JMW Solicitors

JMW were recommended to us as very proactive for conveyancing, and they did indeed bring the sale of our flat to a satisfactory completion within a quick time-frame of 12 weeks. We were looked after entirely by a friendly paralegal who was extremely polite and always very quick to respond to our communications. Some information had to be repeated and the last push to exchange was a bit of a clamber, but we were generally very happy with the process.

I have been dealing with JMW's conveyancing team to sell the house of my late Aunt and Uncle; the majority of communication has been with Tony Statter. Tony has provided information and support as required, in a timely, friendly and professional manner and taken the worry out of what I had perceived might be a long drawn out process. Thank you Tony!

Reviews for companies are usually full of highly emotive language and as buying a property is a stressful time, it is understandable that people are more highly strung around this time. I have written this some three weeks after completion and have have chosen to write a narrative of my experience, omitting any language which may not be helpful. Please find below a chronological account of my experience: Context: I am a first time buyer and moving from a rental property to buying my first place. Unfortunately as my estate agent let me down on a rental agreement between the termination of my tenancy and completion of my purchase, this made me homeless for what turned out to be 2 months. My solicitor was aware of this situation however the following occurred: My solicitor had to take time off (weeks) due to a family issue, this is absolutely understandable and will happen in life, this is not something out of the ordinary for any business. I would therefore assume that infrastructure is in place whereby the cases that the solicitor is currently managing are distributed amongst their colleagues and an email is sent out the client stating the circumstance and therefore who to aim your correspondence to. However, JMW did this: did not reply to a single email. I was not informed about the situation by JMW at all and instead only actually found out what was happening by my broker. He is a friend/ colleague of my solicitor. In total there were three weeks where NOTHING was done on my case, this is three weeks of paying for hotels. Secondly, poor communication: For the first two months (at least), my emails were never responded to and phone calls not picked up. They often went to voicemail in which the voicemail was full and therefore could not leave a message. The only time in which I had a response in this time is when I stated that I would no longer need their services as I would be using another conveyancer due to their poor responses. This email was replied to immediately. We are aware that businesses are focused on making money, of course, however there were so many instances where unfortunately this is too transparent. I will later give a big example of this. I was CC’d into some emails between my solicitor and the seller’s solicitor in which I experienced extremely poor communication, I was shocked by the lack of understanding of my solicitor. It is very clear, to me, that he had far too many cases on and clearly has a priority order in his mind of which cases complete when. His strategy for ensuring this priority order performs, is buying long delays between responses to emails in addition to making unreasonable requests of the vendor’s solicitor. His telephone etiquette is the following: tells me how busy he was and that he wasn’t ‘in front of a screen right now’…this is not helpful. There was an occasion that a call was scheduled, he never called. I therefore decided to call him 30mins later after the scheduled time, in which he told me that he was about to call me and was just looking over my case. His tone suggested that he was annoyed by the fact that I had phoned him. I, like most people, do not have time to be waiting around for the phone to ring. I always felt like I was treated as a job ‘on the side’, unless he treats all clients in this way. I seem to get the impression that he only ever took my calls when he was out and about? There were numerous occasions of him losing files and I had to send them over again, the organisation was obviously poor. When final contracts were sent across to me, I had numerous queries that were never answered. I had files sent that contradicted each other and no explanation to why. My Solicitor liked to give the impression that he was very thorough and was better than any other solicitor when in fact, this is not the case. E.g I had one file that had the correct lease length and another that had such a short lease length that a mortgage would not have been offered. This was never explained to me. My final bill was also £50k over what is should have been as he accidentally got it mixed up with another case. Two days before completion, it was noted there was a problem with my savings account statements. It was a savings joint account and this therefore affected gifting- as I have no legal education I was not aware of this, however as the client of what I thought was a quality solicitor, I’d have assumed that they would advise and take care of this. As most would assume, these savings accounts statements were first presented many months before completion and one would assume they would be checked over by a paralegal to mitigate and problems… this was not the case. The problem was actually picked up by my lender. This therefore played out as the following: an agitated phone call from solicitor, alerting me of the problem picked up by the lender, he then stated the following ‘this is going to be another 3 hours of work for me, in which I am going to have to charge you for’. He then went on to say that he ‘would like to help me, but just doesn’t have the time’ but if I pay him, he can help me. I didn’t realise I was paying a solicitor on an hourly rate… I was furious, errors had been made and I was expected to pay the price! I was then put in the position of, that if I didn’t pay I would lose a lot of money as the completion date had been set. I then spoke with my broker who was completely shocked by the situation and wrote an email explaining that it was their (broker and solicitor) duty to take care of me legally and that by broker would cover the extra charge…. this then resulted in the charge being wiped. The price JMW charge for conveyancing is far above the average, one therefore expects a service delivered my experienced professionals with quality communication and putting the client at the focus. This is not the case, I really do not know what the mantra is of the workplace. I am utterly shocked by the accolades accumulated, however I will be making contact with awarding bodies do better understand why they have such awards. I have numerous emails saved that demonstrate the incompetence of JMW. My Broker and Estate Agent were both appalled by the service I revived and I have emails from both stating this. Please DO NOT use this company.

Lack of communication and overall poor response while dealing with property purchase. I want action on my behalf to be taken in a professional and businesslike manner in a reasonable timeframe. Which has not happened. Been pushed towards firms like these by mortgage company approved lists. Find someone else this company is useless

David Smith and his team acted for clients of mine on a difficult residential possession case . As a retired real estate lawyer I can easily judge the standard of service. Their advice , both legal and commercial, was impeccable throughout , and this resulted in a successful outcome.

I had a good experience with the conveyancing team and Rachel Heath selling one of my investment properties. Rachel's communication and efficiency was great with this transaction.

Awful experience commercial conveyancing transaction. Wrong information provided big company in city centre will do everything quickly. I do not recommend.

I would just like to thank Layla Atha for making the purchase of my first property such a pleasure; Joanna and Julie have been great also. Layla is an absolute asset to JMW. She has constantly updated me in the process; at no time have I had to chase her for an update - I couldn't recommend Layla and JMW enough! See you again in a few-years for the sale ;)

Thanks to Amanda Priest who handled my flat sale. Amanda provided sound advice throughout the transaction and was always available to provide guidance and advice when needed. I would happily recommend Amanda and JMW solicitors.

Very positive experience dealing with JMW Solicitors. They were very prompt and on top of everything. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.