Chadwick Lawrence LLP

It's now approaching 6 months since I engaged with Chadwick Lawrence via SAM Conveyancing and I honestly wish I'd read the reviews beforehand or trusted my gut instincts in the first few weeks of engagement.

I had used Chadwick Lawrence for the purchase of my first home over 4 years ago and the process was smooth and completed within 6 weeks and so I decided to use them again.

Like previous reviews have stated the communications is abysmal and embarrassing, I literally have to talk to my buyer and sellers to get updates as they're able to pick up the phone and speak to their solictors when they need to. I've not spoken on the phone once to my appointed solictor in 6 months, it either goes straight to voicemail or just rings out.

My only form of communication has been email and even then you get an automated response saying we will reply in 5 working days, how is that an acceptable level of service? I've gone weeks without hearing anything and then when I have complained pretty much just had excuses back or we'll keep on top of things only to then fall back into the previous no communications cycle.

I also feel that they've not represented me as a client by giving me the right advice, when explaining that my mortgage offer was expiring and if there was anything they could do about it, they said speak to my mortgage broker (who they knew i'd already spoken to and advised they could only apply for a new mortgage).

Fortunately, I decided to ring the bank directly and they advised my solicitor and my solicitor only, could apply for a mortgage offer extension if they spoke to the bank. My solictor obviously knew this as when I mentioned it to her she then said yes they can apply for a mortgage offer extension a week before expiring, why wasn't this advice given to me initially?

It feels like I'm working for Chadwick Lawrence and not the other way round, I don't feel like i'm a client and my communications with them makes me feel like i'm bothering them. As mentioned it's now 6 months and I've lost faith in the purchase been completed, the amount of stress and anxiety that we've experienced in those months has been intolerable, we were told to trust the process and we're still no closer to moving into our dream home.

I see that a managing partner has been leaving responses on other reviews, I wonder if anyone will actually bother to pick up the phone to talk to me for once in half a year?

Chadwick

From beginning to end this was a painful experience using Chadwick to re-mortgage our home. It’s hard to say whether we just had bad luck with the particular solicitor managing our account (Zoe Hudson) or whether this is just an inadequate company. Judging by the bad reviews of this company across the internet its the latter.

Things got off to a bad start when we were asked to complete the verification process using their poor excuse for a mobile app, which was presumably supposed to make things easier. The app had the general feel of having been developed by a 15 year old in their bedroom as part of GCSE IT project….no not even that good tbh! Ultimately it was clunky to use especially when it came to verifying Id documents and answering some parts of a questionnaire. At some point in the questionnaire we got stuck and couldn’t continue as there was no way to progress. We asked for clarification numerous times and never received a response.

Over the course of the next few months communication continued to be problematic…in fact it was non-existent.

Every time we sent emails asking for clarity they would be ignored. I can only guess that this is due to being somewhere on the spectrum between incompetence and incapable (lack of bandwidth). Either way, not acceptable given the never ending shopping list of charges which are difficult to comprehend unless you’re lawyer or legally trained.

My main gripe with Chadwick is the lack of transparency and unwillingness to communicate with us on any level. A 1 line email response to say “it’s being dealt with” would have at least been better than what we got i.e. radio silence.

I appreciate there was some effort put into chasing our management company for a deed of covenant but again it was impossible to know where the delay was. Had it been managed in a more transparent way with better regular check ins then this would have led to less anxiety and our perception that Chadwick was doing all it could.

The only time chadwick started to communicate with us properly was near the end of the process as we got close to the expiry of our redemption statement and things started to become a massive rush. My suspicion is that Chadwick had just left everything to last minute, squeezing all the timelines.

On the rare occasion that we were able to speak to our solicitor the conversation was generally dealt with, in a catty tone and sense that we shouldn’t really be bothering them.

My advice to other customers: I cannot recommend Chadwick at all tbh. They got the job done in the end but if you want to save yourself a massive headache, pay a bit more and use someone else. You need a company that at least have the decency to respond to your emails and telephone calls throughout the process.

My advice to Chadwick: start showing some empathy for your customers. Buying a house and remortgaging is a stressful experience and such a significant milestone that deserves a bit more handholding, sensitivity with the way you communicate and some clear expectations set at the outset about how often.

This review is for a different branch.

Rachel showed her experience to create wills for both myself and partner both different wills but she satisfied all our individual requirements . Very happy with service provided thank you.

This review is for a different branch.

They never get back to you and when they do they say they are "reviewing the file". They are out of office at a team conference with NO cover. They don't have an out of hours answer machine. Everything is on their terms. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID unless you want continual stress!

This review is for a different branch.

I enjoy working with Howard Dapin. He has been very helpful and supportive in finding a solution to my wishes for my diverse bequests.
He is also very mindful about trying to keep the fees down to manageable proportions, though I do find them expensive. But I am willing to accept these mainly because of the safeguarding and storage facilities on offer.
However, on occasions replies to my email enquiries have been tardy.

This review is for a different branch.

We had used Chadwick Lawrence back in 2018 to act for us in a house purchase and being very satisfied with the work done then, we instructed CL again this time for the sale of our property. Overall we are very satisfied with the service again. There are some things that could be improved upon, although the app was there to refer to throughout, a telephone call made for clarity about a matter raised by the buyer’s solicitor was not returned; sometimes a quick call back would be reassuring. However, email contact from our conveyancer, Deon was responsive and the process went smoothly and efficiently. Thank you Chadwick Lawrence, particularly Nichola and Deon for getting us to completion in around 12 weeks!