Anonymous
Mixed experience of Ashtons for legal advice on French house purchase
There were many positives about Ashtons service: 1) My lawyer, and her team and colleagues covering when she was away were very responsive and quick to pick up on any asks or to make themselves available 2) Their advice was competent and their approach thorough 3) They supported my purchase through to conclusion and provided the assurance of independent advice However, there were somethings that fell short of my expectations: 1) They were quite passive in the whole process 2) Their systems / portfolio approach is a bit antiquated - everything has to be exchange by email, with no portal in place where everything can be loaded and viewed by client and advisor team 3) There was a lack of transparency. I am used to dealing in the UK with conveyancing lawyers who share all correspondence with the client, even if the client is not copied on the original lawyer to lawyer exchange. Here, I was often left in the dark as to whether Ashtons had written to my notaire, or not copied, nor copied on requests to the local Mairie. In many cases regarding the latter, I only saw one or two of the responses. 4) The administration of accumulating costs was poor. I received an complete service estimate for £9000 costs at the start of my purchase process in July 2025, with a caveat that if the process was complicated, it might be more. At end August, I received a substantial T&M bill of £4,450 which was alarming, given that we were only a month into process. I raised a query with the admin department but this was not answered because as I later found out, the person receiving the email had gone on holiday for 3+ weeks 5) Cost management, transparency and accountability was VERY poor. After raising the query above and getting no response, at the end of September I got another invoice for £2,460, the promesse de vente only just having been signed, and an email from a member of the Ashton's team I had never been contacted by before, who informed me that they were struggling to stay in original estimate and that to complete it would require an additional £5000 + TVA at 20%. Hourly rates were quoted as a reason, yet I've even now yet to understand what these are. I challenged, and told my lawyer and team that I would descope an element of services but that I would from now on want them to be clear in advance with me on any activity they were undertaking and that it would need approving by me. I said they should focus only on activity they could add legal expertise value on, and that, for example, I was perfectly capable of liaising with my notaire re: dates for signature without their help. In the end, the final invoice came in as an additional £2,100, which was only £900 over the original estimate. However, I feel Ashtons were cavalier with use of their time in early stages, did not report how hours were mounting, and did not give me any option to either curtail some activity, allow me to understand what might be driving costs or determine where they should place their time. Whilst I was happy with the support and the legal advice overall, and the responsiveness and approachability of the team, the lack of transparency and transparent cost management would deter me from using them again without very direct personal management of their activity - which, tbh I don't expect to have to do for a service with this eye-watering level of cost.
Solicitors tagged in
this review
