How do I employ a conveyancer?

May 24, 2006 3:56 AM

UKPropertyFilter: I'm in the process of buying my first house. Can anyone offer the wisdom of their experience of employing a conveyancer? Specifically I'm interested in using a local firm of solicitors/conveyancers vs. using the cheaper on-line alternative.

I've read the books, taken the advice from parents and friends, done the reasearch. The general opinion is that it's advantageous to use a local specialist conveyancer.

Let's say, though, that a local firm has quoted about £630 + VAT as their basic fee. A simple google search tells me I can get, in theory, the same work done for less than half the price. Has anyone taken the latter route without a problem? Are there any advantages other than the price? We could really do with saving the few hundred squids.

I've considered doing the conveyancing myself. I don't think I have the time to do it properly, but I'd still like to hear of any good or bad experiences of doing this.

Also, to hijack my own question, there have been a few good threads about house-buying. Has anyone got any further suggestions for unusual things I should consider when buying a house in England - the killer stuff not covered in books?

posted by brighton to work & money (6 comments total)

IAAL, so my view on this is necessarily skewed by that.

First of all, DIY conveyancing. Conveyancing isn't simply about filling in forms. Would you be able to spot if there's a problem with the title to the property and know how to put it right? If not, then don't even think about doing your own conveyancing.

Now, in the local firm vs online conveyancing factory behemoth debate, I would always, always favour a local firm of solicitors where you can meet the person who's doing your conveyancing face-to-face. Why do you think the firms who do the work online can do it so cheaply? The answer is because the work is generally done by staff who have no legal qualifications who are ostensibly 'supervised' by someone who is qualified. They have a fast turnover, very high targets, and, again, will not necessarily be trained to spot a problem with the title.

The benefits of using a local solicitor are that you will be aware at the outset of the level of qualification of the person who is doing the work (Law Society Rule 15), you'll be able to drop documents into the office, discuss the progress of the transaction and, generally, get a level of service you wouldn't otherwise get.

Both the local firm and the conveyancing factory will have indemnity insurance, so if you find out further down the line that the work hasn't been done properly, you'll have some recourse, but in my experience* I would always choose a long-established local firm.

Honestly, it's not worth the stress you'll be caused trying to deal with a call centre at the other end of the country if you use the conveyancing factory over the few hundred pounds extra you'll pay to be able to deal with a real lawyer face to face.


*Five years in the legal dept of a major building society, 15 years in private practice, and the last six years dealing with complaints between banks and customers.
posted by essexjan at 4:56 AM on May 24, 2006

If you look at the small print of the big conveyancing houses, they don't often work out significantly cheaper - often they quote a price only for buying, not selling (or vice versa), and rely on the inertia of potential customers in choosing to go with them anyway rather than going to do further research.

Practically, the main quantifiable benefit that I have seen is availability (obviously competence is likely to be a concern too, but it's probably unfair to assume that all big conveyancers are rubbish). In my recent house move, we used a local firm, and the people buying our house used Countrywide. They had a nightmare - they literally could never raise any form of response from their solicitor inside a week, and more frequently two. They lost the same piece of paper that had been faxed and sent in hard copy by our solicitor on six different occasions, and their specific solicitor went on holiday without telling them, returning two days after the provisional date that had been set for exchange of contracts, and leaving no instructions to allow the case to proceed in their absence.

Frankly, you don't need the shit of having a solicitor that you can neither easily contact, nor rely on to undertake basic paperwork successfully when you're already stressed out by a house move, and this generally seems to be the situation for many of the big, cheap ones.

One decent recommendation - ask the people you're buying from if they would recommend the solicitors they used when they bought the place originally.
posted by bifter at 5:16 AM on May 24, 2006

I'm just getting to the point of exchanging contracts on a sale & purchase in Brighton so I have some local experience...

Firstly, the quote you get might not include Local Authority Search (£150-175), telegraphic transfer fees (for when you complete, usually £35ish) and other dispersals. Check or you could be in for a surprise.

I can recommend two solicitors in Brighton you shouldn't be using as they've pissed me off for various reasons although the main one is taking ages to respond to queries.

This can be a problem with using local solicitors that aren't that big because if they have a lot of work (the market seems to be quite busy in Brighton at present) there's only so much time they can devote to each client. I'm currently using the same solicitor as my buyer but we've still had a 2 week delay in getting an important set of questions from the buyer's side of the firm to me via my side of the firm which has caused problems.

I've also had problems training my solicitor to use email. I've responded immediately to his letters but then I'll be waiting for a postal reply. After some (written) aggro his secretary has now been emailing me copies of letters & enclosures as they're written as well as putting printed copies in the post.

To be honest tho', if you can't afford an extra few hundred quid I'm not sure you should be moving.

Are you going to go for a basic valuation survey at around £200 (usually compulsory as part of the mortgage offer) or upgrade to a home buyers survey at £400 or a full structural survey at, say £600? Scrimp on those and you could be in trouble down the line. A lot of properties in Brighton are over 100 years old & built in a variety of interesting ways (Bungeroosh anyone?) as well as having been converted in equally interesting ways. Couple those with being pounded year-round by salty sea air and there's a few things to be on the lookout for. Older properties may need an electrical & heating/plumbing survey too as well as roof, damp & timber surveys. A homebuyers survey won't cover those but would make recommendations regarding them = more costs.

Another point to consider is if you're buying a leasehold (or share of freehold) property as there is extra legal work involved looking at the lease conditions, maintenance accounts & so forth. I'm guessing that if you are a first-time buyer in Brighton then you will be.

I would offer the following tips:

Meet your seller & exchange numbers. Still get things done through the solicitor but you have back up for finding things out directly if there are delays. [This has helped me no end recently.]

Make a list of all the people you will need to contact & be prepared to chase them rather than wait for the solicitor to do it. These could include:
Mortgage company, mortgage agent/financial adviser, surveyor(s), person or company that holds the freehold of the place you're buying, estate agent (can be helpful in helping chase things as they have a vested interest in getting the sale completed). Make sure the solicitor has these contacts.

Ask potential firms (& get a written response):
What their response time is to queries from you.
If they will use email with postal back up.

Be prepared to keep ringing your solicitor (or his/her secretary) to chase things along.

My email is on my profile page if you want to know more...& good luck.
posted by i_cola at 6:11 AM on May 24, 2006

Lots of good stuff here, and through experience I have a couple of additional points:

1) Get a quote of what they'll charge you, not an estimate. We got screwed over a bit because the solicitor didn't calculate one of the costs right (I think he forgot to include something) so the final bill was over £300 different to what we were expecting.

2) Don't start them going and leave them to it. Get regular updates from them - keep on top of things. They'll prioritise work that gets chased, to the detriment of other possibly older stuff.

3) Keep a copy of all the letters they send you, and also all correspondence you send them - including the date on which it was sent.

In general, I'd definitely prefer a local solicitor where I can have face-to-face conversations, rather than a faceless internet conveyancing company. The peace of mind would definitely be worth the extra money (well, to a degree anyway - it depends on the actual price difference).

HTH!
posted by Chunder at 6:39 AM on May 24, 2006

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Luckily we can afford all the necessary and it isn't a problem paying for a decent service, full survey etc. With all the expenses involved the thought of saving a few hundred just interested me.

Plus, as i_cola mentioned, the housing market is pretty active here and there are about 4 licensed conveyancers in the city.

Anyway... back to finding out how many properties I was due to view this week have been sold already.
posted by brighton at 7:11 AM on May 24, 2006

As a third alternative, I used solicitors who I knew were good but weren't local to where I was living at the time (London). There was a big difference in price.

If you know people who live in areas where the solicitors are likely to be cheaper, you could get recommendations from them. I'll recommend the one I used if you trust the word of random strangers on the internet. Being local doesn't make that much difference in my opinion - competence is much more important.

As everyone already said - you have to keep chasing everyone in the transaction to keep it moving along.
posted by crocomancer at 7:15 AM on May 24, 2006