Heald Nickinson

Kind and professional solicitors. No idea why people are reviewing negatively.

It is now nearly 18 months since I instructed a solicitor at Heald Nickinson to obtain probate and manage my late father's modest and straightforward estate. Although the initial meeting in August 2022 was pleasant and informative, since then their service has been appalling: absent or inadequate responses to emails, letters and telephone calls, just occasional holding messages. The last substantive communication from my solicitor was nearly 3 months ago. Despite me responding promptly to any requests for information, there has been no satisfactory resolution to the matter. Moreover, my email to their complaints officer, as identified on their website, after many weeks of emails and phone messages to my solicitor and her secretary, has not been responded to (3 weeks and counting). I would recommend avoiding this firm and taking your business elsewhere- they are clearly struggling.

I would definitely NOT recommend this firm of solicitors. In my opinion they were rude, obstructive, created problems instead of suggesting solutions, and made the completion process on the sale of a high value property an absolute stressful nightmare.

Due to my solicitor (Tony Struve, Senior Partner) not processing certain undertakings in time, payments into Heald Nickinson could then not be processed on the day of receipt. Despite numerous urgent emails and attempted phone calls on the Monday after, we were unable to speak to anyone at Heald Nickinson and various fees for additional interest and recalculating of various redemption fees were about to be charged again!

I was literally on the verge of calling the police (as the telephone lines to HN were dead) when I asked my partner to drop everything and get to their offices (I was working away). She refused to leave their reception until the transfers were made and was there approximately 3.5 hours trying to sort out this monumental mess.

She has video footage taken in their reception of a solicitor completely unconnected to us (and only consults for HN!) trying to sort out these payments, shouting at Tony Struve on the mobile, telling him to be quiet and listen whilst he tried to facilitate the payments.

Huge sums of money using scraps of paper with account details scribbled on were being shown to my partner for verification whilst on the phone, as our solicitor couldn't find the emails with all the relevant details on which had been sent the previous week and already verified. She was asked at one point if there was another account the money could be paid into, she hadn't even been asked for ID, she could have been anyone!

Tony Struve in particular spoke to me as a client, and dealt with third parties with such rudeness and arrogance that I spent huge amounts of my time just smoothing feathers in his wake, and having to then redo the work I had paid him to do as people refused to work with him.

I would specifically ask him to telephone rather than email on urgent matters as was away from my desk and access to emails often. He would completely ignore this request and send obtuse emails.

More seriously, when I requested a Statement of Account from the Senior Partner, I was informed they were too busy, the accounts department was short staffed due to Covid etc. etc. This was incorrect, it was confirmed by another solicitor that this information was at their fingertips anytime a client requested this information. I requested this information approximately 5 times in writing and was just repeatedly rebuffed.

Before the completion date I asked what the ball park likely completion fee from HN would be on the day so I could organise finances. I started asking for this figure approximately 1 week before the expected day of completion. I was finally given this info. approx. 2 hours before completion and of course this left me no time to check that this amount against that originally quoted (it was not, the figure was significantly more). Of course I then didn't have time to disagree with this figure which was taken straight out of the monies in without agreement. When I stated I didn't agree with the amount taken, I was informed Tony Struve on email that 'he wouldn't adjust the amount charged by one penny".

There were countless other issues with this company, I have certainly never dealt with any firm of solicitors, in my opinion, who were more rude or inept. I have not given this review lightly.

After the experiences outlined above I tried to talk to the other senior partner, Dermott Flynn at HN. He refused to either talk via zoom or phone unless we put all our concerns in writing so he could 'consider the issues' (again, the client doing the work). We have informed him that the Law ombudsman will be in touch instead.

We most definitely would NOT recommend this company's services. 1* is too high a review in my opinion, my advice would be to go elsewhere and find a solicitor who are competent and completely transparent with their fee structure.

This review is for a different branch.

Had the displeasure of approaching them to aid in the purchase of a commercial property.
They think charging £300 an hour to send a 5 line email then not hearing anything back for ten days without even following up with a call or another email acceptable.
Obviously they were fired and are now refusing to give back my £400 on account so will be taking them to small claims court.
Avoid like the plague, the staff are unprofessional and total weasels.