Coffin Mew Solicitors Reviews 96

It's taken a bad review of CoffinMew on Trust Pilot to finally get a response to
my 3 unanswered voicemails over the last week to the Deaths, Wills and Probate department to tell them my mother died last Tuesday. They've made a devastating situation so much worse.

3 times I called to get a quote for their services as a first time buyer. Messages left with the reception team or whomever answers the phones to ask to be called back as apparently noone was in at the 3 different times I called. No one called me back and i ecent gave the time i was free between work! I guess they didnt want my money... I have recieved no email from them as claimed in their response and it's also not great there has been no apology in the same response!

Our cousin died intestate in August 2018. She was unmarried without children and had no financial assets (no savings, investments, insurance policies etc) only her state pension and her house. We entrusted the admin to Coffin Mew in Newbury (CM were successors to the solicitors who had dealt with our cousin's affairs).
An amateur genealogist in the family drew up a family tree. The legatees were three cousins and an aunt.
Progress was initially excellent: probate granted Sept 2018, house sold at auction Dec 2018. Moneys received and funeral expenses etc paid Jan 2019. Capital gains tax adjustment negotiated.
Then............Nothing for a few weeks! After a few prods from us, our solicitor recommended in March or April that we take out an insurance policy to guard against an unrecognised legatee appearing. It took about a month for the solicitor to find an insurance company. Not unreasonably they requested a review of the family tree by a professional genealogist. This took several weeks despite the simplicity of the tree (many of the previous generation were unmarried or childless). The report confirmed our findings. It needed a prod from us every few weeks to asses progress. In Sept 2019 a 'wills search' was requested i.e. a search for any will lodged elsewhere. After a few further prods we learnt the search was negative. By December 2019 the genealogists report had been received but not the insurance policy. Eventually it arrived in late January 2020.
The legatees (average age mid 70s) received their inheritance in mid Feb 2020.
Our complaints are:
Surely solicitors must have experience of administering intestate estates frequently?
Why did the solicitor wait 7 months before suggesting an insurance policy?
Surely they should deal with reliable insurance companies which will provide policies within weeks not months?
Why did it take 8 months from the death to request a professional genealogist and 13 months to request a wills search?
Why did we have to prompt the solicitor on numerous occasions to learn progress?
Why did the solicitor not prod the insurance company and the genealogist without us nagging?
All in all a very poor professional performance.

Smooth and easy transaction as first time buyers. Coffin Mew were a recommended solicitor and Kerry Allen was great throughout the whole situation. A lot of these reviews seem very negative but we had nothing but a good experience and Coffin Mew were very speedy, helpful and consistent with every part of the process. We used Coffin Mew back in 2017 so of course this was a while ago. But based on our previous experience we would definitely recommend.

Absolutely awful service. The receptionist took my details and said I’d get a call back in 20 mins. A few hours later I received a call. The female employment solicitor lacked any empathy whatsoever. My employers are breaching the equality act with me as they are reducing my pay to zero without engaging with me (making reasonable adjustments, offering another job etc...). I have emailed them and even suggested a reasonable adjustment but have heard nothing and now my pay is zero. This solicitor said I needed to raise an in house grievance first. To show I have attempted to resolve the dispute first. I have already emailed HR complaining and asking for a special consideration which resulted in a no. They are breaching the equality act. This solicitor responded to me coldly with no empathy and just repeated I had to raise a grievance. My home, life and future is on the line and the law is being broken. The way she spoke to me resulted in me becoming quite angry however I did not use any foul language but I was deeply upset with the way I was being spoken to. No consideration was made on her side to understand my frustration. It felt to me that these solicitors are not the kind to fight for justice. They just want easy money where the client has done all the work even if it causes them to lose their property. A simple letter from them to my employer could change everything but she did not even consider this. This solicitor is not someone you would want to fight a case for you regarding disability and employers. Maybe they are good at property law but for those that need someone to fight discrimination then these are not for you.

Absolutely appalling. Email to secretary took two days to reply. Tried calling, went to voicemail, still waiting for a response more than 24 hours later. Tried calling three separate people, including solicitor in charge of our case, but every single call went to voicemail. Appalling.

Unfortunately, Coffin Mew were our Vendor's solicitors when we purchased our property. Would we ever use their services..........
NEVER......... The conveyancing department at North Harbour, Portsmouth was appalling. I don't normally give bad reviews but this one has to be posted. As many others have said, there are a lot of solicitors out there.......... Choose wisely !!

Dealt with my matte swiftly and professionally! Very pleased.

There are many solicitors to choose from and I would recommend you to look carefully and choose another. The level of customer service was shocking, I dealt with a different person every time I was contacted, and was even advised at one point that it would be quicker to do it myself. I had no confidence or trust in the work being undertaken for me, right up to the last minute paperwork had been forgotten because staff left. This is NOT how appointing a solicitor to undertake work for you should be, but maybe that says it all, I don't believe a solicitor actually did!!

When I complained, and spoke to a complaints manager!! I and all other parties involved were blamed, and I was laughed at really and told I should not complain.

Choose carefully and steer well clear of this one,

Unfortunately, the solicitor who used to deal with my property sales and purchases decided she needed to leave Coffin Mew; she was excellent and I could only speak highly about the firm. However, since then, a new solicitor has taken over from her, Michelle Zealander, and unfortunately she is so inefficient and error prone that she borders on total incompetence whenever she manages to get into her office which I understand is only 3 days or so a week. Her produced documents are riddled with basic spelling errors and she constantly gets confused between who is the buyer and seller. She never answers a phone call, either on her land line or mobile and never returns calls. Therefore, I tried emailing her with my questions only for them to be ignored too. She disappeared off on holidays for three weeks leaving no instructions for the continuance of work on my open file. And, she exchanged contracts without having got the buyer's approval to a crucial document beforehand which could've made the transaction null and void! Finally, I left her with the task for registering a situation with the Land Registry 3 months ago. She said she'd deal with it upon her return from another vacation. I've heard NOTHING since, pure and utter incompetence. The firm is only as good or as bad as its key employees and, sadly for Coffin Mew, I shall avoid them like the plague in future and advise others to do likewise.

If you know what is good for you, stay away from this firm. I will come back and leave a thorough review when I'm done with my process.

Used Coffin Mew as our conveyancer for a new build purchase. Natalie Marsh was fantastic. She helped us understand everything from the very beginning in which was a very lengthy process which in total took 9 months to complete.

Natalie was always forthcoming and was very thorough in her explanations both via email and telephone communication. She gave us a lot of confidence that everything would go through smoothly which it did.

Thank you.

If I leave a truthful very bad review Trust Pilot will remove it, so what is the point.
If you know what is good for you, give this firm a very wide birth!

It has taken me 2 months, 5 emails and 2 phone calls, an argument with a member of staff, an unsuccessful search on their website to finally received the compliant procedure which I requested. Wow! I feel I have been been pushed past going through their complaints procedure so I am turning to a public review of Coffin Mew, conveyancing. I was the purchaser of a leasehold property, with a tenant insitu. My wonderful old school solicitor retired, so I went on a friends advise, who did use them for commercial property (so not everyone is unhappy with them). The solicitor who dealt with my purchase made many mistakes. The mistakes included, not verbally or specifically pointing out I could have approx 10k costs on the maintenance of the property in the next 12 months, I was even advised by her that the documents were very similar to my last recent documents which did not contain a suggestion of a 10k liability. Further, an email was ignored, one of the documents stated I purchased the property without a tenant in it, her calculation of rent were incorrect and when discussed the her first response was to argue. Although I believe my purchase went through as quickly as possible and never did I feel it was just sitting on a pile, I felt expensive mistakes were made, and had I not read every document word for word, financially I would be in very detrimental position which at worse case, could have lead to the bank repossession the property or even losing my own home! I have had 2 month of requesting the complaints procedure and due to the lack of response I am writing this review as I really have not got time to spend any more time on this.