January 04, 2019
20190104143759
The worst service possible
We feel that it is our duty to highlight the completely unprofessional manner that we were dealt with by Glover Priest in Stourbridge.
After a painstaking 8 months of trying to work with these incompetent solicitors we finally threw in the towel and instructed a much more professional firm.
The first issue we had is that Glover Priest have not quite entered the 21st Century and nothing could be completed electronically, everything had to be either posted recorded delivery or taken into the branch.
The second issue was one that we did not realise until further down the line and that was that the “solicitor” that we were allocated was not a fully qualified solicitor and everything had to be run past her boss before anything could happen, therefore lengthening the process already.
The first alarm bell sounded when we chased for an update and we were (eventually) informed that nothing had happened due to the deposit, that we had not actually been asked for, had not yet been paid. Of course we paid it immediately, which we would have done earlier had we have known about it!
To further the frustration of not having a “real” solicitor; our emails and calls were rarely returned leaving us completely in the dark about our sale and purchase.
When we were able to contact our “solicitor” we found her to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, not only was she completely clueless but the response we received was “oh yes, I’ve had an email about your case but I haven’t read it yet.” Not exactly what you want to hear when you are already a few months into your sale and purchase!
On another occasion after we had been chasing an update for a week we received a rather snotty response of “you cannot expect same day responses.” We accept not having same day responses - are same WEEK responses not possible either???
We found ourselves taking our matter into our own hands and were regularly in contact with the Estate Agent who assisted us by chasing the sellers solicitor due to Glover Priest being unable to work on their own initiative.
After about 5 months of working with the solicitor that was not actually a solicitor, we had an in-depth conversation with her boss, the director of the branch, who seemed much more knowledgable and was willing to take on our case as we were not happy that our case was being dealt with by someone not fully qualified.
We felt relief and a renewed sense of hope that we would be moving soon; this was short lived.
The first couple of weeks of having a “real” solicitor were great, she responded to our emails at least.
However, this soon fell by the wayside and emails and calls were being ignored again.
As Glover Priest were instructed by our Mortgage Advisor we finally raised a complaint through the bank.
Once the complaint had been raised the service improved; for a whole two days, during those two days it was clear that nothing had moved forward with our sale or purchase and we were still in the same position as we were 8 months previous.
Enough was enough.
We sent a final email retracting our instruction to Glover Priest.
Shockingly we received a prompt response (the first prompt response we had received).
It was from our original “solicitor” saying that she was disappointed with our decision as her boss was on holiday and she had taken our file home overnight to review and give us our required answers, which by this point we had been waiting over a week for.
It was too little to late for us and we stuck by our decision to find a new solicitor, and we are glad we did as we even had to chase Glover Priest to have our deposit money refunded!
If you are thinking of using Glover Priest, please reconsider.
We have since been informed that there are certain banks (not ours unfortunately) that recommend not to use them!
We wish that someone would have warned us!
