In my experience, all convenyancing solicitors share the same traits: a complete lack of urgency and an utter disregard for how important a house sale and purchase are to their client. However, England Kerr Hands were so awful that they fell seriously below the very low bar that I had set for them.
Firstly, I was mainly dealing with Tina Conway. We were in the situation where our house had gone on the market a year ago and sold within days, and then the buyer pulled out after a couple of months (they had been in no rush, or more accurately they had continued to look for another house). Thankfully we had not entered a chain yet. Anyway, we ended up doing some work to the house and putting it back on the market about a year later. And it sold quickly again. I contacted the solicitors to reinstruct them for the new sale, only to find out that they had already sent the property information form and fixtures and fittings form to the buyer. The very out of date and now incorrect forms (the ONE time they did anything promptly). Not only was this totally inappropriate for them to be doing that without any instruction from us (they had made it clear earlier that they would require to be instructed again), but that was not the worst of it. They had also sent our new buyer the contract from our previous sale. With the previous sale price on it! And the only reason we found this out was because the solicitor was stupid enough to forward us an email chain from the buyer’s solicitors asking about it (amongst other queries). They also completely ignored my email complaining about this.
Secondly, at the queries stage when I was mainly dealing with Peter Dowd. He repeatedly asked our seller’s solicitor for documents (completion certs etc) they had already provided, both hard copies and as email attachments. On the third request, I emailed him and pointed out that we already had them. His response was that he needed the original documents. If that had been what he was asking for, then it was not at all clear. When he clarified to the other solicitor that he was asking for the original documents, they pointed out that they were not required to provide them as they were more than 10 years old! Also, bear in mind that you pay for all solicitor activity, not just competent activity, so this carelessness would have cost us extra.
Lastly, still dealing with Peter Dowd. We were in a three person chain, just us, our buyers and the house we were buying. Both our buyer and our seller had to complete and move by the end of February, preferably on the 27th, i.e. we needed to exchange by 13th february. We repeatedly made that very clear to our solicitor and in response he kept sending us the same legal disclaimer that indicated we shouldn’t discuss date prematurely and we needed to leave 14 days between exchange and completion. Oh and of course if we didn’t leave 14 days then they would charge us extra. Particularly frustrating was that every single time he sent us the document, the wording in the email was as if it was the first time, i.e. ‘I hope you find this useful’. So patronising. He sent us that document 10+ times.
So, we were working toward an exchange date of 13 feb. As that date approached, we kept chasing up what the situation was with either side via our solicitor. We finally got to a point where the delay on both sides was that they were waiting for a revised mortgage offer. The 13th came and went and no exchange, as did the 14th and 15th. On the 15th our solicitor was still very ‘tum-ti-tum, no rush’ about it all. On the Monday 18th feb we were practically hysterical with anxiety, as we suspected that if completing by end Feb wasn’t possible, our buyer would pull out (as they had been unreasonable throughout the process).
At this point, I am not joking, our solicitor sent us an email that included the following text ‘it does seem as though exchange and completion may be less than 14 days’. And that letter again of course. Also, for the first time he decided to mention that the additional charge for a short exchange period applied twice, once for the sale and once for the purchase. Livid is not the word.
Our buyer’s solicitor then sent an email saying would it be ok to exchange on Friday 22nd feb and complete on wed 27th feb, a gap of just 3 working days! Obviously we were not ok with that. Our solicitor’s attitude was that we should just move the completion date. The non-movable completion date that we’d told him was fixed from the start. In the absence of him being of any use at all we had to write our own email for the buyer and seller’s solicitors and get our solicitor to forward it to them, stating our position that if they couldn’t get themselves sorted to exchange on wed 20th (leaving 5 working days which is just about sufficient to do all the money stuff) then we would have to move the completion date, knowing that moving the completion date wasn’t possible, in the hope that they would stop delaying.
Thankfully, our sternly worded letter did the trick and we exchanged and completed successfully.
Peter Dowd went on holiday the week of completion and didn’t think to mention it (Tina did the completion). Just another example of how little he cares about his clients.
As a footnote, post-sale we discovered we needed a letter from the solicitor regarding the house as it had solar panels. He refused to provide it. Well, I say refused, he pointlessly sent me copies of letters we had already received, despite me being very clear that all of the existing documentation didn’t cover the scenario and it had to be a new letter specifically worded as requested. In the end Tina provided the letter. So thanks to her for that.
