Andrew
Collected on:
You'd Have To Be Crazy!
If Arrow Conveyancing were a performance, they'd be the sort where the audience leaves at interval and demands a refund.
Their three-week prelude of silence before even assigning a solicitor (despite doing through ID checks on me and demanding more information about me than my own government possess, as well as taking payment) wasn't so much a dramatic pause as a complete power cut.
Telephones at Arrow appear to be purely decorative items, like those plastic fruits some people keep in bowls. Emails vanish into the ether, returning weeks later with the informational equivalent of "we've received your message and thought we'd ignore most of it."
We received our updates from the seller and estate agent, rather like getting test results back from the hospital porter.
Despite being first-time buyers without a chain, we somehow managed to become the weak link in someone else's — a remarkable achievement, like winning a race you hadn't even entered.
Then there's Adam Houghton, senior conveyancer extraordinaire, a man so elusive he could teach masterclasses to Houdini. His professional title should be "Head Spectre" rather than solicitor. The chocolate teapot of the legal world – except a chocolate teapot has the good grace to announce its uselessness immediately rather than stringing you along for months with the promise of competence never delivered.
When the day of exchange arrived (thankfully, our sellers text us to announce it was such a day, so naturally I spent hours futily attempting to contact Adam from 'the other side'), Mr. Houghton materialized at 17:06 with deposit details, announcing "everyone was ready to exchange" with all the timing of someone arriving at a funeral reception to announce the deceased had, in fact, passed away. Sadly, my bank closed at 16:30pm.
The grand finale came the night before key handover — silence all day, then a last-minute email at 18:06: "You're short by X amount due to information I had but didn't read, can you transfer now?" As though asking for spare change for the parking meter rather than substantial sums of money to complete a house purchase.
I've had more prompt responses from my great-aunt Mabel, and she's been dead since 1997. At least she has the legitimate excuse of decomposition rather than professional indifference.
Would I recommend Arrow Conveyancing? You'd be better off hammering nails into your own eyeballs while filling out your own legal paperwork with your feet. It would be less painful, more productive, and you'd still have finished before they answered their phones.
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