Optima Legal Services Limited

Optima legal are easily the worst people I've ever dealt with - they cost us over £2000 due to their incompetence. Phone lines you're on hold for up 30-odd mins, an online portal that doesn't update properly, & that they don't respond to messages in. Our completion date was finally arranged, but a small legal snag that was resolved in under an hour then took another 16 days to sort the new completion date. Was told several times during this period it would be sorted in 24/48 hours. In the meantime we had to make another mortgage payment to our old lender on a massively increased rate, while also getting charged over £35 a day in extra interest. We've already told our new mortgage lender that won't be renewing with them - having to deal with Optima once in a lifetime is already 1 too many.

I can’t even put into words how awful this experience was. Drawn out, impossible to navigate and total incompetence. Do not use if you have a choice unless you want to experience delays over a very long period of time. Would give no stars if possible.

By far the worst experience I've ever had with a solicitor. Our new lender (Barclays) used Optima Legal and despite having ample time to process our remortgage they completed late and we were hit with a £450 charge from our current lender. Raised a complaint and was told I'd get a response back but I've had no communication in over 4 months. Be prepared to wait over an hour to speak to anyone on the phone and when you do get through, they can't answer any of your questions as they aren't 'Case Managers' and can only advise you'll get a call back, which you won't.

I used Optima Legal as part of the "free legals" with my remortgage case. At first I thought everything would be fine, they have a nice portal and what looked like a nice online process. However, soon after I realized why the legals were "free". Not only did they misread my title register multiple times, leading me to a wild goose chase trying to get a "certificate of compliance" which they eventually conceded wasn't needed after 3 weeks and they made a mistake, they then proceeded to misread the title again, leading them to chasing down approval from the completely wrong company for freeholder approval for me to remortgage. I chased them non-stop but it would take them usually at least 1 week to reply. Even with a reply, they often got it wrong. When I phoned, you could never actually get through to someone who actually dealt with your case, instead the receptionist would just say "thanks, we'll make a note for your case handler", never actually being updated on what happened. My experience with Optima felt like the ultimate toxic relationship. They would reply, make you feel everything was on track and in progress, then the anxiety would come back because they never followed up in 2 weeks. Finally, after getting my mortgage broker to help put pressure on them did they finally trying to push things forward. They finally ended up completing the remortgage on the exact day which my mortgage offer would expire. All in all, what should've been a straightforward process took more than 6 months because of their incompetence, costing me thousands in extra variable rate interest payments. AVOID OPTIMA AT ALL COSTS. EVEN IF THEY OFFER YOU "FREE LEGALS", IT IS A TRAP.

Cant log into their crusty website and there is simply no way of contacting anyone. Why is a business like this allowed to trade. Barclays who chose them should hang their heads in shame!! It will end up damaging their reputation in the remortgage market. I can't give my name just in case it gets worse!!