Poole Alcock Solicitors Arvostelua 

Really helpful and made the whole experience so much easier!

Part 2 of my saga with this firm. Finally, after 164 days we finally completed the transaction. However, we still had to put up with some more dirty tricks before getting it over the line.
My son (the client) got an email from them saying that all communication henceforward had to be with him or they would cease the conveyance (this despite him giving me authority to act on his behalf).
Apparently my communications upset them and I'm still waiting to find out why - incompetant, unjustified, unprofessional, unaccepatable were the words I used and from the reviews I've read, they should be all too familiar with them.

I had an initial call with a solicitor whose tone I found offensive. I fed this back to the People lead who ignored my email. I then paid 450 deposit to speak to another solicitor which I thought would be taken out of the full cost if I went ahead. At this point I didn't know how much the full review would cost me. I had a phone call with the second solicitor who went through the same questions as the original solicitor then sent me a quote for £2250. I thought this very excessive and looked elsewhere. I found a fantastic company who charged me £470 for the full review and the review was exactly what I needed. Then I got a bill asking me for £90 on top of the 450 I'd already paid just to get the quote! So to get a quote they charge me 540 and quoted 2250 on top, a whopping 2,700 when the full review cost me 470 elsewhere. I challenged the billing as they charged me 3 units for a phone call which equates to 20 minutes. I checked and the call went on for 13 minutes and they told me they rounded up to 20 minutes for the charge. If I'd have known this of course I would have made sure it didn't go over the limit as the call was a repeat of information I'd already given and all she needed to do was look at the document to give me a quote. I am currently challenging this quote cost but extremely disappointed with this company. I would recommend avoiding for any service.

4 months after not going through with a purchase, I have a random £864 bill which I was never made aware of, no communication of an outstanding balance. The only bill I received was clear I wouldn't have to pay anything further as this came out of the deposit.

The Conveyancing/ Real estate teams need to work on their communication and customer relations. Having a over 800 bill land in your lap is totally unacceptable

They were easy to talk to and explained everything clearly.

Onboarded in December with a conveyencing quote for a purchase now need the same for a sell - called Eve who was most helpful and sent the quote immediately. I am with team Chloe Heath - have spoken to Chloe who was very plesant. I have found the members of the team I have spoken to most helpful

I was in touch with Kellie and Irini and had a great smooth experience with their services. I was very pleased with the outcome and I highly recommend their services. Thank you for all your help!

Genuinely awful

From the very start of instruction, there were numerous mistakes made by the Emily V Brown team. What should have been a straightforward purchase — first-time buyers buying a vacant, no-chain property — turned into an extremely stressful and unnecessarily drawn-out process. What should have taken 6–8 weeks ultimately took 15 weeks of stress.

Forms were sent out without notifying us, then not received back by them for over 10 days. No one contacted us to check on this, immediately causing a 10-day delay, despite us clearly stressing from the initial enquiry how important it was that the purchase be handled quickly.

Important documents were repeatedly lost on the system. If I didn’t call for daily updates, no progress was made — something that was proven on several occasions. I asked many times to speak directly with the solicitor, only to be told she didn’t have time, even for a five-minute call.

Documents from the seller’s solicitors urgently needed reviewing due to ongoing delays caused by Poole Alcock, with the seller threatening to withdraw from the sale. Despite this urgency, we were told the documents couldn’t be reviewed that day and would only be looked at during a scheduled case review.

Almost every query required further “checking” before any confirmation could be given. I submitted formal complaints several times; while this occasionally sped things up, my repeated requests for a senior member of staff to take over the case — to prevent the sale from falling through — were ignored.
As a result, I was left liaising directly with the seller’s estate agent, pleading with them not to withdraw from the sale, despite never having any positive updates to provide. It genuinely felt as though nobody was listening or cared about the impact their lack of urgency was having on us.

Progress was constantly one step forward and ten steps back. We eventually completed only after my mortgage broker and mortgage lender had to chase them daily.

To make matters worse, we have now received a penalty from HMRC for late submission of the stamp duty return — a document which was sent to Poole Alcock three times as this was also lost twice.

We initially accepted a small discount in fees for the service but we are absolutely appalled we have now been fined due to another error on their part so we will be escalating our complaint further.

What didn't go wrong....
From the start I was directed to the wrong team as there were two solicitors under the name of Victoria Brown bar the middle name... so when I called the number given to me on my engagement email to speak to my V.Brown I was met with hostility that I had the wrong one.... obviously my fault! That should have been a sign of incompetence to follow.
At point of initial contact I expressed that a vacant property I wished to purchase should be done in a timely manner with no chain, I was assured that 12 weeks would be doable.
I appointed Poole Alcock 1/7/25..Finally got the keys 12/11/25 after a senior partner had to step in to see the case across the line, total joke.
Email's consistently ignored from both me their client and the agents who were utterly dismayed at their attitude and ability.
Could not recommend this outfit to anyone.
A really easy conveyance turned into a nightmare, the vendor threatened to pull out multiple times after a lot of time and money invested. I nearly gave up too as it was all getting a bit much.
Consistently asked for information I had already provided, assumed to be a stalling tactic....
I chose this company based on previous glowing reviews, go careful who you end up with as the company on a whole seems to be ok but individuals working within are hit and miss judging from the experience of others.
My personal experience of trusting a so called reputable company, and not the cheapest quote received turned into a really stressful experience.
Under similar circumstances, with a chain involved I have completed within eight weeks with a half sensible conveyancer at a fraction of the cost... Finding one seems to be the biggest issue.

Painfully slow, inexperienced and useless.
Remortgage took 11 months to painstakingly get completed. Lack of communication, lack of care or interest. Awful, avoid at all costs! Watch out for Aldermore using these for free legals, you pay in many other ways!!

Terrible experience partner is getting divorced and waiting for his forms . Kept emailing us telling us the forms are coming but no forms yet

They have not had the decency to respond to emails.We cancelled our conveyancing with them because they did not honour what was promised at the outset.To compound this we requested £100 refund.Six weeks later we have not recieved.I would not trust or recommend this online conveyancer.

We just wanted to say thanks for all your help regarding our house move. Seeing the amount of work and chasing that goes into the process from a legal perspective was pretty incredible and we genuinely appreciate all the hard work and support put in throughout the process - we couldn't have asked for more.

AVOID AVOID AVOID!!
Just called to find out if they could help with child court order. The lady said that they would need £1300 to see if they can help!! Which would be for me to send the current order so they can read it.
I immediately laughed and asked her to repeat!!
..and clarify ...I asked her if the £1300 was only to tell me if they could help... She said that they would like me to send the current court order and pay for them to read it ...£1300!!!
I asked her if she was serious and if people actually paid for basically nothing. She nonchalantly said, yes people do!!
Wow!!! Then I said thank you but no thank you...went on reviews to see that there is a HIGH percentage of people very very disappointed and dissatisfied with the audacity of this company!!
Unbelievable!!!
I am still laughing at what this woman said!!!
Lawyers (smh)...benefiting from people's misery...but won't be from mine!!!

No words diabolical - am stuck using them. Do not reply to emails and then when you state that, apparently they say they are busy they cannot reply to emails and you can’t always expect a reply. Good luck calling as they are always on the other line
Arrogant lot
Read the reviews and you’ve been warned look at all the other ones !

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
No chain house sale dragging on for 6 months due to a lack of communication from Kate Heath’s team. Emails are ignored or only answered after several weeks. Contracts were incorrectly drawn up several times with silly mistakes repeated, at one point apparently the contracts were sent out to both myself and my ex husband but neither appeared. Very odd that we should have fallen foul of such a niche coincidence that only affected the two of our post in two separate countries.( I think not.) Rang for updates to be told they are still waiting on information that was provided by myself 6 weeks ago. At one point they told me that they didn’t have my current legal name and address, despite having sent paperwork out to that exact name and address. Literally beggars belief how useless this team are.

If there were an option for zero stars, I’d still be asking for less. The level of communication was non-existent, progress slower than a snail on strike, and updates felt like rare archaeological discoveries. Every simple task turned into an epic saga of delay and confusion.

I’ve dealt with some challenging solicitors before, but this was genuinely worse than awful — it was painfully impressive how little seemed to get done.

Would not recommend unless you enjoy chasing, waiting, and wondering what on earth is happening with your sale.

I just phoned the Cambridge office hoping they could help as they have a 5 star rating. I wanted help with a will LPA and how I might protect my assets in case myself or my wife have to go into a care home, I was told we cannot offer advice very disappointed

These are my buyers solicitor and have caused no end of problems.
Chain free, empty property has been ongoing for 5 months due to the sheer incompetence of this firm with still no exchange or completion date.
After lots of chasing from my solicitor, the estate agent, the buyer and 10 weeks from receiving contract pack, they raised enquiries. These were sent back the same day and all standard enquiries. This was the first day of September. It's now mid October and I am now pulling out this week as the seller as we have continued to chase and been assured after 2 weeks they were preparing a final report. 6 weeks later and today the buyers solicitor, Emily, had only said she will begrudgingly look at enquiries today!!
I would not instruct this firm at all, they lack basic communication and the ombudsman is now our next step for poor service and inability to do their job.
They have stalled at every opportunity
EDIT 5/11
so Emily decided not to bother looking when she said she would in October and after chasing every day after, it was passed to Sarah after just over a week and marked as urgent. Told that Sarah would review Friday, but Monday the very latest.
Finally told today on the 5th that everything is complete and suggested a date for completion. Absolutely should not take 2 months of them promising they were making their final review and would be days away from reporting to actually do it.
AVOID AVOID AVOID!

No empathy, no transparency despite website claims.
Then expect you to pay a solicitor just to find out how much it would cost to speak to a solicitor. Embarrassing and unprofessional