I did last time i bought a house. Very annoying but got it done. I got the estate agent to do the same to the seller as well.

did the same with my two house purchases, 3-4 week turnaround with mortgages, i took it to another level and phoned the sellers solicitors as well, it soon got the point across… YOUVE GOT TO KICK THE BARSTEWARDS into acting. Also now lucky i’ve found a solicitor i trust and would use again..

Luckily I mate did it for us.

He would turn around every document he got the same day and found delays with the other solicitor, so he would ring us and let us know he was waiting for ‘x’ document, we would then telephone the person buying, who would then contact their solicitor telling them to get their arses in to gear.

I had a nightmare buying my house, it took six months to buy a £100k terrace with no chain either side. First three months were my solicitor ballsing it up (they got fired by the firm), the second three months were the sellers solicitiors ballsing it up and acting like they didn’t want the house sold.

Wendy Kinsey, Garrats solicitors Stalybridge – she was really good, if we have to move again (I don’t want to tho) I would use them again

obviously helps if the solicitor is within sensible distance for signing stuff etc but doesn’t have to be

Thanks for the support, plenty of phone calls, our buyers solicitor apparently only works three days a week and appears to take buffoonery to new levels.

Ha! He’s not from a firm in Hereford is he?

Is this a local solicitor or internet conveyancing?

Terrahawk needs to add to this, but he is currently out in the woods burying bits of solicitor after his recent house move.

Did similar – called most days, etc.
Soon got sorted – offer accepted to keys was 23 days BUT that was hitting them with conditions as part of the offer.

This is a local firm, i now have a marked parking bay.
We have now found a house to buy and won’t be using the current solicitors and their second class mail and second class service.
Will be laying the law down on this purchase before the ball gets rolling.

A good few years ago now, my parents and another family with whom they were friends, decided to swap houses with a cash adjustment one way.
They went to the solicitor who asked them what completion date they were looking for. They said something like “Friday next week”.

It can be done!
They just need a hefty boot applied, frequently.

aye, our last house sale, our chief solicitor (big practice as well), was leaving things til last minute, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, I kept saying my wife will be away shortly and won’t be here, it’ll be fine – oh, can you drop everything and come in, your wife needs to sign this document, I was very cost, it was as if he wouldn’t be told what to do…

When I bought my flat the solicitor was an old pipe smoking codger with piles of paperwork all over the office. He only worked on paper but would move the various documents around Edinburgh like he had his own couriers. 4weeks from offer to keys, only because that suited.

When I sold the flat 8weeks offer to keys, emails and paperwork seemed to just disappear into the ether.

last house purchase was a nightmare
we are moving in the next two years due to work shift (closer to trails, really really good trails so the move is worth it) I am not looking forward to dealing with the solicting buffons…

We are due to complete on a house purchase next week – 8ish weeks after having offer accepted. The solicitors have been ok for the most part but by christ have the mortgage lender (first direct) been terrible. Loosing paperwork, not passing to relevant departments when need to progress, their underwriters trying to reconcile 2016 payslip with 2017 bank statements… The list goes on I’ve had to call the bank every 2 days for the past 4 weeks to usher along / escalate higher up the business.

New house backs onto the Pentlands though so brilliant riding from the door. Hopefully should all be worth it!

English and Welsh* property law is complex, and literally varies by house.

Combine that with the usual “price of everything, value of nothing” attitude to purchasing services in Britain, and any solicitor or conveyancer is going to need to have hundreds of open files to make even a modest living.

So, yes, you can chase until you’re blue in the face, but where someone is only able to make a few quid from a time consuming process where they’re relying heavily on non-automated organisations, I’m not sure it’s worth getting too stressed about. It’ll happen.

If you can find a way of industrialising this complexity, crack on. I wouldn’t touch it with yours….

*I know nothing of Scottish law

what is DITSL?

assumed “… Does It Take So Long”

We’ve always used a proper old school solicitor in previous moves who has been very good but pricey. Last move we decided to use the estate agent recommended pet conveyancer as ‘how difficult can it be’ and ‘thats what they do for a living’

They got the ownership of the private road its on wrong and more importantly forgot to wire the money so when we turned up we couldn’t have the keys and were nearly homeless for the weekend…yeah i know, never move on a Friday. Had to keep my removal guys hanging around for 5 hrs while the money transfer went through which meant they missed their next job which I had to partially pay for (fair enough)

It is quite unbelievable how bad some people are at their job.

It is quite unbelievable how bad some people are at their job.

Pay peanuts….

There’s a definite advantage with having a daughter who is a conveyancer. 🙂

Done it a completely different way and when I signed upto my solicitor there was a contract arranged that if I didn’t have the keys in my hand within 30 days from start of finish I wouldn’t be paying the full price.From offer accepted to move in date was 20 days.

Just keep on top of them every day only thing you can do.

My delightful solicitor seemed keen for me to accept a contract with penalty charges around swift completion dates, quite large numbers as well. My seller was keen to progress and I was paying cash. I had to disassemble the contract and draft a reciprocal clause which went in. Long story short, seller didn’t have building sign off for an outbuilding and it took him 11 weeks to get it. Based on the clause that was a five figure sum, my solicitor then seemed keen to roll over on it. I gave up and sacked him eventually as he was absolutely hopeless. Got a new one from a smaller practice and he was ace, still is and does everything for us now. You do have to chase and you are paying for it so don’t feel you shouldn’t.

when we sold the purchaser (no chain) used the “free” conveyancing provided by the mortgage company, useless, took three months and a bit, when we then bought few months later we both used local firms (we used the same guy as before), sorted in less than a month.

Terrahawk needs to add to this, but he is currently out in the woods burying bits of solicitor after his recent house move.

moving from England to Scotland requires the services of solicitors on both sides of the border, so 2 bills and 2 sources of aggro.

I can’t add much to this thread that hasn’t already been said – the entire profession seems to be inhabited by people who simply couldn’t give 2 shits about their clients, let alone the clients of their colleagues at other firms further up/down the chain and what should take a few weeks to complete ended up taking most of the year.

What I can say as an observer of both Scottish and English mechanisms is that the English system is in dire need of reform. In fact, it just needs to adopt the Scottish system.
The trouble is, that would mean an end to 3 or 4 hour lunches, unexpected holidays and institutionalised incompetence south of the border.

It’s a sack of shite in England, basically.

My quickest was eight days from spotting the advert for the flat to getting the keys. Extra bottle of whisky for James that week.

You really have to avoid using the developers or mortgage companies recommendations. Their firm will only deal with you once, for a price that’s been battered down by bulk purchasing or kickbacks. You shouldn’t be surprised if you get a poor job, and if things that benefit others (rising leasehold costs anyone?) don’t get flagged up. The solicitors are working for you as a client in name only, because they are working on business being driven from the mortgage company or developer, that’s who they will strive to keep happy for the repeat business.