RHJ Devonshire Solicitors

After my first transaction fell through due to the seller’s last-minute withdrawal prior to exchange, I proceeded with a second purchase through RHJ. However, midway through the process, I discovered via an out-of-office message that my solicitor had left the firm. I was not formally informed of this change, nor was any proper handover communicated to me. The second transaction lasted almost six months and made little to no progress towards completion. During this time, I repeatedly chased for updates, but my emails were met with unacceptable delays of one to two weeks. On several occasions, I was told that reports would be provided, yet I never received them. At no point was there a clear explanation for the delays, and there appeared to be little proactive effort to move the matter forward. The consistent need to chase for basic communication ultimately led me to lose confidence in the firm. As a result, I made the decision to withdraw from the transaction. Based on my experience, I would not recommend this law firm.

Theyve been good, responsive to my emails and telephone queries, hopefully will get the purchase done on time!

Good company, very professional

We were first time buyers buying a leasehold flat in London. Our solicitor was Nneoma who overall did a great job, delivered to all the agreed timelines, acted professionally and showed competence. At times we had to wait multiple days and keep chasing on the phone for replies to our queries but when it really mattered the turnaround was extremely quick. Nneoma did a brilliant job promptly getting back to our LISA provider, sorting out all the required insurance policies and dealing with incompetent solicitors at the other end. However, the whole process could have definitely gone smoother. For example, despite them assuring us that they were on our lender's solicitor board, it turned out that they had been temporarily taken off of it which took a few weeks to sort out and resulted in a long delay for getting the solicitor's copy of the mortgage offer. A lot of the delays and hold ups weren't in the solicitor's hands but more proactive communication with the lender and vendor's solicitors could have potentially spared us a lot of stress. The final financial statement that included all the fees and disbursements was quite close to the orginial quote, however, there were a few small additional fees that were reasonably foreseeable and could have been included upfront in my opinion. The 4 stars represent our experience, however, I think the firm is definitely capable of delivering a 5 star service and we just didn't get very lucky with the circumstances. However, I can't complain much since the amount of work that solicitors do is probably an order of magnitude bigger than mortgage brokers, estate agents and management companies combined even though they get paid roughly the same. All in all, I'm glad that we chose RHJ Devonshire for our first home purchase and I think that they provided really good value for money.