...
Anyway about two weeks went on like this, which was the stressful part but I can honestly say that I believe Countrywide Property Lawyers could not have done much more for us really.
They regularly contacted us and kept us up to date and they also harassed the purchaser’s solicitor ... Read review
Advantages: great service, prices were competitive, mail received on time Disadvantages: None
...honestly say that I believe Countrywide Property Lawyers could not have done much more for us really.
They regularly contacted us and kept us up to date and they also harassed the purchaser’s solicitor to get it all to complete. When ever I was promised a call back I always received one and I was told everything that was happening.
I recommend CWPL because they were efficient, reliable and hard working and because ... ...work harder than these ones who get their dosh anyway. They have to, to allow them to make money.
They started out in 1997, so still quite a young company. In 2003 they carried out over 86,000 transactions so they are obviously quite popular within the market place.
I also found their prices to be extremely reasonable and fair compared to most of the quotes I was getting from other Solicitors firms.
When moving home there is so much to consider. You have to deal with so many people and the process can be very stressful, especially when people do not pull their weight or keep in contact throughout the chain. We moved home about a month ago and although it was not as stressful as some moves for various reasons it was still stressful, well for me it was. Anyway onto the review.
When moving home you are required to get a solicitor/ lawyer to carry out all the legal work known as Conveyancing. This applies to selling and purchasing. We did so much research in to finding a solicitor. We compared prices, read reviews, looked at company’s websites, asked friends and family members for advice on who to go with and who to avoid. As the solicitor is one of the most important parts of the sale and purchase process it is very important to me to have someone who works hard for you and does get all the work done on time. Now most of the reviews on this company were extremely positive and their website seemed very reliable and up to date compared to others when doing our research so we decided to trust the opinions of others and go for them. Another good thing about them is they have offices located throughout the UK so you will never be that far from one of them if you ever needed to visit them and they work on a no sale/purchase no fee basis. So if it all collapses near the end through no fault of your own you don’t pay them a single penny. I liked the idea of this very much. Considering house buying is such a dodgy business and something that you as a person are unable to control I’d rather prepare my self and protect myself for the worst, because had it all fallen through and I lost my money, it would of taken me another 6 months to save up the money again, by which time house prices probably would of gone up and knocked me out of the chance of making my 1st ever purchase and I would have had to wait until they dropped again. If they ever did and that could be ages away.
Anyway we got off to a flying start in that as soon as I instructed them to go ahead and do the work for us on the sale and purchase they were straight on the ball and straight to work. My fee was debited from my bank account in two days and I received all the documentation to sign within 2 days so they could carry out the legal work.
The slight problem we had was my partner was selling his property with the Manchester branch and we were purchasing through the Northampton branch and I said would it not make sense to have both our files together so the work can get done faster and they said ‘no no it’s fine like this. Two weeks later they decided to move our purchase file up to the Manchester office to keep it together with the sale stuff so we had two weeks wasted and had to start again. But never mind. After this little hiccup everything was done within 4 weeks and we were all set to exchange and complete and they caught up on themselves.
Then the problem came when the person who was purchasing my partners house, his solicitor was being extremely lazy and not returning any of our solicitor’s calls or messages. Nor was he in his office very much. He kept stating he would deal with the file tomorrow and tomorrow never came.
Anyway about two weeks went on like this, which was the stressful part but I can honestly say that I believe Countrywide Property Lawyers could not have done much more for us really.
They regularly contacted us and kept us up to date and they also harassed the purchaser’s solicitor to get it all to complete. When ever I was promised a call back I always received one and I was told everything that was happening.
I recommend CWPL because they were efficient, reliable and hard working and because they work on a no sale/purchase no fee basis they work harder than these ones who get their dosh anyway. They have to, to allow them to make money.
They started out in 1997, so still quite a young company. In 2003 they carried out over 86,000 transactions so they are obviously quite popular within the market place.
I also found their prices to be extremely reasonable and fair compared to most of the quotes I was getting from other Solicitors firms.
Go to www.cwpl.com for more information and bare them in mind for when you want to purchase or sell your next property.
I would definitely recommend them to people because of the service that I received. Although they cocked up slightly they turned it around and sorted the problems out and allowed me to move into my new home. I thank them very much.
Advantages: Their name is easy to remember Disadvantages: Oh my God, where do I start?
...who turned out to be Countrywide property Lawyers. THere have been great mistakes in history, let me list a few:
King Harold, 1066 : "What Arrows?"
Captain Smith of the Titanic 1912 : "What Iceberg?"
Captain Cook 1740: "Don't worry, the natives are friendly"
JeffFromPoole 2006: "OK, that sounds like a good idea, let's go for it."
We were promised weekly updates, by letter and email, swift response to all our queries, efficient service and dedication, ... ...delays, excuses and incompetance.
Here are some examples:
As you will know, these days you have to have an environmental survey of a new property, as a result of this CWPL decided that there was a problem with naturally occuring Radon gas. - for those of you not au fait with this, Radon is a radioactive gas that occurs naturally around areas based on Granite, i.e. Devon and Cornwall. It does not occur in Dorset and the survey showed this. we took ...
JeffFromPoole 13.07.2006
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Countrywide Property Lawyers
Advantages: After almost 2 years of dealing I still can't think of any Disadvantages: I don't think Ciao's computer will be large enough to store the information!
After being passed from pillar to post and council for licensed conveyancers (governing body) were unable to help. They passed me to the legal services ombudsman who were unable to help too!
I sent several emails to Terry Marris who is the Chairman of CPL. He kept fobbing me off and eventually said in a letter that he has closed the file and will ignore any future corredpondance from me.
I called their bluff and on 30th April 2007 issued a County ... ...on the very last day I received a telephone call from CPL admitting liability and that they will settle my claim.
I have received a cheque for the amount claimd plus interest plus court costs.
If anybody else is considering doing this then do. It is very easy to do and can be done online.
I find it astonishing that this particular case took almost 2 years to resolve. What is the point of having governing bodies who can't help? The phrase toothless ...
Tiger_Dave 25.08.2006 (19.01.2007)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Countrywide Property Lawyers
Advantages: None. AVOID THEM Disadvantages: Too many to note here. Read review below.
Everything that everyone here says is true -AVOID THEM. They are the least professional people I have ever had the displeasure of coming across. Examples of incompetence:
• Things they have 'sent out' in the post frequently never arrive (often because they have never actually sent them)
• Things you send them never seem to get there (ask them to check and double check as often they will find under their noses)
• They NEVER keep ... ...parties (you, buyers/sellers lawyers) that no one seems to receive time and time again. They rarely seem to chase the other solicitors but instead send further letters
• You have to do all the chasing - and your calls are rarely returned
• Solicitor is never available to speak to you
• The juniors you speak to are useless (and haven't got a clue what is going on -solicitor tells me one thing and they tell me another)
• They ...
HouseBuyer 27.08.2007 (25.08.2007)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Countrywide Property Lawyers
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Unprofessional, inept and incompetent
...(they are all part of Countrywide Plc), could not care less either and told me when I called to say that I would be withdrawing my offer if CPL did not revert to my solictor by noon on Monday (16th April 2007), that that was my perogative. They are obviously not concerned about their clients or the loss of income. Amazing. I am certain that their clients, the people we are buying from, would be delighted to hear of their response. Especially as these ... ...in danger of losing us.
I simply can not belive that CPL can continue to operate. I have learnt that there is increasing concern in the industry about CPL; their reputation is dreadful and many professional coneyancing companies and estate agents are now refusing to do business with CPL or anyone using CPL. Please do take notice of this warning, refuse to consider using CPL and do not buy a house from anyone who is. It will save you a great deal ...
BelindaBee 13.04.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Countrywide Property Lawyers
Advantages: None..zero...zip Disadvantages: That they call themselves 'lawyers'
My level of frustration with CPL is similar to most negative reviews. I engaged them to sell my home and buy someone else's with no other transactions taking place in the chain. At the end of 4.5 months we have finally exchanged, but not without every group involved (both EAs, buyers, and solicitors) ready to explode over CPL's incompetent and errant communication, loss of documents (blamed the post and their fax machine!), and general level of mediorce ... ...2nd month, we started seeing some correspondence from our sellers' solicitor indicating their unhappiness over documents being sent twice which should have alerted us. It wasn't until we started dealing with them more frequently in the 3rd month that we realised their concept of customer service was terrible. Their call assistants said one thing when in fact something else was closer to the truth. At the end of the 3rd month, we received only one ...
AgileBoom 18.06.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Countrywide Property Lawyers
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Countrywide Property Lawyers"
Advantages: They sold my house, their marketing capacity, they're very friendly Disadvantages: Their costs
cheaper and it only cost £25 to then transfer this to B.E.
~ All Under One Roof ~
When I bought the house I just went with the estate agent solicitors and this time I did the same - Bairstow Eves have a sister company, CountrywidePropertyLawyers. I've mixed feelings about this lot - they're very expensive but then they appear to do their job well; I've not a lot of experience to base this on but they have rung me on many occasions to check certain queries and they do send every piece of paperwork connected in any way to me - this is sometimes unnecessary as anyone with an ounce of sense could have answered the enquiry for me and not wasted a good number of days waiting for my reply, although due to their thoroughness I've found out that my original solicitors had an invalid Indemnity Leasehold Policy thing on my house and because ...
rolletrog 14.11.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Bairstow Eves
Advantages: Quick, Convenient, Good market coverage Disadvantages: Very expensive, exaggerate far too much, and completely inflexible
, but to be fair a lot of people don't - Internet sites (Rightmove.co.uk); two-weekly newspaper (which is very good); local press adverts (as they all do); people randomly walking in (erm, yeah?); cross marketing with their other branches (excellent and something a lot of smaller outfits can't do). All in all, they do market the properties very well, and I needed a very quick sale so that was great for me.
I signed up on the spot (their fees are in the punchline too!) and he then tried flogging me the conveyancing service of "CountrywidePropertyLawyers" (Licensed Conveyancers) for £600.00 plus VAT plus Disbursements for something my own firm of solicitors does for £329.00 all inclusive! I explained again that I would be doing it myself and he tried to convince my that CountrywidePropertyLawyers were SO good that I would be making ...
sukeysukey 10.11.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Bridgfords
