Buying a house, solicitors and the time it all seems to take

Tuscan777

I'm buying a house, no chain my side, no chain the seller's side. So, all straightforward? Well, yes, on paper, but to date it's taken over 4 months and still no completion date in sight.

From what my solicitor is telling me, the seller has gone with an internet outfit, emails she is sending are taking a couple of weeks to get replies (along with chasing phone calls) and still the details asked for - standard stuff - are only coming in dribs and drabs.

There's not a lot of point to this thread, I know it takes time, but I felt the need to vent virtually, as my real world circle are fed up hearing about it...

Ravenous

Vent away, this is the Internet!

Trouble with internet solicitors is if they're rubbish and you post a bad review somewhere, they know where they live and how to make your life a misery!

fields5069

We used internet solicitors for our first purchase, who were quite literally country-wide. :-) Never again.

octatonic

We bought listed building in Oxfordshire and sold a London home in 6 weeks, with both of us being out of the country for about half the time.
Long chain too.

It was a PITA and my mobile bill was enormous but it can be done.
Just get in their face and make sure they know they won't be able to get away with pissing you about.

Jalapeno

Only people who do anything for the money you pay are the Removal Men - the rest are blood-sucking leeches.

But yes, do get your own solicitor, not a legal call centre,

Sesh

My experience of house buying a selling:

If you don't want to murder the people you selling to and buying from and their respective solicitors and estate agents, and your own as well, then you have been very lucky.

Anyway, the patio I put down just after moving in is still looking great.

Tuscan777

Ha! Cheers people, good to vent....

This is exactly why I chose a solicitor in my home town, I email/phone/pop in very regularly so as to keep on her radar, for her part she does chase the other side regularly.....the internet muppets!

PolarityMan

I havent found actual solicitors much better, both house purchases ive done ive ended up diong elements of their job for them and having to chase daily for any action.

Tuscan777

PolarityMan said:

I havent found actual solicitors much better, both house purchases ive done ive ended up diong elements of their job for them and having to chase daily for any action.

Agree, although at least I can go in and moan rather than have my email ignored I suppose. Little victories Godber.

fretmeister

Always use a local solicitor. Not just because you can pop in and see them - but they will have personal knowledge of the local issues, the weird little bylaws, the rumours of local developments and that sort of thing.

A lot of the holdups are at the Land Registry though. Getting slower all the time and apparently going to be privatised. The LR is a vital part of debt recovery in large disputes so if they are privately owned I hate to think what their fee structure is going to be like.

ESBlonde

Tell the seller you might pull out if they don't kick thier appointed agent!

Garthy

Jalapeno said:

Only people who do anything for the money you pay are the Removal Men - the rest are blood-sucking leeches.

But yes, do get your own solicitor, not a legal call centre,

I cannot wisdom you enough.

Not a big chain for us- we had a BTL'er buying ours, with a local conveyancer with a reputation for being slow. We had a mid-market solicitor who acted like she was ECHR barrister who was just far to important to deal with anything and our seller who was moving into rented with an internet legal call centre bullshite and his divorcee wife who had a mid market solicitor in buttfuck Nowhereshire miles from the rest. Had time not been such a pressing issue we would have cut our losses with our legal bint but every second counted. We also had the same estate agent.

It still took 4 months and right up to the deadline where it was move or bust.

The most astonishing thing is that every time ISIS or AQ machine gun a high street is that they somehow miss all of the estate agents & conveyancers and nail waitresses and shop staff instead. Maybe it's all part of their M.O. to leave us with these blood sucking parasites.

eSully

I've been there, On my first house I thought I'd save a couple of hundred quid or whatever it was at the time by going with an online gang that have since been investigated and closed (I believe the partners were struck off too - Wolstenholmes). A mistake I'll never make again, I did manage to cancel them and hire a local solicitor to complete the purchase but I held it up for everyone. Was horrifically stressful at the time. I'd always go with a local solicitor who's offices you can walk into now.

PolarityMan

fretmeister said:

Always use a local solicitor. Not just because you can pop in and hurt them 

What we're all thinking

Bidley

I had a similar thing. No chain either sides, but it took 5 months. 3 of those months was getting the initial agreement/fixtures and fittings inventory from the seller's solicitors.

I ended up doing in the last month, what the seller's solicitors should've done in the preceding 4 months. Cunts. I know people say flippantly that solicitors don't do anything for their money, but this shower of shit literally did nothing.

Iamnobody

I'll redress the balance and say we used a local solicitor once and two that were over 100 miles away. No problems with any. A bad solicitor is a bad solicitor - they could be next door but if they are shite it doesn't matter.

One of the non local ones was ringing me and emailing at nearly 8 at night and pulled out all the stops to get a deal done when it was about to go tits up.

xSkarloey

There's a lot to be said for having a trustworthy local solicitor. The last time we moved we instructed one based on a recommendation. Ultra professional. Prompt. Informative. And being a very short hop away it meant documents could be collected and returned by hand.



Another time though I got a fairly local solicitor who was some genial old fart. HE held stuff up for us (in our completely chain free transaction) by being uninformative and too backwards in coming forwards. The fact he probably thought e-mail was a communist plot to overthrow the country didn't help either. This was about 2002, when granted not eveyone had gone over to it, but by God folks were realising it was pretty darned good for business. I think he though the phone was a bit of a new fangled device.  My least favourite part of that transaction was when everything went quiet for a few weeks. Turns out he'd bugered off on holiday to do a spot of Salmon fishing, hadn't told us and hadn't arranged cover either.

PolarityMan

It's stupid the whole thing being so asynchronous. In any sane industry people would jump on a quick conference call and sort stuff out.

Snap

We bought place recently and tbh the only reason the whole thing got held up a bit is cos we fannied round a bit. ALl the other parties involved were good and timely, particualrly solicitors and estate agents. In all my dealings in this area, its all been OK. I think it depends where you are, but I think if all involved are local businesses, they do their best, as they can't afford to be bad mouthed.

chrispy108

The whole process is rubbish.
You should have to get together a basic pack of required information before you're allowed to accept an offer.