“My experience with Premier Property Lawyers Ltd. was nothing short of a nightmare. Initially, I was led to believe that they were a reputable choice, recommended by Strike. However, their performance left me utterly dissatisfied.
One of the main selling points was their alleged commitment to responding within 24 hours. Little did I know that this claim would fall flat in comparison to the exceptional responsiveness of DP Conveyancing, whom I later turned to. DP Conveyancing consistently responded to my queries within a few hours, sometimes even minutes.
The communication from Premier Property Lawyers Ltd. was abysmal. They missed our scheduled meeting without any prior notice, leaving me in the dark until the following day. While I understand that emergencies happen, it was disappointing that the company failed to provide any support or a simple email to inform me of the situation. This incident only added to a growing list of red flags that had already emerged.
Due to their overall poor service, I made the decision to terminate my contract with Premier Property Lawyers Ltd. before investing any further money. I also requested the deletion of my personal information, as I believed they had no legitimate reason to retain it. Shockingly, they refused my request, further displaying their lack of professionalism and disregard for customer satisfaction.
The entire experience with Premier Property Lawyers Ltd. was filled with frustration and disappointment. I incurred a financial loss of £180, but it could have been much worse had I continued with their services. I am relieved that I recognized the signs of trouble early on and decided to cut my losses.
Learn from my mistake and avoid the same fate. It is crucial to thoroughly research and read reviews before choosing a conveyancer. In my quest for a reliable option, I eventually found DP Conveyancing, which proved to be the best conveyancer I have ever worked with. Save yourself the headache and opt for a conveyancing company with genuine 5-star reviews instead.”
“Georgia Wyeth Ref:1034817.00001 dealt with the sale of my late mother's property. From Nov. 2022 - to completion 28.03.2023. She was extremely friendly and helpful at all times dealing with my queries promptly. An absolute joy to deal with.”
“Baffled by the positive reviews. Maybe it was just the individual, Sri-Devi, dealing with the purchase. So much so I made the decision to change Solicitors 5 weeks into the process after making 0 progress with Sri. I had to constantly chase for updates as she never responded to emails and always got met with “oh, I was just about to respond to your email” every time I called.
The level of incompetence is something I’ve never experienced before and would highly recommend in not going with the cheaper option, as you very much get what you pay for.
If you do chose these Solicitors I would request a change in Conveyancer immediately if Sri is assigned to you.”
“They are not available when you call. Get passed around a lot on the phone when you ask for your solicitor. Kept delaying exchange date for 4 days in a row. Phone call received asking me to pay a fee based on an old mortgage statement claiming they did not notice the error. This would have cost as extra few grand and the tactic to do this was a very pressurised phone call on date if exchange saying figures are correct and saying to pay up now. Documents uploaded and sent at last minute. Not worth 1 star.”
“Charging customers for conveyencing not being completed within 3 working days of completion when no one else even knows this is a thing. Out of control of customers hands and you get penalised twice if you have your sale and purchase with them!!! Wtf!! Thing is they don’t even think they are doing anything wrong!!!! Questions asked multiple times, online task thing didn’t even work after so long. Don’t use them Ever!!! I’m complaining to the ombudsmen”
“Awful, same as the rest of the reviews here. Seems odd there is a completely different set of reviews on Trust Pilot? 2 failed completions and neither myself, or the buyers solicitor can get a response from them. We will be rolling into the 8th month with no new completion date set. This is for an empty flat with no upward chain. Latest failure was a broken promise to expedite the deed going to Land Registry, not only have they not expedited it, they haven't sent it at all. Buyers funds have gone back to the bank for the second time and zero communication, not even to tell me the completion didn't happen last week. It's embarrassing and very costly. Buyer is now homeless.”
“STOP ✋
If I could turn back time I would, this company never calls when promised and never responds to emails.
From the initial call I was told I would have no problems with buying my council house and that they have done it many times before great I paid them the starter fees was assigned V+++++ p ++++ and was promised a call this never happened, I had to chase them and ended up speaking to someone who couldn’t really tell me what to do next or what they were waiting for.
A month went past nothing so called them again this time the call was even worse and still no answers.
At this point me and my wife were starting to think we had been conned so we called again this was getting on for two months now nothing again. We asked if we could have a refund on email, later in the week I was left voicemail saying it wasn’t his fault it was the council fault at this point we just asked for a refund but heard nothing ! (Very angry voicemail left)
A month later today 18 April 2023 I manage to speak to Vishnu Patel this is the first time I had spoken to him I give him my details and he says we haven’t heard nothing from you in a month and that the estate agents haven’t got back to him I said that’s odd as we are buying off the council, at this point he says also your account has been closed because you haven’t made contact and that I can only receive £399 pound back from the money we have paid.
My mortgage offer expires on the 11th off may which leaves us no time to find another solicitor at such short notice to get it complete on time, this whole experience has brought my wife to tears
Premier property lawyers you should be ashamed of the promises you made and the money and time you have taken from us.
Avoid this company don’t be taken in with there low prices go local if you can.
1144706.00001
7/02/23 we set up the account.
I look forward to your copy and paste reply.
Date of experience: 18 April 2023”
“Please do not use!
So much stress caused. I did almost all of the chasing myself. The chain almost collapsed. I could hardly ever get hold of them and it was someone different every time. Completed later than we wanted and had to pay extra fees. Other solicitors, estate agents and people in the chain took to contacting me because they couldn’t get a response from ppl. They were so horrendous that I became physically ill. It ruined our family holiday. Please use anyone but them.
Trustpilot reviews have many positive ones - theses are obviously fake. Read the thousands of one star reviews, or read twitter to get a true picture.”
“I cant imagine why this company exist. At first, I have the feeling that this company is not systematic because on the 1st telephone appointment, I waited for 1 hour and just informed us that the assigned conveyancer is no longer connected in the company and someone has to take over. That someone who take over is not doing her job. Seldom replies to email and answered call twice with in 7 months. For 7 months of processing the conveyancer only replied to my call twice. She will reply to email whenever she feels like doing it. 7 months of staying with them and it was just wasted. I came to the point that I have to look for other company that wasting my time . I I went to other company and completion was done in 3 weeks . NEVER NEVER NEVER GET THEIR SERVICE .”
“Awful company, poor management skills, unprofessional and unknowledgeable staff, exposed data to hackers. Dropped the case before Xmas. Avoid at all cost”
“8 months into a conveyancing stretch, under the "Strike Conveyancing" brand. Still no confirmation of exchange. I've had to engage in a new mortgage offer costing me 10k over 5 years due to their ineptitude. Looking at just cancelling the whole thing and taking a breather as the stress is becoming a problem. There is nothing special about the place I'm selling. Because they don't respond to estate agents queries I've now become the central point of contact for the chain.
Only able to send one query and answer at a time via email, what's hilarious is my buyer and myself are both with "Strike Conveyancing" - zero interest in resolving quickly.”
“*****BEST ADVICE CHANGE SOLICITORS IMMEDIATELY*****
No matter where you are in the process with them don't be afraid to bite the bullet and change. Go local to a trustworthy firm where you can actually go into the office and speak to real people.
I had the right to acquire my property from the housing association, this was granted in August 2020.
I have lived in the property since April 2016.
The property has solar panels, and I was offered the option of buying the solar panels on my property, along with the property. The cost of this was offered at an additional £13,100 on top of the purchase price.
Purchasing them was really not an option as we didnt have this amout spare.
The only alternative option was to enter into a roof top lease agreement which we agreed to do. We successfully managed to get a mortgage of NatWest in December 2021.
The NatWest mortgage offer was valid for 6 months, £125,000 was taken over 28 years at 2.73% with monthly repayments of £532.56, totalling £192,305.74 to be repaid.
Initially in the first 4 months PPL didn't do much work at all, there was little to no activity on my account and little contact. I wasn't sure the pace of such things as I'm a first time buyer, so I trusted all was as it should be. But the back end of the initial 6 month period seemed to bring with it many issues which the conveyancer picked out, and there was a lot of back and forth with the housing association requesting amendments etc apparently due to the roof top lease agreement.
I believed this to be normal and went with it, thinking that of course this would all be sorted in the 6 months. However, it was not. I was panicking and so stressed. I had no reassurance from my conveyancer, he just talked loads of conveyancing jargon if I managed to speak to him, in a monotone voice with zero empathy or urgency.
We then applied for a 1 month extension as this was the maximum allowed, meaning we would have had the offer for 7 months. I was getting extremely nervous as I knew interest rates were rising, and also, I knew the stress of applying for a mortgage, and was hoping we would not have to do that again. All the while I was attempting to be in contact with the conveyancer. I had to chase him a lot for updates, a handful of times he offered me an update of his own accord. I found it extremely difficult to get in touch with him, or the team. At this point I was unaware that there were other phone numbers I could call, and I infact had been given a rarely used ‘police mutual’ number for Premier property Lawyers on my eway, was not the main one. I left voice mails and very few (if any) were replied to. I also sent emails. When I did speak to the conveyancer, he was very reserved in giving me any real time scale, just passing the blame to the housing association for the time it was taking. Any reply required by them for anything took them weeks to address. It was the most frustrating experience of my life. An absolute snails pace.
At 7 months the mortgage expired, THEY DIDNT CARE ONE BIT. I then had to go through the stress of reapplying for a mortgage. Sadly, interest rates had risen and the mortgage I was offered was at 3.79% taken over 31 years, paying £562.51 a month, with a total repayment of £233,172.51. As you can see, I had to put more money down as a deposit to try and keep the monthly repayment down, and took it over a longer period.
From then I attempted to ring the conveyancer weekly. Looking at my phone records I had attempted 60 calls since July to nov. Most of those I had been unable to speak to anyone and any messages went unresponded to. When I did managed to speak to the conveyancer, he has maintained that the delay was not with him. The conveyancer advised that within the lease agreement for the solar panels a map is mentioned with colours on it. He said the map that was sent with the solar panel lease agreement does not match the map mentioned within it, due to differing colours, and does not meet the land registry requirements. The housing association said that the map they sent to him in the beginning is the map they use as standard, they have used it on every single sale of right to acquire properties with solar panels. They said there has never once been an issue with it until my case. The housing association maintained they were not at fault and the delay solely lies with PPL.
I repeatedly requested to speak to managers on telephone calls to premier Property Lawyers (when I’ve managed to get through) and been told no-one is available. I had asked for the complaints procedure to be sent and it wasn’t i had to find this myself.
Someone has cost me a lot of money. If we go off the initial estimated completion of December 2021 then I have lost around £5500 in rent alone that could have been made in payments towards the mortgage. In terms of the actual over all repayment, it works out £40,866.77 higher than the original total repayment.
This situation has caused me not only financial implications and loss, but the stress and anxiety I have had is immense,I have also spent a lot of time and effort trying to make contact.
I eventually managed to speak to a team leader and also sent a formal complaint. The team leader was soooo bloody rude I'm annoyed just thinking about it. This was at 15 months in with them and I basically got told its tough. Despite crying and begging him to see it through the eyes of an empathetic human.
My complaint requested them to
'investigate whether there has been any incompetence from Premier Property Lawyers, whether time scales were acceptable, enquiries raised appropriate and sufficient contact and updates'
The response took weeks and basically said 'we're sorry you feel that way, but it's tough you can have £300 off your fees but take it and that's you accepting we're not to blame and you can't sue'
At breaking point with no completion date in sight and now 4 months into our new offer I had to do something as I had zero faith and absolutely no reassurance it would go through. They also suggested there was a new enquiry to be raised. It was like they could only look at one thing at a time. I rang up a trusted local solicitor, sent him everything from PPL that I had and he said wow this should have been 6 months MAX. He took on my case, ordered the searches and it was completed within 6 weeks. I honestly think I'd have been sitting here with a second lost mortgage offer if I stuck with PPL. It should NEVER take 17 months for us to buy the house we were living in. No chain, nothing. Absolute sheer incompetence from PPL.
My advice to you is run while you can. Oh and 1 star is too good but won't let me do a 0!”
“My partner and I are first time buyers currently in the process of purchasing a chain free property. PPL's lack of efficiency and competency has caused us to lose our mortgage offer. Our original offer had an interest rate of 3.54%, a rate which is now impossible to get and the total amount payable would have been £404,468.58. However, we have now had to secure a new offer with an interest rate of 5.54% and the new total amount payable is £457,150.21. Of course we are aware that there will be an opportunity to remortgage but we are guaranteed to have to pay an extra £217.98 per month for the next 3 years which equates to an extra £7,847.28 over the course of that 3 year period. This is because our previous monthly payment would have been £730.44 and the new payment will now be £948.42.In the interests of transparency, the Land Registry is partially to blame as the issue that has caused us to lose our previous mortgage offer is a failure to register the leasehold title for the property we are purchasing. However, PPL have been aware of this issue since before Christmas and I was informed by our solicitor yesterday that they are yet to submit the application for the leasehold title to be registered. Our new offer is only valid until 3rd July and given how long it usually takes for the Land Registry to deal with enquiries, we are concerned that this will not be sorted prior to the expiry of our new mortgage offer. If this does happen, we will unfortunately be left with no choice but to pull out as we cannot afford to get 3rd mortgage offer for this property. Therefore, we are currently in a very worrying position all as a result of PPL.”
“Customer service was non existent. Our conveyancers didn't answer the phone or respond to emails. On the 2 occasions we managed to schedule a call they showed up late to the first call and didn't turn up at all to the second.
They don't include the full price on their initial quote. It looks like the first quote is to get you to sign up then they charge extra for virtually every service including ID checks.
We tried to complain and received a notification that our email had arrived then never heard of anything again.”
“Solicitors can not be any worse than that. They totally ignore clients and absolutely indifferent towards the success of conveyancing. It took them NINE months to make a simple flat exchange during which it took nearly a hundred of attepted phone calls to them because they ignore emails and phone line is mostly off. After purchase they forgot to register exchange in Land Registry which was only discovered during remortgage attempt. If you value your time and money, NEVER use these solicitors!”
“I would honestly choose a local solicitor firm over this company. I naively saw positive reviews and agreed to go ahead with Premier Property Lawyers (PPL) following my Estate Agent's recommendation. Positive reviews do not provide a full picture, you only have look on Twitter, or Reddit for a fuller picture. If you agree to go ahead with PPL, please note:
- You will hardly ever speak to the conveyancer assigned to you, most likely you will get through to a call centre with people not close to your case.
- There is a five-day turnaround for responses to enquiries to be dealt with (if you chase), this may seem fine at beginning and for more complex enquiries, but not when you are at the final stages and time is precious, quick responses are critical. Forwarding an email, reviewing two line enquiry responses shouldn't take days and weeks. Weeks can go by with no progress.
- The conveyancer provides no real legal advice and support, you will end up doing the leg work in getting the necessary work done to move your case forward. Be prepared to constantly chase.
- At no point, are desired exchange/completion dates discussed with you, you will end up working towards their timescales and when they can fit you in and not yours.
- Absolutely do not use PPL if one chain is already using them, both me (seller) and the buyers are with PPL.
No work goes to try to speed the process up in terms of trying to work together to meet a desired exchange/completion date, like an external conveyancer would do.
My neighbours have sold and used local firms and their processes have been fine, with the same management firm and freeholders of my property.
This is a factory style firm where your case is on a pile of other cases, and the process runs like a conveyor belt. I am six months in with no end in sight. Their business model doesnt work, they take on far more cases then they can handle, if you value your mental health and time, just avoid and go local. The whole process is draining me.”
“Diabolical service. They are just a paper processing firm. They wash their hands of anything that takes a bit of knowledge and skill, probably because they haven't got any themselves. Awful communication. Solicitors off sick Don't touch them with a barge pole. They are rubbish.”
“Awful communication, delays and stress!
They are very slow to respond to emails, can't speak to anyone on the phone. They have been nitpicking on unnecessary queries causing a big delay. There is no chain on my new house, the buyers of my current house have been ready to move for 7 weeks and I am still waiting for a completion date, over 4 months in! I am in danger of losing my sale and they know this!”
“One of the worst services you could ever use, do not use PPL if you want a stress free move. I am 5 months into a sale which has NO CHAIN and they are still that useless we don’t even have a date to exchange, they make enquiries about irrelevant topics, they ignore messages from the sellers solicitors and ask the same thing repeatedly. I can’t wait to take them to court if my sale falls through due to there awful lack of communication and actual hard work. Disgraceful company DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY”
