Owen Paulo Legal Limited

Good morning Annet & Stephie, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. we are very happy to hear that you had a 5* experience with us. Unfortunately, the process for buying/selling a resale property can be time consuming and there are a lot of factors that can cause the process to take longer than the average timeframe. some of those factors are in the hands us your solicitor, but many of them are not. As only 1 party in a process that involves at least 5, we are limited in what can be done to speed it up. although I can certainly see your transaction did go on longer than the average transaction. When situations like that happen, it is vital that, as your solicitor, we are keeping you in the loop regularly, so you know what is happening, why there are delays, where those delays or coming from and what can be done to speed the process up, if anything. It certainly seems that this was achieved for you. I have passed your comments on to Ann and Laura, as I know they will be delighted to read them. We wish you all the best in your new home, and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good afternoon Joanna, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We are so happy to hear that you had such a lovely experiencing using our services. Many of our clients are experiencing this for the first time and so we have tried to ensure that our processes, documentation etc. are all catered towards a person who may be new to all of this. There is a lot to it and it can get overwhelming and it is our job to make sure that things are manageable and you feel as little stress as possible. Your recommendation of us is incredibly appreciated and we wish you all the best in your new home. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good morning Catherine, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review, we are very happy to hear that you had such a positive experiencing with Lauryn and Emily. Lauryn and Emily work very hard for their clients and as a firm, we could not be more proud of the both of them. Many of our clients are experiencing the process for the very first time and so, to us, it is important that we ensure a smooth and stress-free process, as much as is possible for us to do so. This certainly seems to have been delivered for you. I have passed your comments on to Lauryn and Emily as I know they will be delighted to read them. We wish you all the best for the future and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good afternoon, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are very happy to hear that we were able to provide you with the support needed to see you through to completion. Unfortunately, conveyancing as a process can be complex and lengthy, and when you add a possibly difficult situation, it only adds to the stress that a client feels. We work very hard to ensure that all of our clients feel supported from the minute they contact us for a quotation, and that certainly sounds like that was achieved for you. We wish you all the best for the future and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good morning C Barry, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are so happy to hear that you had such a great experience using our services and that Lauryn looked after you so well! We are very proud of Lauryn and her assistant Emily, they are both incredibly dedicated to their clients and work so hard for them, something that was certainly achieved for you as well. I have passed your comments on to them both, as I know they will be delighted to read them. We wish you all the best in your new home and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Hi Gary, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We note your comments and understand that you are not satisfied with the service received, or the response to your complaint, however our complaint response still stands. Your solicitor did not misrepresent what your housing association said, and we certainly do not take comments like that lightly. The responsibility of your solicitor is to represent you, and to accuse us of misrepresenting you in this instance, is categorically false and we therefore kindly ask that you remove or amend this review. You are well within your rights to feel dissatisfied with service received, for whatever reason, but we will not accept false claims that could harm the reputation of the firm or the solicitors working for us. Your review, and your formal complaint to us, raised issues regarding service charge actuals for the financial year 25/26 and the fact that those charges were underestimated. Sadly, we can only go based on the history within the service charge figures and what your housing association said. Our legal report, your solicitor’s assistant, and the solicitor that handled your complaint, have stated that your HA specified that ‘no excess service charge was anticipated’. This sentence related to the estimated accounts issued for financial year 25/26, those that you are now having an issue with. As mentioned previously, we can only go based on what the housing association says and we rely on them to be as accurate as possible when it comes to their accounts. Your comments about the HA claiming there was ‘no guarantee’ related to service charge estimates for this coming financial year and it is important to note the full sentence that your housing association said, which was ‘CHP do not anticipate a large increase to this amount but cannot guarantee unforeseen events or circumstances that might impact on this’. As I am sure you will appreciate. Nobody can foresee events or circumstances or what impact they may have. Your HA stating ‘no excess was anticipated’ and them stating ‘they do not anticipate a large increase but cannot guarantee’, relate to 2 separate financial years, and therefore 2 separate things. Only the form relates to any issue around retentions. This was confirmed to you in our email dated 6th October. At no point did we advise that we refuse to take your complaint any further. We responded to your complaint on the 5th, and then responded to your reply on the 6th October, to which we have not heard back. This reply did confirm to you that you were welcome to have the response reviewed by a second solicitor if you were still not happy with the reply. We have not heard from you. Our professional responsibilities were met. We reported to you with the information about the service charge and there was a section of our legal report about excess service charge liability and retention. We confirmed to you that the 25/26 financial year did not have final accounts issued yet. However, because your HA stated no excess was anticipated we did not request a retention (for the reasons stated above). However, we also stated that you were within your rights to request one should you wish to do so, you did not tell us you wanted to. You read that reported and confirmed to us that you read that report. Ther information was therefore you to make an informed decision. As I mentioned at the outset of my response, we take our clients comments and experiences very seriously, and we certainly do apologise if you feel your experience was not up to a standard you expected. However, comments that state that we misrepresent or do not meet professional responsibilities, when they are simply untrue, we will not accept and so I kindly ask that you remove or amend this review. You are more than welcome to respond to our email dated 6th October timed at 9:31am should you wish to continue with your complaint. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good afternoon Charlotte, Thank you so much for leaving such a lovely review. We are so happy to hear that we were able to get you through to completion so smoothly and stress-free. Most of our clients are experiencing this process for the very first time and as such it is important for us to ensure that they understand what to expect from the whole thing. Something that Chris and Eleanor certianly seemed to deliver for you. I have passed your comments on to Chris and Eleanor, as i know they will be delighted to read them. We wish you all the best in your new home and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good afternoon Daniel, My apologies for the delay in responding to your review, I was not notified you had left one. We are sorry to hear that you had an unsatisfactory experience using our services, however, as you have not left your fille name, i am unable to match you against any file in our system and therefore i cannot make any specific comments. What I will say is that we work very closely with all of our clients to manage their expectations, from the minute we are asked for a quotation. There is a legal process that must be followed when buying and/or selling a house and, as an SRA regulated Law Firm we have a strict code of conduct we must follow and so sometimes it feels like we are being overly strict or holding things back, but should we 'cut corners' and down the line there is an issue you are having, or the SRA come and review us, it is Owen Paulo, and the solicitor that acted for you, that would be penalized. This is why we are very clear, from the outset, of the process, what needs to be done, why and how long it can take. Not only that, but we are only 1 party in a transaction that have a minimum of 5 parties involved at any one time. We are only in control of ourselves and, as I am sure you will appreciate, we cannot control how fast other parties may be at providing replies, enquiries, search results, mortgage approval etc. Once again we are sorry to hear that you were not happy with the experience you had, but please be assured we would have got you to the point of completion as fast as we possible could, at the end of the day it is in our best interest to get you to complete ASAP, as much as it is yours. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good morning Gaby, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are very happy to hear that you had such a wonderful experiencing with Chris and Eleanor. We are very proud of the work they do and their dedication to their clients and so to hear that this is felt by the clients themselves is always wonderful to know. Many of our clients are experiencing this process for the first time and so it is important to us that our clients feel supported and at ease throughout. I have passed your comments on to Chris and Eleanor, as I know they will be delighted to read them. We wish you all the best in your new home and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo

Good morning Aaron, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. It is always wonderful to hear when our clients have had such a satisfactory experience. I have passed your comments on to the team that acted for you as I know they will be very happy to read them. We wish you all the best in your new home and please do not hesitate to reach out for any future conveyancing needs. Kind Regards, Owen Paulo