Tom
Very poor experience that left me a lack of trust for all solicitors
My experience was so unprofessional. Simple queries often took several weeks for a reply. When I complained to the senior partner, Peter Lynn, he was dismissive and unprofessional, calling my concerns "factually incorrect" and "v unlikely" (couldn't even be bothered to type out words in full and even misspelled his own staff's names). On the day of completion, I was pressured to sign a disclaimer, against legal advice, due to an issue with a transfer deed - which two days before I'd been told "wasn't an issue". To add insult to it, my solicitor was on leave on the day of completion without informing me. The firm's only response was that solicitors don't need to inform clients of their leave... even when it's completion day and there are issues. Finally, the firm failed to respond to my Subject Access Request within the one-month legal deadline. When they did, they committed a serious data breach by sending me the passports of four other people. This was investigated by the ICO, who found the firm "has not complied with their data protection obligations". The firm was instructed by the ICO to contact everyone who's data they had breached - knowing some of them personally, I know that they didn't bother. Oh, and they charged me incorrectly - as confirmed by Countrywide and the Ombudsman - but all parties refused to correct it. Avoid at all costs.
