“We initially went with PPL as our vendor was selling through Purple Bricks and they made it seem like using them would be faster. Within a few days we were contacted and asked to sign all kinds of rights waivers due to the fact that the vendor was also using the same firm. Given that you want someone to act on your best interests it is ridiculous to even suggest that buyer and seller use the same firm, let alone framing it as something that would make things easier. When my wife rang up to sack them and say we weren’t comfortable having the same firm as the seller represent us, he said she was overreacting and told her to speak to her husband before making any decisions. Sexist idiot!
Needless to say 6 months later our purchase has fallen apart as PPL failed to do what our vendor needed for her onward purchase. For months nothing happened, then we were told there was an issue with the onward purchase. They eventually suggested completion dates but wouldn’t exchange, then multiple dates failed to happen. We were promised the issues were all resolved and we would exchange and complete on the same day in a few days time. The next day Purple Bricks rang us to say the completion wasn’t possible and the sellers onward purchase was likely to not go ahead. The person from PPL who had promised in writing that it would go ahead, they were just waiting for mortgage funds to clear and no issues needed to be resolved, was too pathetic to even contact us himself after his outright lies. We have ended up needing to find a new place to rent as we gave notice to our landlord after PPL made promises that everything would complete. Both us and our seller have missed out on good mortgage rates secured six months ago because of PPL being inept liars, let alone thousands in wasted costs.
Avoid like the plague!!! They were going to charge twice as much compared to the real solicitors we replaced them with, who got everything sorted for us in weeks with no fuss. They advised us that they didn’t think PPL could sort out the issue the seller was having, as they have no legal expertise, and they were correct unfortunately.
One star is too kind, even if you aren’t using PPL I would be wary of any buyer or seller using them, as they clearly can’t do their job and your deal is likely to fall apart due to their way of working. Thanks for wasting 6 months of our lives and ruining our first purchase that should have been a happy occasion.”
“I will try and keep this short and sweet.
Simply avoid Premier Property Lawyers, as most of the reviews say below they are beyond slow. Fortunately my conveyancer has been pretty good but my buyers conveyancer is simply the most inept solicitor I have come across over the last 10 years buying and selling houses.
If you use Premier Property Lawyers and get allocated “Dan/Daniel” run away! These guys sit on enquiries without doing anything with them, I’ve known chickens to sit on eggs for less time!
Anyway to keep this short just avoid this company! Even if Purplebricks recommend them simply avoid them at all costs!!”
“If you want solicitors that take so long to answer enquiries that your 3% Mortgage offer expires and you have to renew it at 6% , then Premier Properties are the ones for you! They will quite happily cost you thousands of pounds in the future due to their lack of urgency to get the job done.
I would not reccommend these to anyone if my life depended on it. It’s easy to look at the bad reviews and just think we are angry people and that it won’t happen to you, but trust me it will!
It’s not like they are cheap either, i would expect a poor service if i was paying around £1000 but they are charging us more than double that, which is not very ideal with the growing cost of living!
No chain on either end yet we still can’t purchase a property inside 6 months, and just to top it off they only reply to 1 out of every 10 emails, so we haven’t had a clue whats even been going on!
Honestly just look for a smaller company/independant solicitor that doesn’t take on too much work.”
“Currently going through their in-house complaints procedure before taking things further as they are totally incompetant!
Makes buying/selling houses ten times more stressful!!!”
“Completely useless lie after lie. A simple house sale first time buyer and me moving into partners house. Sold in march should of completed end of June still not completed and cost me a fortune. Will be lucky if done by end of December. They dont have a clue what they are doing. DO NOT USE THEM YOU WILL BE SORRY.”
“Poor customer service, we have been assigned to multiple solicitors, most of them incapable of doing their job. I would do everything to NOT recommend you. In particular Tracy Parker and Nolwazi Siziba. I hope the company would take serious actions against them as they are not been trained at all and caused delays and distress. The communication was poor if not existent and this was noted also by the other parties involved (we sold and bought and house). One of the worst experience in my life!”
“They were very helpful when we called to ask any questions however, I feel they could have had better communication with us and not waited for us to always call them. We are fairly new to the property ladder and needed slightly more guidance.”
“I could not fault this company. The service they provided was outstanding. I dealt with a gentleman called James Corbett & he was thorough, Professional & informative. I would highly recommend”
“Absolute joke ! 7 months down the line and four days away from completion they ask for the management pack ( should be asked for at the beginning ) so now I’m stuck in a house surrounded my boxes and my mortgage expires the day after the so completion day ! Save yourself a whole load of money and heartache ! They haven’t got a clue ! AVOID ! Should not be allowed to play Russian roulette with peoples futures ! Disgrace”
“Not sure whether to laugh or cry at these absolute jokers. They really are an incredibly inept, incompetent firm with no human touch. They've held our chain up for months, everybody is waiting on premier property lawyers. I have the unfortunate displeasure of having to work directly with Premier Property Lawyers (Sold to us via Strike Conveyancing).
9 months into an unchained sale, they're still fumbling over their own mistakes and asking repeats of questions covered months ago. They're completely useless and I cannot believe the regulators and banks trust this company to handle properties and money. Our chain is on the brink of collapsing due to this wretched firm and despite this being stressed to them again and again - they simply do not care.
I've never worked with a company as bad as the simplify group / premier property lawyers, they are truly awful. They have not got a clue what they're doing hence why their process takes intolerable and unacceptable lengths of time. Our third parties are made up of a management company, telford homes and a housing associations' legal team - none of them can believe PPL are still tripping over their own incompetence after this many months.
We have proposed to move to completion 5 times now, each time PPL have failed to comply and have subsequently raised pointless or repeated enquiries that serve no legal or lender benefit. We find ourselves answering enquiries already answered months ago.
They cannot even open an email without failing to read the whole thing, repeatedly saying they're waiting on other people however they then realised they missed wording or attachments in emails sat in their inbox.
Please never use this company, they're an absolute shambles.”
“Avoid at all costs! Incompetent and a complete waste of time. They use under qualified solicitors for cheap until the final stage of completion, to which the under qualified haven’t had the correct training and records are incorrect and the process of buying a house has to start all over again.
DO NOT USE.
Although reading the rest of these reviews, I’m not the first to have a massive complaint against them.”
“My chain has just collapsed after 7 months due to this firm. Took them 7 months to realise that the last enquiry does not satisfy the mortgage lender. House is back on the market - back to square one. Feel like I’ve wasted 7 months of my life due to this stupid solicitor. Worst experience and time of my life”
“Currently trying to purchase a property for which these cowboys are acting on behalf of the vendors. We had a deadline to exchange three weeks ago.
After 20 weeks they suddenly tell the vendors they have failed identity checks due to a marriage certificate. Once that is sorted they then decide they are not happy with their proof of funds for their purchase (despite having initial proof 16 weeks ago).
Our deal is going to fall through tomorrow even though they promised the estate agent we would be exchanging 3 days ago.
Not returning calls/emails to either the estate agent, their own client or our own solicitor”
“Do not use this firm!! They are not able to conduct property conveyancing. My buyer is using this firm. My solicitor has responded to all their queries several weeks ago. Yet they keep asking the same questions! He has emailed all information again, yet they are UNABLE to even read an email. I would suggest nobody ever uses this firm. Your sale will NOT proceed.”
“Avoid at all costs. PPL's incompetence has caused my elderly grandmother months of anxiety and delayed her moving to the retirement property she needs.”
“I am 5 months in with a solicitor who is completely snowed under - too many cases is my guess and too many people trying to complete on mortgage offers expiring - it isn't that she doesn't know what she is doing... just not enough time in the day. Getting voicemails at 12:30 am is admirable but tells me she will be very tired working on my house deal.
However big problems for me are as follows:
They are a digital company so if they can't tick a box you get no progress - there is no one of seniority monitoring what is really important and what is noise on searches and findings
You can literally never get hold of anyone who can actually help you - the people who answer the phone are clueless and can never get back to you with an answer. They just make a note they spoke to you.
Basically - buyer be warned - you go digital - you get digital which is great (but not very efficient in the real world )
This is not just my opinion but several people I have spoken to”
“Please do not use this firm. The sheer incompetence is appalling. Our Buyers have been using this firm. We are unable to get past the enquiry stage as they continually ask the same questions. Despite receiving the answers (several times) they continue with this farce. We question the professionalism and qualifications they hold. They seem completely incapable of reading e mails, responding to them and allowing the sale to progress. They should not be allowed to operate in this way. Escalating to Senior members of staff also receives the same appalling outcome. Please question why Agents are continuing to recommend them when they cannot manage to complete a simple exchange. Sadly we fear it is too late for us to rectify their abysmal service. Please research the company before you proceed. I look forward to hearing a response from Premier.”
“Please if you are moving house do not touch this company- Premiere Property Lawyers. They are absolutely incompetent. Our house move is going to collapse and we will lose our mortgage offer. Do not touch them - have never heard of such an incompetent outfit.
@PremPropLawyers”
