The quagmire known as Leasehold Law and a law firm in Cardiff called Hutton's Law
This review is for Hutton's Law in Cardiff at:
16 St. Andrews Crescent, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3DD
I might have given them a neutral review, but after writing to them to give feedback and propose a refund of part of the fees paid to them, they gave me the silent treatment.
Spent approximately £7000 with them. Now I'm guessing they will say something like - we did a lot of work for our client and charged accordingly - of course it takes time to acquaint a solicitor with details in a complex case.
To make a longish story a bit shorter, a strategy was proposed, which sounded good, but required giving the other side a chance to respond, so a long letter was sent to their solicitors, and they did respond after several months. A second letter was sent as the first round of answers was unsatisfactory. A non committal response from the other side's solicitors was followed by silence.
It seems human beings are generally poor at communicating. My solicitors had little more to say about this, but we then took the next step which was to send a brief to a barrister seeking an opinion on chances of success in bringing a derivative action against the directors of a residents' management company, but the answer came back, little chance of success. Seems the standard of conduct for a director in UK is pretty low, suggesting almost anyone can become a director, and do a thoroughly poor job of it.
My solicitors also stated they could help with my legal expenses insurance, which it seems they were actually not that keen to do as despite mentioning their interest and expression of support at least twice subsequently, they managed not to respond with anything that could be described as enthusiasm, more a vague to vanishing degree of interest and support, and there we have it really.
I think they knew at some point they had bitten of more than they could chew and had pretty well exhausted the money chest, and at that point they lost interest in the project and I was cast adrift.
So, a less than neutral rating, but not the lowest possible one, a single star nevertheless, and why, because that would be impolite, would it not, and they were polite most of the time, until my money ran out at about the same time as their interest and enthusiasm.
Like most solicitors in UK, affordable solicitors with a degree of real expertise in leasehold law are few and far between, but then this area of British law is certainly one that promises much to the beleaguered amongst us, and delivers little or nothing, because leasehold law, if it was not written to fail, nevertheless does a competent job of failing complainants, grievants and petitioners, not to mention that all regulators I have encountered are thoroughly compromised by their close relationships to those who are usually the defendants, because they are fee paying members of those regulators and ombudsman services, and as a claimant, or a petitioner, a grievant is asking these organisations to rule against their member, so in my experience it is only when a member has committed a very serious offence that a regulator or ombudsman will feel compelled to find against their member, because failing to do so will amount to an all too obvious case of bias revealing a corrupt or complicit act of favouritism.
November 23, 2021
Unprompted review
