“Please be wary of this company as they scammed me out of my hard-earned money and even accessed my bank account without my knowledge, resulting in serious financial consequences. I was simply trying to improve my life through investment, but this company ruined it.
They should be investigated and shut down. I was lucky enough to get help from
Mrs. Doris Ashley, who quickly and effectively assisted me in recovering my lost funds. If you’re in a similar situation, you can reach out to her at
Email:(dorisashley71 (@) gmail com) or contact her via.
WhatsApp at +1.–.(404).--.721.--.56.--.08 for a reliable resolution.”
“Extremely terrible experience. It is taking almost 2 months to remortgage, they keep delaying the process, not answering messages on the portal or not helping at all on the phone. Because of them I am on variable rate and I will just renew with my current lender as I have no idea on when and if the completion will be ever set. A real nightmare!”
“Absolutely rubbish law firm. I have had a few conveyances and remortgage cases in the past years. This law firm was forced to me by the new mortgage provider and their service is shockingly incompetent. I don't even want to give them a one star rating if I had a zero star choice.”
“Waste of my time trying to get through the automatic call answering. Spent 20 minutes then found out the thing their portal said I needed to do - I didnt need to do. Please find a decent local conveyancer and dont use these muppets”
“Worst company to deal with!!! No one answers anything you send and they won’t talk to you, you call and you are told you HAVE to send a request through the portal and then you just never get a response… how this company is used by santander I will never know. It’s shambolic. I’m cancelling my remortgage and will never use Santander again! Just because of this little outfit.”
“AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!
Please save yourself and don’t use this company of so called “conveyancers”.
This is by far and away the worst company i have ever had to deal with. They were tasked with a straightforward transfer of equity and remortgage, which would take any reputable firm 3-6 weeks to complete. It took Optima Legal 6 months to complete this work, which resulted in me paying thousands of pounds extra on my mortgage as we went two months past the end of my fixed rate period.
They are impossible to deal with, every time you call up to chase them your call is answered by support staff who don’t know anything and all they do is say “we will prioritise this for you” but never do and they can’t explain why it is taking so long and what’s going on.
Be aware that any request has a 10 working day turnaround, and i mean anything takes that long, even the littlest of things, so you can imagine how long it takes to progress anything and most of the time they don’t even do it within 10 days!
On the rare occasion a Case Executive does actually contacts you will then realise they don’t have a clue what they are doing as they frequently provide incorrect information and can’t tell you how long anything will take or what the next steps are.
After raising formal complaints which they don’t even follow their own complaints process for and giving them a chance to repair the damage they caused, they offered me a pathetic £100 compensation due to poor service on their part. Such a joke of company!
Please avoid them if you can, even if Halifax or whatever Bank are covering the costs of them, it is still worth paying a proper firm the couple of hundred pounds to do it for you, as this company will no doubt fail to complete your remortgage on time and so it will cost you more overall.”
“Long and protracted process, all unnecessary. Recommended by my lender but now regret it six months on. Caused a headache for all involved in the process and have zero confidence they can actually deliver a practical legal service for me.”
“I’ve used several solisitors over the years but Optima Legal have been the worst.
I had a relatively straight forward remortgage in pace many months before the deadline. Firstly they ‘accidently’ closed my case, I had to call and get it reopened. They have lost paperwork of mine which I sent them in the post and have had to resend. When I call them it often takes over 40 minutes to get thorough to them and often a told I’ll have to message them in the portal anyway.
I’m now past my mortgage deadline and am paying extra because they can’t do their jobs properly, I call each day but still they can’t resolve. Please avoid using!”
“This is the worst company I had to deal
with . Extremely inefficient my mortgage process has been extremely stressful it has cost me thousands and left me in breach of contract .
Every time I called they said we will escalate internally . Their SLA is 6 to look at a simple email and they keep adding more things to the list of things required !
Really dreadful”
“The process was incredibly slow. Our mortgage broker recommended this company and I have told them to never recommend them to anyone else. It took over a month to go through ID checks after being told 10 working days. For the initial checks, the team used the whole 10 days to then ask for a confirmation of address on day 10, which they already had, this for some reason "reset" the 10 day allowance again, which actually took a further 16 working days. So what should've taken 10 working days (at maximum) took 27. The only time anything happened quickly was when I raised an official complaint.”
“Optima Legal is one of the worst firms I have ever dealt with and I’m a solicitor myself so I’ve dealt with a fair few. They were appointed by the lender to deal with my re-mortgage and I instructed them to deal with a linked property transfer. They were appallingly incompetent. They clearly didn’t know what they were doing (repeatedly queried what was a standard restriction on the title deeds and they didn’t know how to resolve it). You can never speak to a lawyer, all you can do is speak to one of the ‘robots’ who answer the phone and they promise they will get a lawyer to call you but they never do. You send messages on the portal which take a minimum of 10 days for them to respond to. When they do respond they just repeatedly ask for information you have already provided. I told them on numerous occasions I wanted to make a complaint and threatened them with the Legal Ombudsman but still never received a response. I told them numerous times that the chain was at risk of collapsing and they didn’t care. I got better advice from one phone call to the Land Registry than I did in weeks of dealing with Optima. In the end I de-instructed them and instructed my own lawyers who managed to get the transaction completed within a couple of weeks. They’re basically a ‘factory firm’ who process multiple applications on behalf of lenders but they have no concept of customer service or client care. If your lender instructs them I would seriously recommend refusing to use them and pay a bit extra to use your own solicitors. It will save you a whole load of stress and frustration.”
“will not take my provisional photo card as proof of ID they want me to obtain a passport at my cost to finalise my Halifax Mortgage completion total idiots to think that is not proof enough for ID banks except even the government gateway for my DBS is a valid ID what a joke of solicitors need to sort your company out wasting 4 weeks of my time and money in postage.”
“I find it hard to put it into words how bad my experience has been with Optima Legal. I will never again opt for a lower-cost option with my Solicitors and I would never recommend Optima Legal to anyone.
I am currently at the point of calling Optima Legal EVERY SINGLE DAY to try and receive an update and move our case forward. Every single time I call, I am put through to someone who is not empowered or authorised to provide any help whatsoever. I have had it in writing that a Senior Case Executive will call me and they failed to deliver on this. I have been promised I would receive documents, only to be put back in the queue and have had to wait a further 3 weeks.
To make matters worse, when I have finally spoken to a Senior Case Executive, I am frequently given factually incorrect numbers and misinformation. It seriously concerns me to think that this company is meant to employ legal professions.
I am utterly shocked that a company is able to operate in this way.”
“I have never dealt with a firm like this in 10 years of property transactions.
Incompetent outfit
Have had to take this issue to the law society. And I suggest everyone that has had an issue with them does the same.”
“Dealing with Optima Legal has been one of the most painful and worst experiences I have ever encountered. They are unhelpful, ignorant, incorrect, unprofessional and useless, quite frankly.
I would recommend, if you are thinking of dealing with them, or if you are told they are a “preferred” solicitor for your mortgage, walk away. Walk away now. Insist you do not want to use these complete morons. Even if it means paying more on your monthly payments, it will mean less heartache, stress and dealing with a company where every single thing will go wrong.
My complaint has gone to MD, CEO and their complaints division 10 days ago. Not once have they bothered to contact me or even apologise. They don’t give a monkeys about helping me, and they won’t about you either.
This has cost me days of work having to manage this, stress leave and lack of sleep.
Had I not been absolutely all over this, this would have cost me thousands of pounds for their consistent bad handling of my case. I have written to Barclays, also, to ask them to remove Optima Legal and do not allow their customers to work with them. They are THAT bad to deal with.
My experiences with them include:
* Having to send the mortgage deed 3 times to them as they lost the previous 2 mortgage deeds
* Failing to point out that they were moving offices until I had to send this for a 3rd time upon chasing
* Not telling me that they hadn’t recieved the mortgage deeds, despite the fact this was a matter of urgency and I had sent messages saying this had been done on numerous occasions
* With the above they are in breach of the Data Protection Act by not securely handling personal information, not acknowledging this once
* Refusing to update their portal once this finally been received despite eight (8) chases for them to do so, so completion date could be set
* Quoting time and time again incorrect shortfall balances to be sent
* Being told they will call you - they don’t. Don’t bother calling them, you can’t.
Their reviews are appalling for a reason. You deserve better than to have to use these cowboys - demand better. You deserve it. You will regret for every day whilst going through this process having to deal with Optima Legal. Do not do it.”
