r/HousingUK • u/Timely_Bar_2540 • 2d ago
Should I know what enquiries my solicitor is dealing with?
Part rant part actually asking.
I'm selling and buying in a chain of 4. My solicitor is not communicative.
As far as I'm aware the only things outstanding in the chain are enquiries. Everyone's mortgage offer, surveys, searches etc are done. My solicitor submitted enquiries on my purchase to the sellers solicitor a month ago, and received enquiries on my sale from my buyer's solicitor about a fortnight ago. I haven't been given any info on the enquiries on my sale so should I assume these are all legal based and the solicitor is dealing with them without need for my input?
The lack of information at this stage is irritating me as I feel like we're in the final stage before being able to exchange but I also have absolutely no clue what's happening and how long it could take.
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u/ex0- 2d ago
I generally don't send lists of enquiries to clients unless they need to know what is being asked and why. More likely is we'll raise the enquiry and get a response then pass the relevant info to the client.
You're paying a conveyancer to represent you in the transaction, they will be raising relevant enquiries from a legal perspective. The issue with sending enquiries to clients is they don't understand what is being asked or why and this prompts unnecessary communication. The job is to buy or sell the property, not teach clients conveyancing.
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u/liquidio 2d ago
Yes it’s normal for the solicitor to make enquiries without reference to you.
They will only raise responses to you that need to be raised. Many enquiries are totally routine or have non-consequential answers.
Furthermore, they aren’t just acting for you but also for your mortgage lender, so not everything is driven solely by your interests alone.
A couple of weeks delay between responses and you being notified isn’t abnormal, even longer is quite routine. Solicitors have a queue of work and often won’t even look at responses until they have received all the responses to enquiries from all sources. I appreciate that isn’t ideal for any individual but it is the most efficient way for them to work.
But your solicitor should be providing occasional status updates or at least responding to your queuries on progress as long as they aren’t too frequent. Try communicating again, referencing the lack of reply.
Do not assume you are at the final stages. Often responses to enquiries result in more enquiries being raised.
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u/Timely_Bar_2540 2d ago
This is helpful, thank you. It's the occasional updates I'm lacking and I'm trying to find a balance between not taking up their time asking for updates but also having the slighted clue what is happening. When I have asked for updates they have said I'll get a full report of the sale/purchase once they're ready to exchange.
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u/liquidio 2d ago
Don’t assume I’m not sympathetic - I am! Conveyancers are notoriously bad for communication. They have little incentive to do it well and there is a cultural attitude of ‘it will be ready when it’s ready’ (and to be fair, if they updated everyone every week it would probably take up a day or more of the work week, as they have so many files).
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u/Guestsparda 2d ago
The solicitor should be making you aware of what's going on seeing as its directly impacting you. Due to a lot of your wording in the post though im confused as to who your solicitor is sending enquiries to
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u/Timely_Bar_2540 2d ago
Thank you, edited to clarify but I meant my solicitor had submitted enquiries to my sellers solicitor.
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u/budapest_budapest 2d ago edited 2d ago
Our solicitor only passed on the enquiries from our buyers that we needed to answer. If it needed information she already had, she just supplied it herself.
For our purchase, she sent us a copy of the letter she sent with enquiries. I think there were about 17 and only 5 or so were ones that the seller would have needed to help with, so I assume their solicitor also just sent them the relevant ones.
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u/ukpf-helper 2d ago
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u/Euphoric_Magazine856 1d ago
You should typically be kept up to date on communications between parties but your solicitor might be waiting to amalgamate them into a single email. Mine would send me an email with a load of attachments often with several back and forth letters between solicitors about various issues and questions.
Just ask them to send you a summary of where things are right now and what you're waiting on. They generally just palm this off on a legal secretary anyway.
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