“We are now 18 weeks into what has been the most stressful amd traumatic period of my life. It's all thanks to the people at PPL. I have never dealt with a company as immoral and unprofessional as this. I HATE the fact I chose Premier Property Lawyers. They will make you ill with stress and then speak to you, a paying client, like you're an inconvenient annoyance.
We chose PPL as Strike had recommended them to us and the buyer was with them.
We are selling a leasehold and Strike put it on the market. We got our asking price within a day, a good mortgage and were looking forward to our purchase which took us a year to find. We were very excited.
We have been lied to about obtaining documents. Emails sent that have had no response have never been chased or followed up. For months. We have had crucial responses 'blocked' by a firewall and not chased for two months, issues that are still going on after the well documented cyber attack.
We have been spoken to rudely and condescendingly. We have delays upon delays from information not being requested, recieved, actioned or followed up and PPL simply don't care. We've been patient, polite, we've been firmer and even raised voices, we've begged, we've tried every single approach to obtain some sort of action on our cases. All to no avail. It makes no difference who you contact, who you complain to, what you say or do.
We have ridiculous enquiries that have been sent to our purchase's solicitors. These queries are not to protect us, they are just a game to be played by our solicitors. Our onwards purchase have given up and written a final letter. We have made a formal complaint, our buyer has made a formal complaint, all the estate agents involved have made formal complaints and our sellers solicitors have......NOTHING, made no difference what so ever. So I will probably get the cut and paste answer below about "management" will sort this out, but I can guarantee they will do NOTHING as PPL do not care for you as a customer.
Most of the work and chasing has been done by ourselves, inbetween working long hours. We are in contact with our buyer and it has been the same experience for her. Her PPL solicitor has had all the required information for over a month (although they should have had it three months ago, when it should have been requested by our team, who said they had it, and didnt) and just says they are reviewing. It takes 2-4 weeks to raise enquiries and 2 weeks for a response, if you are lucky.
There is zero transparency, direct questions or challenges go unanswered or unread, and anything that can be traced back to malpractice on their part, blamed on a third party.
Today we received the dreaded email from our sellers that they're pulling out if nothing happens in the next week. This will hit me to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds when they do. The interest on a five year fixed mortgage at todays rate will be 24000 difference alone.
Two weeks ago our solicitor just dissapeared, and was taken over by somebody who only works three days a week. More was done in these three days than what had happened prior to this and since, she was also polite, so thanks Katie. Then our rude solicitor returned and it was back to the sherking responsibility and condescending responses. I called her manager to ask for a replacement and all I got was a petty argument and blame on our buyer, again, their 'considered' customer. We are still stuck with our dismissive and arrogant conveyancer.
This whole experience has been incredibly taxing on our mental health. My partner is constantly in tears, blood pressures are through the roof, feeling depressed, anxious and suicidal (never thought I'd say that over a house), we are both so drained by this process, and feel like giving up on the whole thing. Its affecting our work and our physical health.
Look at Premier Property Lawyers website and the ideals they promote. Not one of these are true. That goes for My Home Move and any of the Simplify Group which are the umbrella companys.
As a formal complaint has been made, we have to wait for between 28 days and 8 weeks for a response, before we can go to the Ombudsman. We followed the process and escalated to management, and after assurances we would have daily checks and updates on the case, never heard anything from them again.
I really don't like writing bad reviews and hopefully I can change it if "something" is done, ANYTHING, but it feels like we are banging our heads against a brick wall.
If you're looking to sell or buy a home then please do not use Premier Property Lawyers. Look at all their other negative reviews recently. They are the worst company I have ever dealt with, and an embarrassment to their profession. How can they play with people's lives (and money) like this?”
“We are 18 weeks in to what has been the most stressful period of my life. It's all thanks to the people at PPL. I have never dealt with a company as immoral and useless as this. I HATE the fact I chose Premier Property Lawyers. They will make you ill with stress and then speak to you like you're something they've stood in.
We chose PPL as Strike had recommended them and our buyer was also with them. We thought all being under one roof it would speed things up....We couldn't have been more wrong.
We are selling a leasehold and Strike put it on the market. We got our asking price within a day, a good mortgage and was looking forward to our purchase which took us a year to find. We were very excited. Then PPL stepped in to ruin everything.
We have been lied to about obtaining documents. Our solicitor tells us that they couldn't obtain documents because of their IT issues. So these are still going on after the well documented cyber attack. We have been spoken to rudely. We have delays upon delays and PPL just don't care. We have ridiculous queries that have been sent to our purchase's solicitors. These queries are not to protect us, they are just a game to be played by our solicitors. They will not retract even under our instruction. The purchase's solicitors have given up and wrote a final letter saying you have all the information you require, now act upon it. Of course PPL have not and just sat on them. We have made a formal complaint, our buyer has made a formal complaint, estate agents involved have made formal complaints and our sellers solicitors have......NOTHING, made no difference what so ever. So I will probably get the cut and paste answer below about "management" will sort this out but I can guarantee they will do NOTHING as PPL do not care for you as a customer. You are a hinderance to them. Or they'll probably mention that I've mentioned my buyer who is still with PPL so this review is void.
Most of the work and chasing has been done by ourselves inbetween working long hours. We are in contact with our buyer and it has been the same experience for her. Her PPL solicitor has had the management pack for a month and just says they're reviewing it. It takes two weeks to raise questions and a good two weeks for a response if you're lucky. There are also other things her solicitor has sat on for over a month that I'm not allowed to mention here.
Today we received the dreaded email from our sellers that they're pulling out if nothing happens this week. This will hit me to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds when they do. The interest on a five year fixed will be 17000 difference alone. We would sack them in an instant but PPL would mess up the transition.
Two weeks ago our solicitor just dissapeared so to be fair on Strike they replaced her with somebody who only works three days a week. More was done in this week than what had happened prior to this and she was polite, so thanks Katie. Then our rude solicitor returned and it was back to the sherking responsibility and condescending responses. I called her manager to ask for a replacement and all I got was a petty argument and blame on our buyer, again, their 'considered' customer. We are still stuck with our useless lazy solicitor.
This whole experience has been so taxing on our mental health. My partner was crying down the phone to the estate agen, blood pressures are through the roof, feeling depressed and suicidal (never thought I'd say that over a house)we are both so drained and feel like giving up on the whole thing. This bad experience has overwhelmed any positive one we believed we would have in our new home.
Look at Premier Property Lawyers website and the ideals they promote. Not one of these are true. That goes for My Home Move and any of the Simplify Group which are the umbrella companys. How can a company perform so badly.
Professional advice tells me I have a case for negligence and non compliance. I would go down this route straight away but I have to wait for the 28 day to 8 week complaints response and the regulatory body complaints which is definately where it will go as PPL will not sort this whole mess out.
I really don't like writing bad reviews and hopefully I can change it if "something" is done, ANYTHING, but it feels like we have been spat in the face. The culture of this company shows everywhere. It must be such a horrible place to work.
If you're looking to sell or buy a home then please do not use Premier Property Lawyers. Look at all their other negative reviews recently. God knows how they have maintained their average score as this is not a reflection on how bad they actually are. They are the worst company I have ever dealt with. How can they play with people's lives like this?
"In thirty years of experience I have never seen conveyencers mess up a fairly simple case as much as this" Estate agent involved.”
“No contact in 6 weeks even though mortgage was approved. The portal asked for duplicate forms to be completed all the time. The bad reviews are true as experienced this ourselves and I think good reviews are fake. Call centre not suprised we moved to another solicitor.”
“I've dealt with these people twice now. The first time was a couple of years ago, as they were recommended as the solicitors for our first purchase. In less than a week, I fired them due to incompetence and the price changing 3 times.
The second time is because we are selling and they are the buyer's solicitors. They are terrible and ignored their own client. They even took all of the buyer's money (cash purchase) before exchange, not just the deposit but the whole amount. We were supposed to exchange on a particular day which was agreed with the buyer but the solicitor said otherwise. Then the buyer started chasing their solicitors the following working day, but still they ignore their own clients. The buyer chased but the solicitors ignored. Muhammed Nabeel Jan (the buyer's conveyancer) is grossly inept at their job. Poor communication. Lack of care. Incompetent at best.
Please stay away from this company, they make you do everything and they do the absolute minimum possible. They drag out sales against their own client's wishes and are a waste of time and money. Please go local, the whole process will be infinitely better and way less hassle/stress for everyone involved.”
“We used Premier Property lawyers to sell our home and purchase another. We dealt with Nicole to do both the sale and purchase and she was very helpful and informative. On most occasions we manage to contact her immediately or leave a message for her to call us back or one of her colleagues helped us. Any problems with 3rd parties were actioned before we knew about them.
The online system they use is brilliant and kept us updated with progress every step of the way.
Based on our experience I would recommend this company and use them again. 5 stars to Nicole.”
“My case was created in 27th of January, almost 7 months ago now, which is completely unacceptable. This is for a simple chain-free purchase with no associated sale. I completed my paperwork and arranged my mortgage all in a timely manner, but this has not been met with the same efficiency from PPL. My mortgage offer is due to expire in just over 2 weeks, as well as my tenancy, and they do not seem to treat this with any urgency at all. The enquiries stage is going round in circles, taking weeks to review each set of answers and asking questions over and over again, despite them being answered already.
One enquiry involves a missing building certificate from 20 years ago. I was told we were waiting for the lender to approve its absence to proceed. However, when I spoke to the lender they told me this had been approved a month ago. My solicitor still wont drop this line of enquiry and we are still asking for the certificate, even though it doesn't exist and we have permission to proceed without it from the lender. It's errors like these which are putting the purchase at risk and creating a very frustrating experience.
As others have said, communication is very poor and updates are only given if you chase them up for it. When you call them, its very difficult to get in touch with your own conveyancer and no one else seems to know what is going on. I have never been able to speak to my conveyancer on the phone, despite calling multiple times. They have turned what should be a straightforward purchase into a nightmare with no exchange in sight, so I couldn't possibly recommend them.”
“I wish I could give zero stars. How is this company being allowed to continue to function by the law bodies which regulate it?
We had a terrible experience with this company last year during the time of the 'great data crash of '21'(!) which I'm now convinced was staged to be used as an excuse for their incompetence. The catalogue of errors and lack of human contact and compassion made us feel we were in some sort of cheap soap opera! The fake reviews are hilarious - that must be what our conveyancer was doing instead of dealing with our case!
Unfortunately now my elderly parents have been hoodwinked by Purple Bricks into using this company (PURPLE BRICKS - SHAME ON YOU - oh yes of course - it's your company). They are currently homeless, having had to break the chain to save the sale of their house and are now waiting for completion on their purchase for no other reason than they are 'in a queue'. Everything is ready to go - this company have had the proceeds of their sale - their life's savings - for two weeks. How dare they be so blasé. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY AND DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR THE STAFF - if they had a conscience, they wouldn't be working for them.”
“My Conveyancer was sabeeah shaukat, I was introduced to PPL through Purple bricks, the estate agent who sold my property. From the start in May 2021 we advised that the date we could not complete was a date late September as it was a my very special 65th birthday and we would be on holiday celebrating it with friends that week so to avoid that date, after lots of delays and paperwork going astray along with not being advised about annual leave being taken by our solicitor and a few days of sick leave, we tried to complain about the lack of customer service but was told that there was no complaint department. The conversation that followed with our assigned solicitor resulted with her shouting down the phone, very very unprofessional to say in the least and the appalling behaviour shocked us. A few weeks later we were told by sabeeah that the date of completion would be, yes you guessed it, my birthday...... I asked who had requested this date and after a long pause, she said that she had...... So rather than loose my sale, we packed up our home and put everything into storage on the Wednesday and went on holiday on the Saturday, on the day of my birthday late afternoon we got the call from her to say that the sale was complete and the monies was with them and it would be put into my bank account and she then wished me a happy birthday....... Shocking..... We had a couple of dealings with two other members of the team who were brilliant, but would not recommend PPL incase you are as unfortunate as we were to have such an unprofessional person assigned to you.”
“Believe the (lack of) hype!
Our conveyancer Adam was impossible to contact, we had to wait two weeks for an initial 20 min chat (PPL’s cancellation period just so happens to be two weeks, make of that what you will…) and when it came to the day, he never called. We had to chase PPL three times that day and everybody we spoke to had a different answer (he was on another call, he was off sick etc). Eventually sickness was the answer given but no explanation as to why nobody contacted us to let us know we wouldn’t be called - very frustrating when taking time off work to sort.
Don’t expect your emails to be answered, they will be flat out ignored unless you are threatening to withdraw your services, at which point someone will miraculously become available to reply.
The EWay dashboard is also riddled with errors and was still telling us we owed an initial payment weeks after we’d made one.
Bottom line, there is zero communication or care for you once you have instructed PPL to act on your behalf. We’ve actually withdrawn our instruction and lost our initial payment, but saw this as a necessary sacrifice to avoid the weeks/months of hassle so many others here have endured.
Avoid at all costs.”
“We had a brilliant conveyancer, Kelly! She was very kind, helpful and got back to our queries very quickly. We used her when we sold our house and when we bought a new house. We will use their services again in the future, if needed.”
“Our solicitor Nikki was amazing. I see some negative reviews on here however I haven’t a single negative thing to say about our experience. Being first time buyers we had little to no idea what we were doing but had so much help and support. We were kept in the loop at all times, response time was great and Nikki was super friendly and helpful- especially when I was asking stupid questions. I couldn’t recommend her enough :)”
“First time buyer and unfortunately every nightmare came true with PPL. ZERO STARS.
Our conveyancer was Steve Milne who is pleasant enough - i think it must be a bigger issue than Mr Milne personally ruining our situation but a few days before intended completion, we were told our case would be dropped.
2-3 months of engagement, so close to the end, and our case dropped? The reason was apparently due to us as clients giving conflicting information. I'm not sure what sort of conflicting information would suddenly come out towards the end of the case but this seems like a cover-up for some serious errors on their side.
I rarely ever leave reviews so if you are reading this, please please do reconsider and DO NOT use PPL. Pay a little more to avoid this nightmare. In our case, we are a British-Chinese couple so it may be our case specifics but looking back at public reviews and general reputation in the industry, PPL is not well regarded.
My experience even before this explosion of a mess is:
- the conveyancer did not give much detail and we had fairly minimal contact throughout the process
- I felt like i was always chasing him (not a good feeling when it's your first home and you don't really know the process)
- The conveyancer seemed to not be aware of all the information we had already given, asking again if we had sent x or y document
- The conveyancer did not show an interest in our desired timeframes or seem to respect our timeframes
- When we had a hold up on confirming final information (some incomplete forms from the seller) the conveyancer was not able to appropriately explain why this information is needed from the seller, why this delay is justified and what exactly he needs from a legal perspective. The explanation was vague like 'we need to forms to be completed'. Why? What exactly? What are the consequences of this? What alternative options are there in case we'd like to prioritise our desired completion timeframes?
- The conveyancer seemed to be slow to act and follow up; we were finalising monies before the exchange when suddenly lots of new information was needed that should have been checked and finalised before reaching this point in the translation
- i could go on...
Please avoid PPL at all costs. I recommend a local conveyancer in the area you are buying in.”
“Was warn not use these lawyers but was tied in with Purplebricks on the sale of my house
Service level is very poor and I cannot trust the person working on my case it’s all talk and no action I first engaged with them end of May and found out they only got the title deeds to my new purchase in Aug missed to deadlines in exchanging and now have the prospect of an increase price on my new build”
“I'd put zero stars if I could.
I came online to check if this company is still trading. How can they be? They were hacked 6 or so months ago. I wanted to check if there was an update assuring us that our personal data had not been compromised. I switched solicitor firm through necessity, as the website and eways portal were down for weeks. But I still worry for myself and anyone else who provided personal data to Premier. Who's safeguarding it? Or is in already sitting on a hacker's database to compromise us at a later date. There is no reference to a very serious event, on the website at all. No reassurance.
To any new potential customers, do your due diligence first. Find out how they secure your data. And test their response times before committing to use them. If in doubt use a firm with an office you can visit.”
“Awful service, my partner is in the process of buying a house from there client and has been waiting 6weeks now for a response, this is putting the whole process in jeopardy as his house is nearly sold but we have no where to go, so because of there lack of communication this whole deal is liable to collapse, please do not use these get your self a reputable reliable company.”
“There is no sense of any urgency with these folk. I agree with all the other reviews. Steer well clear and do not use them if you are selling/buying via Purple Bricks.
Communcation is kept to a minimum, replies disingeneous, delayed.....why go on.....
Nick Winton”
“DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. I've had an awful experience working with Premier Property Lawyers on behalf of Strike Conveyancing. My conveyancer went away for a whole month during the sale, didn't hand anything over and whenever I try to call up - nobody has any clue what's going on or where we are. Emails are getting lost and enquiries are sat around and this is majorly risking my onwards sale.
We have an unchained sale of a second hand new build property - now entering month 5 of the sale and only half way through enquiries - my biggest mistake ever choosing this company.
Staff are incredibly incompetent, whenever I call up somebody on the phone says "ooh this is very complex" - extremely worrying that they have absolutely no clue what's going on. I get different answers and never able to get through to my conveyancer - instead I always get put through to a random admin staff on the phone who reads my case notes with absolutely no context at all on the sale.
Save yourself the pain, headache and hassle with the company - go somewhere else.”
“I’ll open by saying solicitors are the scum of civilisation and PPL take it to an all time low. Frequent ‘lost’ documents in the post (so where’s all my personal data ended up?) numerous false completion dates stated so we wasted considerable effort getting ourselves prepared only to be let down by PPL on the day and everything being pushed back. We never once pushed them for completion accepting that it takes time to do a job properly, turns out it takes these guys an age to achieve absolutely nothing. Is you use this firm be prepared for misery and disappointment. I wish them nothing but failure so we can hopefully see the end of this dreadful company. Can’t even imagine the sort of worthless character this place employs. Do your career a favour and find another job.”
“If you want to be able to move or buy quickly or even end up with your dream home, do not use this company. They have no communication and even more do not have the time to advise or help the customer. They make you feel guilty fir asking questions and cannot grasp the concept of the customer being frustrated when things are not going well. They are taking in too much work so it is taking months to actually go through the process. This should be a joyous moment when buying a house it it is a nightmare. I was not happy with them and made a complaint which it states can be done on their website. Within 2 hours of that complaint they have abandoned my 2 purchases after 2 months so now I'm back to beginning. What's more the mortgage rates have gone up 3 times since they started working for me. Terrible service. We need conveyancers to go back to the way it used to be. More personal service and treated as a paying customer. Avoid this company.”
