The nervous wait to exchange....

[grudas]

Those that have recently gone through it.. how long did the draft contracts take to arrive?

EA is not responding to emails so chasing is pointless. This is vendors solicitors obviously sleeping.

 

[Itchytrigg]

Ours was during week 4 having chased EA and also our solicitors to acknowledge receipt.

Today (start of week 5) they’ve now acknowledged them by now asking for money to apply for the searches.

Not impressed so far as they’ve ignored previous emails and have not confirmed receipt of the “on account” money previously sent. So once again asking them this as well as to confirm they’ve get the search money I just sent and just let us know what’s what, cause I don’t know what’s supposed to be happening now….

 

[grudas]

Ours was during week 4 having chased EA and also our solicitors to acknowledge receipt.

Today (start of week 5) they’ve now acknowledged them by now asking for money to apply for the searches.

Not impressed so far as they’ve ignored previous emails and have not confirmed receipt of the “on account” money previously sent. So once again asking them this as well as to confirm they’ve get the search money I just sent and just let us know what’s what, cause I don’t know what’s supposed to be happening now….

It’s mad isn’t it! I get better service from a Tesco self checkout. This really needs to be regulated. It’s stressful already but amplified by horrid estate agents and solicitors. Ours were really quick to respond to everything, it’s the sellers solicitors that are awful.

 

[LuckyBenski]

I just realised today is literally the thread title for me. Sitting with absolute silence hoping the solicitors are getting it done.

 

[Itchytrigg]

I just realised today is literally the thread title for me. Sitting with absolute silence hoping the solicitors are getting it done.

Good luck! My brother exchanged and completed today which was nice to hear.

My moaning I guess was heard as our solicitors have now confirmed they’ve received the money we’ve sent, searches are now being requested and they’ll let us know once they’re back.

They didn’t give time scales but it looks like 2-3 weeks isn’t that unreasonable if the local council are not too bad.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Welp, didn't complete yesterday. Got an update 4pm saying waiting on solicitors, nothing since... I've booked today off to drive up and get the keys (2hr drive away) so here's hoping we get news soon. Grr.

 

[andy_mk3]

I'd be raging

 

[jonneymendoza]

Welp, didn't complete yesterday. Got an update 4pm saying waiting on solicitors, nothing since... I've booked today off to drive up and get the keys (2hr drive away) so here's hoping we get news soon. Grr.

What! Did it fell through?

What happened? Why did it fall through

 

[koolpc]

Over 4 weeks ago i get a missive from my solicitor, after i emailed them, saying they sent search result questions to vendor.

I rang them yesterday to find out whats happening to find out my solicitor is away and wont be back in office for a couple of weeks. No update. Nothing!!

Terrible service so far...

 

[fez]

If there is one universal truth in this universe it is that solicitors are ******* awful and you have to hound them at every turn. We have only bought twice and both times the solicitors were crap.

We would ask them time and time again "is there anything we can send you that will speed things up or make sure you are not waiting on us". And time and time again they said no. Time and time again they then said things were delayed because they needed things from us. Things that we could have got for them and things that were always required.

My favourite part of it was when they added literally no value to anything when it came to expert knowledge. This is what they do and yet they would repeatedly send on documentation and replied from the other sides solicitors with absolutely no context or explanation. Do your ******* job and help us understand what we need here instead of just forwarding emails. So frustrating.

 

[dlockers]

I know it is against the grain of most opinions but I used PPL and they were great. All of the thinking/chasing had been taken away from the "humans" and their system/workflow literally drove the entire process. You could login and see precisely what the next steps and actions where, who was the action holder, estimated response dates etc. Never had a single issue and each time I called, the women had no clue who I was, but could pick up what was next in the list with no issue. No reliance on a single individual etc.

 

[LuckyBenski]

What! Did it fell through?

What happened? Why did it fall through

I emailed for an update earlier and got an autoreply that my solicitor is out of the office for personal reasons. Not a great start as it implies no progress today.

I called the estate agent who came back to me saying the vendors' solicitors don't believe an exchange date has been set yet. Not sounding great.

This is almost sneaky, that communication is so sparse I can't actually hold them to anything because they never confirmed a date of exchange/completion, they just suggested a day it would be possible. It's absolute nonsense.

Emailed the solicitor's admin assistant with the above info and asking for an update on the status. If they just sent messages like "Were hoping to set a date", "We haven't set a date yet" or "It isn't ready yet" that would be 10 times better. I'm not in a hurry, I'm just tired of waiting in the dark. I did point out I've now taken a day off work to sit and stare at my emails.

Edit: just got a call while writing this, from my solicitor who said she emailed the vendors' solicitors to propose the exchange date of Tuesday 12th, and phoned all day yesterday with no response. Apparently they just called her saying sorry for missing the messages and can we do it tomorrow. So I guess we'll see if it happens tomorrow!

I don't have tomorrow off work though. So that'd be keys maybe Saturday, maaaaybe Friday, but in a worst case next Tuesday.

 

[LuckyBenski]

I know it is against the grain of most opinions but I used PPL and they were great. All of the thinking/chasing had been taken away from the "humans" and their system/workflow literally drove the entire process. You could login and see precisely what the next steps and actions where, who was the action holder, estimated response dates etc. Never had a single issue and each time I called, the women had no clue who I was, but could pick up what was next in the list with no issue. No reliance on a single individual etc.

I'd be interested to see if this works because my solicitors have an online system with updates and progress steps and it's an exercise in dysfunction. The tech itself is flawed, plus none of the data has been acknowledged by the humans e.g. I checked a box for an additional form to be sent, it hasn't been, and I haven't been itemised the fee. Plus the people onboarding me to that web portal were equally mistake prone. Worse than having no portal at all really, at one point about 6 weeks ago it emailed me automatically to say they'd be contacting the vendors to set a date of completion!

 

[squerble]

I know it is against the grain of most opinions but I used PPL and they were great. All of the thinking/chasing had been taken away from the "humans" and their system/workflow literally drove the entire process. You could login and see precisely what the next steps and actions where, who was the action holder, estimated response dates etc. Never had a single issue and each time I called, the women had no clue who I was, but could pick up what was next in the list with no issue. No reliance on a single individual etc.

Presuming this is Premier Property Lawyers (working as "Strike Conveyancing") then they're currently ****ing our house move and I am extremely unhappy with them - and they're not even our solicitor!! Ours has been fantastic.

 

[squerble]

To elaborate on the point above as we're still waiting to exchange and complete: our mortgage provider has requested a deed of variation be provided as there is a management company that "owns" the estate. The vendors' solicitor has requested this, but the management company are now expecting the vendor to stump up nearly £700 for them to seek independent legal advice and even then don't guarantee they'll agree to the variation. Luckily our solicitor has stepped in and provided a copy of a deed of variation that was successfully agreed and signed for on another house on that estate, and they didn't charge anything that time or get legal advice.

The only thing we can think of is that the vendors' solicitor (PPL) have requested something so outlandish (perhaps a complete removal of the rentcharge, rather than just adding in a notice clause) that the management company were getting shaky. After our solicitor provided the copy, PPL have now said they will "change the wording" on their deed request. Hopefully this time they'll get it right...

On the plus side we've had all our contracts through to sign so will get them signed today and sent back, then as soon as the deed comes in we can set a fairly rapid exchange and completion date. All parties are desperate to get this done, us being on our third attempt at buying a house and the buyer's second attempt at selling their house. I'm particularly stressed, to the point of chest pains, when dealing with this now.

 

[Shoza]

Awful to see so many complaints about conveyancers. The sector is a complete mess and those left are generally doing the very best they can.

People expert to pay conveyancers less than the estate agents for a much more technically demanding role in the sale process. I’ve had clients regularly think they don’t need to pay my fees if the sale or purchase doesn’t proceed. There are loads of “conveyancing farms” out there like PPL that just don’t work well for the sector unless your transaction is really straightforward. I regularly act against people like PPL and Convey Law abs they’re ok if it’s a really straightforward sale with nothing usual but other than that scenario they’re a nightmare, but people use them in the droves.

The SDLT holidays last year and the early part of the pandemic wrecked the conveyancing market. Loads of great conveyancers left after all the abuse and long hours. From April to September last year I routinely worked 14+ hours a day, every day, and logged on at weekends to keep up with demand. I very much doubt many other people in other industries can say that.

There are also two huge issues in conveyancing that will take years to settle down - (1) Cladding on blocks of flats and the ever changing legal requirements there and (2) the changes to rentcharges after 100+ years.

So give them all a break and/or pay for a better conveyancer.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

That is one thing I can agree on, typical estate agent and conveyancing fees are really out of whack.

Not a chance I’d be paying an estate agent thousands for the value they add (right move et al does 90% of the hard work these days), but I’d happily pay good money for a decent solicitor , the difficulty there is finding one.

 

[squerble]

Awful to see so many complaints about conveyancers. The sector is a complete mess and those left are generally doing the very best they can.

People expert to pay conveyancers less than the estate agents for a much more technically demanding role in the sale process. I’ve had clients regularly think they don’t need to pay my fees if the sale or purchase doesn’t proceed. There are loads of “conveyancing farms” out there like PPL that just don’t work well for the sector unless your transaction is really straightforward. I regularly act against people like PPL and Convey Law abs they’re ok if it’s a really straightforward sale with nothing usual but other than that scenario they’re a nightmare, but people use them in the droves.

The SDLT holidays last year and the early part of the pandemic wrecked the conveyancing market. Loads of great conveyancers left after all the abuse and long hours. From April to September last year I routinely worked 14+ hours a day, every day, and logged on at weekends to keep up with demand. I very much doubt many other people in other industries can say that.

There are also two huge issues in conveyancing that will take years to settle down - (1) Cladding on blocks of flats and the ever changing legal requirements there and (2) the changes to rentcharges after 100+ years.

So give them all a break and/or pay for a better conveyancer.

To be fair, we have paid for a better conveyancer (and we paid for a good estate agent too), but there's not much we can do when the vendor decided to cut costs and use Strike for free and their cheap conveyancer...

 

[grudas]

To be fair, we have paid for a better conveyancer (and we paid for a good estate agent too), but there's not much we can do when the vendor decided to cut costs and use Strike for free and their cheap conveyancer...

same here. Can't do anything about the vendors picking EA's conveyancer and them being extremely slow. 5 weeks in and had 0 communication/response from EA or their solicitors.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Yes I agree with the state of the market. As my mortgage advisor pointed out when recommending this solicitor: solicitors are shell-shocked right now from the last 18 months of bonkers changes and increased demand.