Hodders Solicitors Reviews 

This is my second review of Hodders. This review relates to the complaints process. Since our conveyancing was finally completed and we eventually managed to move house in mid February 2021, I made a formal complaint to Karen Rieveley regarding the poor service we received. I highlighted lots of areas of concern and practices that should be improved: including a lack of communication, lost documentation, staff not reviewing our file thoroughly, a reactive rather than proactive approach to conveyancing, and worst of all, rude staff, to name but a few. The complaint was made on 22 February 2021. It took over twelve weeks for us to receive a less than satisfactory response from Karen; the response we received simply repeated and regurgitated the same old excuses used throughout the conveyancing process: covid, the stamp duty holiday and staff on the sick.. we stated by return that we were not satisfied with the response and to this date, despite a chaser email, we have still not received a reply and solution to our concerns. And WHAT has happened to the Hodders website? Who do we turn to now at Hodders to get a satisfactory response? Our only option is the Legal Ombusman I'm afraid. Very poor indeed. Come on Hodders, get your finger out.

I had an amazing experience with Haider Ali. He looked after us throughout the deal, chased everybody involved and advised us as during the negotiation stage.

The team are highly efficient and will be used again.

This company has had complete lack of communication from start to finish. We're nearly four months into what should have been a simple first time buyer purchase of a vacant house and it's been delayed due to no response or even an update on when completion can take place. At this stage, the sale is likely to fall through because of this company. No one can get hold of them - completely unprofessional and have made this process stressful and frustrating!

Terrible experience. As first time buyers purchasing a vacant property, it really shouldn't have been such a complicated and painful experience. There was a complete lack of communication throughout the whole process, every time I called (which was a lot) I was told no one but Cigdem could access our file to let us know what the status was, and was told someone would call me back. On maybe one occasion I received a call back. Emails were seemingly ignored on the most part.

Hodders were so unresponsive that as we reached the supposed exchange date, the seller threatened to put the house back on the market.

Ridiculous spelling mistakes on official documents slowed things down. This happened repeatedly, specifically on the property address - on two occasions the postcode was written incorrectly, and on almost every official document the village name was written incorrectly.

After Cigdem went on annual leave without confirmation of whether she'd requested the funds form our lender, I called up multiple times asking to speak to a partner in the firm. All I wanted to know was whether the funds had been requested. No one could tell me anything at all, and after being told multiple times a paralegal would call me back, I unsurprisingly received no call back.

I could quite easily go on but I think all I need to say is do not choose this law firm. It was a very stressful experience and they were defensive and unapologetic when I expressed how disappointed I was with their service.

Only giving 1 star as 0 stars is not an option.

Mid January we tried to set up a call with Haider (the solicitor initially assigned to us) and received no response - even after copying in his superior Karen. When we eventually got a phone call with Karen (which was 5th Feb after chasing), she informed us Haider had been off sick. He didn’t have an out of office on nor were we informed of this so we had been trying to get in touch with an unmonitored account. I would like it noted that Haider was pretty good when we first spoke with him, it was this first encounter with Karen that started to raise alarm bells. She was condescending, rude and came across as though she didn’t have time for us. I appreciate the whole industry is busy right now, but as a paying customer I expect to be treated with respect and to not be made to feel inferior.

During the above call, we made it clear to Karen that we had been struggling with getting any information from the sellers and asked for her help in chasing - to which she responded that she “did not have the capacity to chase for us”. I wasn’t asking her to call them constantly - just an email to help push things along, which I’m fairly certain is something the solicitors are paid to do - to support and provide guidance. She provided none on this call and made me feel stupid for even asking. I came off the call upset and frustrated that I was paying a lot of money for a service so poor.

As a result of the process taking so long (we put the initial offer down in November), we had to reapply for a new mortgage offer. We informed Karen of this during our phone call on Feb 5th, that was followed up by an email from Matt on the 11th. On Feb 17th we received an email from Hodders asking if we were still going ahead with the purchase of the property, which was concerning to us as we very much so were still trying to push things along. Clearly no communication or keeping of records at all.

In April it took me 3 emails over 3 weeks to get hold of Karen to schedule a call. As before, when I did eventually get a response from her, she scheduled a call for later in the day (around 5/5:30). You could tell she couldn’t be bothered as her responses to all my questions were not only blunt and rude, but condescending. As a first time buyer, I don’t know the full process so I have a lot of questions. She is paid to answer them and give me support. At this point, I dreaded having to contact her, and came off the phone in tears for being made to feel so inferior.

This takes us to this week (yesterday 5th May). We have found a new property and were asked by the estate agents to check if Hodders were able to perform expedited searches. So I called them and was greeted with an incredibly rude person (I never got a name but I’m assuming is a receptionist). He answered and I said hello and asked how he was, to which he responded “I’m not even going to answer that right now”, he asked who I was so I said I was a client and he cut me off, asking me questions very bluntly as if I had done something awfully wrong. He put me on hold without letting me know first, and shut down the conversation before I could even ask my question. He was so so rude, and when I came off this phone call I had had enough and knew I didn’t want to give them another penny. We accepted the fact we'd be losing our deposit, and have taken our business elsewhere.

Karen Rieveley who is an outstanding Solicitor from Hodders Law took us smoothly and expediently through although straightforward at first sight but complex at a few consequent stages, process of purchase. She demonstrated serious leadership and excellent attention for detail by spotting a few tricky points we had to pay attention to and respond. In addition, her agile approach to our purchase meant we did not loose time as she accommodated changing circumstances of our purchase to ensure we maximised outcome within very tight time limits.

If anyone is buying or selling property, my wife and I highly recommend her as well as Hodders Law who have all provided us with excellent customers service!

Overall, we could not recommend Hodders enough. Our initial case handler became ill, so Sherine took over our case with Matt helping along the way, and we could not have got luckier with them as a legal team. 3 months in, we had the stress of our first house purchase fall through, which as first time buyers left us feeling anxious and misplaced (living out of suitcases at my parents during a pandemic). However, we soon had an offer accepted on another property and Sherine and Matt dealt with it quickly and were of top support to us. We completed on that sale within 5 weeks, a major turn around!

Overall, Sherine and Matt were clear and ordered in their responses to me and let me know where we were at. Hodder's were quick with getting everything organised and paper work out to us/ the vendor's legal team and this made the process run smoothly. Sherine & Matt's patience with myself when I would worry was also brilliant, I always felt supported along the way.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Hodder's - we feel very grateful to them.

Great firm. Karen is thorough with the process and ensured the customers best interests were her priority. The communication at the start is stopping me from giving them a 5. The generic emails you receive needs to be worked on. Overall I would recommend Hodders.

Mrs Sherine Silva is a very professional, responsible and experienced solicitor. Through her work, we can feel deeply about her qualities in these aspects. We are very happy she can be our solicitor for our property purchase. So we would like to express our thanks to her, also strongly recommend her to you.

A truly awful experience - I would not recommend Hodders given my experience (see below) and cannot understand how they have achieved so many good reviews!

I appointed Hodders for the sale of my property in very early January. Whilst they talk a good game and promote their 'phone app to monitor progress, nothing seemed to happen unless I chased them, they left many important aspects of the sale to the very last minute (giving me the impression that they were just too busy to deal with a case until it becomes a last minute panic) and the app was constantly out of date (at the time of writing this review it is still not registering exchange of contracts, some 2 weeks after the sale completed).

The problems that I had were:

- 2 weeks after appointing Hodders and sending them all of the sales details, no contact had been made with the buyers' solicitors. I chased Hodders, to be told that my designated solicitor was unwell and off work "for some time" and that no-one else would be looking at my case in their absence. I had to insist upon another person taking over my case

- throughout every stage of the entire process, nothing seemed to happen unless I chased by 'phone. Even then the approach seemed to be to leave anything to the very last minute, including responding to and chasing routine contract enquiries. This added huge stress and significant delay that could easily have been avoided had they lived up to their self-image

- Hodders say (on the app) that they follow-up on the contract package and enquiries "within 7 days if they have received no response" but this simply didn't happen. I saw copies of the buyers' solicitors enquiries that were raised with Hodders in early February that had still not been dealt with in late March and these were only dealt with (eventually) because we were within hours of losing the sale AND constant chasing/pressure from me, the other solicitor and the selling agent to sort things. This resulted in a delayed exchange/completion and throwing money at indemnity insurances (at my expense) because simple enquiries hadn't been dealt with by Hodders in a timely manner - this delay and cost could have been avoided

- One of my reasons for choosing Hodders was that most of the process is on-line. However their 'auto-sign' system for the initial property questionnaires and my personal I/D, both completed in early January, didn't work properly and both were still outstanding issues in late March (the buyers' solicitor had raised this with Hodders in February)

- Hodders' system for confirming my personal anti money laundering identification was rejected by the buyers' solicitor as inadequate. I ended up having to get a local solicitor to verify my I/D (at extra cost) and arrange for the estate agent to deliver paper copies to the buyers' solicitor. We also did the same for the property sale questionnaires. Because these issues hadn't been resolved, I ended up doing this paper-chase on the day that we intended the second attempt at exchange/completion

- Having missed our first 'target' exchange/ completion date (without, in my view, any effort on Hodders' part to meet this) I ended up having to take matters into my own hands and work directly with the estate agent and the buyers' solicitor to answer enquiries and move matters forward: I would simply copy Hodders in on what we had done. If it hadn't been for the considerable help of the estate agent (who liaised with the buyers' solicitor) I do not think that we would have achieved the sale

- On a positive note my Hodders solicitor (when I could get hold of him) was polite and friendly but was clearly under extreme workloads and pressure - "I'm trying to get another exchange over the line" was a frequent comment to explain why my case would have to wait ...... again.

There are other issues that I have not covered in this review (e.g. last minute request of the mortgage repayment figures, even though at one point Hodders had asked me to get this for them and which I had done previously) but I will keep this review brief!

In summary, I would never recommend Hodders as the quality of service that I received, in my view, was appalling, unprofessional, well short of what they promote and created huge and unnecessary stress, delays and cost

Truly appalling service. Cannot understand how they have so many good reviews on here.
Always late to reply, had to be chased constantly.
We bought our house with them in August 2019 and we have still not received the deed.
They let us know there was a balance due to us over a year after we exchanged, four months later we still have not received the money or updates.

I had the misfortune of dealing with this firm. They were recommended via the Conveyancing Index who were unavailable when this firm didn't respond to me in 3 weeks.

I signed a letter of engagement on the 19th March, paid money into their client account and heard nothing for a week. I contacted them. I was assured to be contacted and instead I had to chase again.

The Managing Partner got involved and without sounding arrogant, for a Solicitor, her Grammar, Communication and Conduct was disappointing to say the least.

In conclusion, their services were terminated today as there hasn't been an ounce of work done in nearly 3 weeks.

If anyone is going to take their chances with this firm, I look forward to seeing a similar a review.

Anyway, next step - The Law Society.

In response to your reply:

Please do what you will - everything I have said is factual and documented. If only you were this prompt when you were dealing with my case. I'll be sure to tell the Legal Ombudsman how you are threatening me and trying to bully me into removing my factual review of you too.

BRILLIANT!! Hodders (Karen Rieveley specifically) have managed the conveyancing for the last three of my properties which should tell you all you need to know about my experience. Karen has been diligent, efficient, effective and explains everything to me in laymans terms to allow quick informed decisions.
Have already recommended them to friends who have all had a positive experience.

I wouldn't recommend this company neither Conveyancing Index who recommended Hodders to me. At first everything was going smoothly but after a while tracker where I was supposed to see progress was not updated since beginning of December and I completed 5th March!
Day before completion was really stressful as solicitor dealing with my sale didn't know till last minute whether complition for next day is still on cards so she emailed third party solicitors while on the phone with me chewing her food and blaring TV in background.... Also 1 day before completion she still didn't have redemption statement from lender and she just acknowledged me about this so casually... She told me I need to call lender and chase. So yes I did and lender said solicitor chased it with wrong department and so to forward it to a relevant department, there will be long awaiting time so I might not be able to complete following day... I phoned solicitor back and still chewing she said its weird... Well what was I supposed say then!!!??
Although I should be pleased I completed now, I can't be happy fully as solicitors overcharged me which I acknowledged them by sending original quote and deposit confirmation I paid at the beginning to Conveyancing Index. They contacted me back claiming everything is OK and they charged me right although I sent them relevant proof that they are in wrong... Its now over week and still waiting for them to look into one document clearly proving they owe me money...
When contacted Conveyancing Index they said I need to get in touch with solicitor although it's Conveyancing Index who recommended Hodders! No responsibility from neither of them!

Absolutely brilliant service and would highly recommend the company. Sherine and Yvonne went above and beyond all of my expectations to deal with my property purchase and to complete despite the very tight deadline. I’m absolutely delighted with the service.

This firm was recommended via an internet site Conveyancing Index at the beginning of January. I was assured they had capacity and that my simple chain free sale of my property to a first time buyer should be quick to complete. Absolute rubbish. Here we are almost 2 months later and despite my phone calls complaining about the lack of progress, I still have to continually chase for things to be done, my emails go unanswered and the service is completely reactive rather than being proactive. This sale should have exchanged by now but there is no evidence of any material progress, never mind an actual contract to sign. Their so called ‘app’ to keep you updated would be great if they ever actually updated it. No doubt they will use excuses such as Covid, Stamp Duty etc. I do not recommend this firm at all.

Miss Patel was really helpful with all my matters, easy to communicate with and I had a great service from her.

I highly recommended her to my friends.

Hmm I get the impression they take on too much work which explains some of the long delays, and some of the repeated requests for me to instruct them to do this or that for example. It all managed to complete eventually without disaster though. And the staff I dealt with were pleasant. However I'm still waiting for my mortgage cash back to be processed, it's been over 7 weeks waiting for a job which takes 2 minutes to do. I noticed that negative reviews here get 13% response from the company, which is better than the response I've had in the last 7 weeks to emails and phone calls (0%!). So I'm a little bit hopeful, or is it desperate, that this will make a difference to the outcome.

ABSOLUTELY fantastic service all round from Haider Ali. Pleasure to work with, easy to contact and quick and efficient to respond. He used his experience and expertise to flag up any potential risks with our house purchase and made us aware of this well in advance. Would 100% recommend.

I'm pleased for the service was quick
Communication was excellent
Price was fair
I will recommend to friends