anonymous
One or two slip ups but good comms and responsive
Used this firm after a recommendation, for selling a probate house in the south east. it doesn’t matter where the solicitors are in England so saved £1k by not paying south east prices, still got a real solicitor firm. ( the ones local to me are all expensive slow dinosaurs, never use “family firms) ID verification is done by third fort app and all comms is online or by phone. Only had to post one thing, a signed letter confirming bank details. They give you access to an online system so you can see what is going on , upload and read documents. It’s not brilliantly designed but you get the hang of the bugs. Note: if you need sale proceeds split between two accounts, client info form only allows for one - so don’t add any, give them all the details later to make sure they split the money. I don’t think anyone actually reads property info forms (buyers didn’t!), and they did sometimes need to be told that I had uploaded documents. Big plus - Very responsive firm who definitely know how to delegate and communicate. I didn’t hear much from the case owner (except when the other solicitors in the chain decided not to do any work for days or weeks and he has to pass on the bad news) but the team seem to communicate well so it didn’t matter who was responding. Usually got an answer within a few hours, only time I didn’t was after completion when I needed the completion statement to sort something out, took 3 chases to get that. Problems - mostly with the online system. E.g, where I couldn’t edit the TA6 form. If there are two clients the system locks the form after the first one approves it and you can’t see it , not helpful if second person has questions. Also their client letter and sale completion letter are both out of date ( expenses figures are wrong, refers to CHAPS when they use same day BACS and tells you they are sending a client questionnaire which they no longer do). Worst blunder was following the TA6 problem, I asked them to upload a new form and it was an old version. Fortunately I was paying attention and I didn’t hear from that team member again… also despite repeat checks that they had all info for paying sale proceeds, on completion day they decided they didn’t and there was a last minute hitch. It is obviously vital to triple check money is going to the right place, but they had plenty of warning so no excuse for not planning ahead. Clients who are not moving may not be available on completion day. They were proactive with exchange which got repeatedly delayed and changed by the others in chain. Kept us fully informed. Despite very drawn out sale ( not their fault, bad other solicitors) the legal fee was unchanged and the extras were only £50 or so more - mostly due to the out of date client care letter. So all satisfactory and happy to recommend.
A representative from Sweeney Miller LLP responded to this review
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review and we are glad that your experience was largely positive, subject to one or 2 issues. We have looked into some of the points you mention. The app does in fact only allow one client to make amendments to the TA6. This is because we need uniform replies from both clients to ensure there is no conflict and is deliberately designed this way. If the second client would like to amend replies given by the first owner, then we have to re-send the whole form. Apologies if an old version of the form was re-sent, as you have mentioned. This may have been an oversight on our part for which we would apologise. As for CHAPS / BACS, mortgage redemption payments are always made by CHAPS as they are time sensitive. All other payments, wherever possible, we aim to send by BACS as this is cheaper and we try to keep your costs low. So, there is a mix of CHAPS and BACS used, depending on type of payment. We also do prefer to always check bank details on the day of completion to ensure funds will get where they need to, safely. In this age of cybercrime, we can never be too careful when dealing with client monies. Apologies if this caused any inconvenience. Overall, we are glad that you found the team responsive and proactive. If you would like to discuss any aspect of your matter or the response further, then we are always happy to do so and would be grateful if you could contact us on cleintservices@sweeneymiller.co.uk.
