Conveyancer communication expectations – am I being unreasonable?

[BusterBloodvessel]

Not strictly business as such so thought I'd post in Time Out.

I’m currently in the process of buying a house and wanted to get a sense check from others who’ve been through this or work in professional services. Especially as this is my first house purchase so perhaps I'm being unreasonable!

Each time I email my conveyancing solicitor (who I used on local recommendations), I receive the same automatic response below:

Thank you for your email "**" to *** of which we can confirm safe receipt. Please note that emails are being dealt with as post, in date order, due to the high volume we are currently receiving.

Please be assured that we have received your email and you will receive a reply, if needed, in due course. This automatic repose will only be sent once per day.

Thank you for your patience at this time.

In other words "we'll get to you when we feel like it" and with no indication of at least "we expect to reply within 48 hours" (for example) or any alternative contact to escalate things or in case of emergency.

I appreciate that firms are busy, and to be honest when I first got this I kind of thought "fair enough, if they're unexpectedly busy at least that's an explanation right now". Except I was getting the same response when I first contacted them 6 weeks ago - I assumed it was a temporary thing, not their standard operating procedure!

I emailed late Friday morning with what I would say are some pretty important questions as we are having issues completing some of the ID verification & proof of funds online so can't complete these. As of this evening, some 3.5 business days later, I've received no response and I got the same reply to a chaser email sent late this afternoon.

For those with experience in conveyancing or recent house-buying:

– Is this level of communication typical?
– What would you reasonably expect in terms of response times or escalation?
– At what point would you push back or raise this formally?

Genuinely interested in views rather than just looking to criticise. And yes, before any of you say "pick the phone up", I will be doing! But I've stopped myself from doing that today because I was getting wound up about it and ready to give them an earbashing. If others tell me this is normal, maybe I should reign it in. But on the flipside, if this is unusual and I'm feeling uncomfortable right from the get go (I only instructed them and paid the initial search fees 2 weeks ago) then I wonder whether I just bite the bullet now and walk away and find an alternative.

Sorry, turned into a ramble! Opinions welcome.

 

[ctrlbrk]

I appreciate that firms are busy, and to be honest when I first got this I kind of thought "fair enough, if they're unexpectedly busy at least that's an explanation right now". Except I was getting the same response when I first contacted them 6 weeks ago - I assumed it was a temporary thing, not their standard operating procedure!

I chuckled when I read this, because it reminded me of someone's post criticising call centres with automated messages telling customers "We're experiencing an above average volume of calls, please wait etc. etc.", except that said call centre kept that message on all the time and, the reasoning goes, that's not how averages work .


Communication is a tricky thing.

We all like to think we are pretty good communicators but in reality few people are.

One reason for it is our need to make assumptions. Assumptions work mostly, which is why we rely on them so much. But we shouldn't make assumptions all the time or, if we do, we should validate those assumptions.

I have no experience in the field so can't tell whether it's normal or not, but I'd agree with you that responding - even by automated mail - that they expect to come back to you within xyz amount of time is reasonable but, back to communication, they think that since they sent you the automated email they've done their job. They haven't.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Yes very similar like I say, at first I almost thought it was a reassuring thing - almost like a temporary out of office that they’ve put on due to unprecedented number of emails. Seemingly not!

The “being treated as post” is also irking me somewhat, probably irrationally. I feel like emailing back saying “if I wanted my mail to be treated as post, I’d send you a f*cking letter”

 

[Mark T Jones]

Optimistic rather than unreasonable

I've bought & sold several houses and have found most conveyancers to be useless - which was highlighted by the couple who were actually good (one retired, the other relocated under what appeared to be an area-specific role)

As a broad rule, for simple Freehold purchases, a simple conveyancer will be better than a property solicitor who does conveyancing- the latter make it very clear that conveyancing is an irritation and beneath them

 

[fisicx]

We use a local conveyancer who would always reply the same day even if it was to just say they were collating the response. Had to wait a while sometimes if they were getting info from the other party.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Hmm. Thanks both. It is interesting that with anyone I speak to about this (or even prior to this) the consensus is generally "they're all f*cking useless/a nightmare/hard work"

The irritiation a little with this is I'm not even waiting on info that they need to get from someone else like the vendors solicitors etc , which would make it more understandable (although as you say @fisicx at least a "we're waiting for x y & z" would be nice) - it's specifically around clarifying some of the info they've asked for so I only need a response from them internally.

 

[pentel]

We have always used a local solicitor and have always found communication to be good.

 

[fisicx]

Our conveyancer would get frustrated as her opposite number worked for an agency (read cheap) who were useless to the point of incompetency. We would send the same documents multiple times that they claimed never arrived.