59 reviews (4/5) and information for Oliver Fisher, London

03/11/15 - Reviewed by Simon Bannister

We used Oliver Fisher for sale and purchase conveyancing earlier this year (2015).
We chose Oliver Fisher on the basis of them being in London and therefore fairly accessible and of the several firms I got quotes form they weren’t the cheapest, but they weren’t the most expensive either.
Generally, our appointed solicitor was very slow at getting anything done, although we did get there in the end. At the time I likened it to getting a moody teenager to do their homework – always at the very last minute, and always to the very minimum amount and standard required. On one occasion, he sent a letter containing some queries to our buyers solicitor, and waited 6 weeks for a response, during which time he claimed to have attempted to call them only “a couple of times”.
Our biggest gripe with Oliver Fishers was that our house developer had discounted the price of our house subject to a completion deadline, which wasn’t met. They then returned the house to its original price and threatened to put it back on the market. Our solicitor did nothing, and at the time, we thought that there wasn’t much which could be done – after all, it was the developer’s prerogative to change the price as contractually agreed at reservation. Skip forward a couple of months and in our first conversation with some new neighbours, and it turns out that the developer tried the same thing with them, only this time their solicitor fought for them and succeeded in preventing the house price being increased as our was. So – our solicitor effectively cost us £10,000 through his inaction.
Now – I have to say that the delay was only partly his fault – our buyers and their solicitor were equally lethargic.
He regularly made mistakes when I was talking to him – forgetting where we were moving to, when, how much the sale & purchase prices were, which bank we were using, various other details of our transactions etc
Our solicitor’s response when I told him that he was taking too long to get things done was that he had over 60 cases to work through. I think that says it all really, and if he’s that overloaded, I suggest you do everyone a favour, including him, and use someone else.

Was this review helpful?  
25   30

Respond   Report abuse