Our clients contacted us to assist them in selling a property. They had previously used a large national chain of conveyancers but said that they did not want to return to them as they had experienced very poor levels of service with delays, poor communication and many mistakes.

We accepted the instruction and proceeded to prepare the draft contract package to send to the solicitor acting on behalf of the buyer. All appeared to be going well until the purchaser’s solicitors noticed that there were defects in the title. These defects were brought to our attention and we were asked to remedy the issues that were discovered.

Under normal circumstances small defects in title can be covered by an indemnity insurance policy. These policies are designed to provide assurance to a buyer (and their lender) where a defect has been discovered and there is a small risk that it could give rise to a problem in the future.

Unfortunatley in the case of our client the defect that was discovered was not small and certainly not one that would have been capable of being covered by indemnity insurance. We explained to our clients that it was now going to cost hundreds of pounds to carry out the legal work to remedy the defect and that in all reality this was something that should have been picked up by their original solicitors.

Our clients raised a complaint with their previous firm who accepted responsibility for the mistake and agreed to take steps to correct the issue. The defect however ended up taking over six months for the original firm to correct by which time our clients had lost their buyer, had lost their related purchase and were now being told by their agent that their property was unlikely to attract the same selling price as the market had ‘cooled’ somewhat.

Buying a property is usually the most expensive purchase anyone makes in their lives. It is therefore understandable that it puts people under significant financial pressure and there is a temptation to try and ‘save money’ by engaging services. From our experience not all solicitors offering conveyancing services are equal and the old adage that ‘you get what you pay for’ is especially true when engaging professional services.

At Fitz Solicitors we don’t believe in cutting corners, if you are looking for quality and specialist legal advice to assist you with a property matter contact us today on 01753 592000.