Choosing the Right Conveyancing Solicitor
A good solicitor will make your purchase quicker, less stressful and much less likely to fall through. This chapter will help you to make the right choice.
The Importance of Choosing the Right Solicitor
There are two key dangers that you need to guard against. The first is a solicitor who is slow, inefficient, or unnecessarily pedantic .A consequence of instructing such a solicitor could be that you lose the property that you were trying to buy.
An even worse danger is posed by the solicitor who is overworked, inexperienced in conveyancing matters or does not check the documentation carefully enough. If you instruct a solicitor like this, you could end up buying a property that later proves to be impossible to resell.
How to Choose a Solicitor
Choosing a Specialist
If you had a brain tumour you would seek the advice of a brain surgeon. You would not expect your family doctor to perform the operation on you himself and you would certainly not seek advice from a gynaecologist just because she happened to be a family friend.
For exactly the same reasons, if you are buying a property you should not automatically go to your local family solicitor and you should almost certainly avoid using the solicitor who you met whilst he was advising your employer on tax. Conveyancing is a specialist area of the law and you need a conveyancing specialist, not a general practitioner or a tax specialist.
This means that it has at least one person in the firm who deals with conveyancing all the time. Such firms will have come across all the common problems before, and will have the systems and knowledge necessary to have the best chance of resolving any problems that may come up with your purchase.
Asking for Recommendations
One of the best ways to choose a solicitor is by recommendation. If you know someone who has bought a house recently, ask which solicitor they used and what they thought of them. It is also worth asking your estate agent and/or mortgage broker for a recommendation. They deal with solicitors on a daily basis and will have a very good idea of which local firms are most efficient.
Fees for conveyancing work vary enormously, but a conveyancing solicitor should never be chosen on price alone. If a solicitor gives a quote that is significantly cheaper than his competitors it will usually mean one of two things.
Most of the work will be handled by an unqualified (and therefore cheaper) legal assistant.
The solicitor has budgeted to spend less time on your case.
The consequences of this could be:
- Documents might be examined less thoroughly.
- It might be hard to get hold of your solicitor if you have any questions or if a problem needs to be resolved.
- The sale might take longer than necessary to go through.
- The chances of making a mistake are increased.
The adage 'you get what you pay for' holds true in most areas of life and certainly applies when choosing a conveyancing solicitor.
