Gilson Gray LLP

Disappointing service. With the exception of the last case handler, there was no sense of urgency, too many mistakes and information not being forwarded or lost. There were too many different case handlers, two of which left the firm whilst handling my case! A lot of time has had to be spent by me and the Estate Agents chasing. The inordinate length of time to undertake this simple case has left me with unnecessary additional costs.

Gilson Gray helped me through the process, it took a while, but then I guess the prosses does.

Staff were extremely helpful and friendly, keeping me regularly updated as to how things were progressing.

My wife and I were both very happy with the guidance we received when drawing up wills and power of attorney.

This company must be away to the pub because they can't answer the phone nor emails in the afternoons. It too 6 months for a simple chain of 3 houses to complete due to the inefficiency and no communication with other solicitors or estate agents in the chain. I cost me £3,000 in extra costs due to this company sluggish means of working. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY

We’ve recently sold our house and Gilson Gray were the solicitors/ conveyancers linked with our estate agent. They weren’t local to us but that was never an issue during the process. Olivia was our link and communicated with us throughout. Everything was fairly straightforward and we would have no hesitation recommending them when selling a property.

Gilson Gray may have good reviews but my families dealings with this company have been nothing short of abysmal. It appears that they only work an hour a week per case they have. My family was told a rough time frame for getting my mothers estate sorted and it’s been double that and still no signs of getting a draft conformation and then we will have to wait a further 4-5 months for the useless courts to review it and to grant final confirmation. My review on Gilson Gray is don’t use them. A total waste of time and money.

I feel I should be writing 2 reviews... One the one hand, Deborah Bonner from their estate agency division is wonderful. Interested, and professional throughout, the photos, video and online listing she organised were superb and my flat sold to the first person who viewed it. I cannot recommend her highly enough. On the other hand - do not touch the legal services with a bargepole. Lowlights of my experience include: 1. Arranging a visit to their Aberdeen office private client division to discuss will-writing. I turned up (after a journey in the pouring rain and delayed by 10 mins due to a RTA) to be informed that the person I was to speak to was in their Dundee office – but that I could Zoom meet with them. Somewhat waterlogged, I pointed out that I could have done that from my own office. According to their receptionist, they had ‘no record’ of me as a client, and so could not have phoned or emailed me to let me know that the person I was supposed to be meeting F2F wasn’t there. This was after I had already engaged Ms Bonner to sort out the estate agency side and turned out to be an early example of the silo and bunker system they deploy, where nobody ever speaks to anybody else there. 2. You can expect to be asked by every single person you correspond with to ask you to complete the same client on-boarding information. In my case, since I had engaged them to both buy and sell a property, and having been allocated 2 separate solicitors to handle each aspect – I was asked twice. And then a 3rd time due to some holiday relief. And then a 4th time when somebody else climbed out of another bunker and got involved somehow. 3. You will be treated like a criminal mastermind as regards compliance with the anti-money laundering regulations. I realise that this is a common complaint with solicitors these days, but GG have found a whole new level of nit-pickery when it comes to ‘proving’ the legitimacy of monies arriving from well known shysters such as Aviva, First Direct, Chase and Fidelity. In spite of clear instructions from the SRA to avoid ‘over-zealous gold plating’ of requirements. Plus, a whole bunch of impertinent demands for information on why I am sending other amounts of MY money (not required for the purchase) – to people like my sister. 4. The solicitor engaged for the purchase side of things was ‘busy’ and basically did nothing (except relentlessly pursue AML ‘proof’) for weeks and then expected me to be immediately available at every moment when she did finally get round to some conveyancing. 5. By some miracle, the purchase went through on the correct day and I made the mistake of thinking I might actually be ‘home’ and dry. How wrong I was. 3 weeks later, it is time to complete on the sale of my previous property. I had been asked to nominate a bank account to receive the funds from this, and I chose Chase Bank. But NOWHERE in the endless correspondence does it state that GG will remit the money via the CHAPS system. And apparently nobody at Gilson Gray knows that Chase do not accept payment via this method. So, £167k of my money disappeared on the settlement day (30th September). And I entered a Kafka-esque world whereby GG’s bank (HSBC) and Chase each claimed that the other had the money. I spent hours and hours chasing each of these banks. The money was not finally returned to me until 7th October - the longest week of my life. And the attitude of GG? A gigantic shrug of the shoulders all round. No interest, or even sympathy for my rising levels of panic and certainly no apology for THEIR error in sending the money in the first place to a bank that they should have known would not accept it. This last point I issue as a warning to others who may also bank with Chase – they’ve been supposed to be joining CHAPS ‘soon’ since 2022 but haven’t. Do not under any circumstance direct any money there – and don’t expect GG to tell you not to either.

All conveyance matters were dealt with. If I had questions they were answered in a prompt manner. A very pleasant company to work with and I would use again. I had no problems at all.

Choosing this solicitor to do the conveyancing for the sale and purchase of properties was probably one of the worst decisions I made in this house move. The solicitor in charge failed to respond to 5 phone messages over the space of two months and countless emails. She managed to call me back eventually and was less than helpful. The exchange and completion only took place because the original solicitor went on leave (which I found out by her email auto reply) and another took over. The lady that took over was outstanding. Answered calls, sorted all the things out that the other failed to do and was reassuring, friendly and effective. The incompetence of the original solicitor resulted in a lot of stress and expense.