Spencer Lockwood Solicitors Reviews 

Words can’t encompass how terrible and unprofessional of a law-firm this is. I have dealt with all kinds of property transactions over the years, never have I had such horrendous experience with a firm. Mr CEO, wake up and run your company properly.

TLDR version: Just don’t use them for ANY conveyancing purposes. Run the other way if your case handler is Khushi Patel. These guys need to figure out whether Spencer Lockwood is the same as Akroyd legal or not because they waste time. They’re both horrendous firms.

Pros: I am struggling to find any but they do / did have some redeemable people who actually care about their customers, such as their director Will as he responds to queries to the best of his ability.

Cons:

1. They never adhere to ANY timelines. Khushi promised to complete in March but ended up completing 4 weeks later and made excuses every single week as to why can’t she complete. Everytime I chased her up around 15 times. The experience is so frustrating that I ended up emailing anyone/ everyone that I could. I think their CEO Eamon is sleeping under a rock and can’t seem to train these guys properly

2. Doesn’t understand the value of communication. She will never come on the phone to speak to you unless you highlight this to her manager or anyone higher up. She will avoid replying to emails. She won’t apologise for any delays and won’t explain why she hasn’t adhered to her own given deadlines. Height of unprofessionalism. It’s surprising that these people are still employed in this economy.

3. They can’t seem to figure out who they actually are. Are you Akroyd Legal (AL) or are you Spencer Lockwood (SL)? These people delay the process for no reason asking the papers to be reissued in both SL and AL name with no explanation given.

4. As their automated message on phone call would say that they have a trustpilot rating of 4.7. This alone should be enough to tell you that these are despicable liars. You can see it for yourself, don’t just believe me.

5. Their concierge team are also unprofessional. They lie on the behalf of their colleagues and protect them and make excuses for them as to why they can’t talk. Trust me I know what I am talking about. This has happened atleast 10 times where they say Khushi will respond or call me back because ‘she is busy’ but it never happens. They drag this process along even further.

6. Since the completion didn’t take place in March, I ended up incurring additional charging and paying variable rate on my mortgage.

7. Moreover, Khushi could have completed the matter on Friday, as promised but instead promised to complete on following monday - which meant I incurred interest for further 3 days and she still didn’t complete on Monday. That’s how unbelievably dreadful and harrowing this experience have been.

Advise to management:
It’s genuinely not that hard to run a business. All it takes is abit of integrity and self-respect. Both seem to be lost on you guys.

1. Train your juniors to understand the value of customer service.
2. Hire good hardworking people, who genuinely care about their clients
3. When you’re gonna give a deadline, do your best to adhere to it.
4. If you can’t adhere to a deadline, email/ call to inform your client and apologise
5. When client wishes to speak to their case handler, don’t keep them on the phone for 40 mins and then cut the call.

I understand your job is hard though because you can’t teach empathy, honour, self-respect and integrity to people. In which case, you need to get rid of people who do not have it.

To the reader: Honestly, if you made it this far, this is your sign to never look at this firm ever again for any property-related matter, especially if they give your case to Khushi Patel.

I used this solicitor and they are the best solicitor that I have ever used. I made an offer on the property on 8th of January. Even though the mortgage offer was delayed by the mortgage broker (i.e. not the fault of solicitor) and we could not get the mortgage offer until towards the end of February.

Despite the delay above from the mortgage broker, Spencer Lockwood Solicitors still completed the purchase by March 31st 2025 (before the Stamp Duty hiking). Essentially, it means this transaction was completed by Spencer Lockwood Solicitors within about just one month i.e. after the mortgage was approved ending of February.

I honestly cannot ask for anything more.

Responses were excellent and most especially from Abdullah Shreef. He responds to email within one hour and calls are picked up by him. Sometimes we exchange emails five times in a day. This is not the kind of solicitors firm where emails are responded to in a week or 72 hrs. Responses are instant and very prompt!

I have been involved in many property purchases and selling but this is the best and quickest conveyancing that I have had so far.

Thank you Abdullah Shreef and Spencer Lockwood Solicitors !

F.O.O

I had an extremely frustrating experience with Spencer Lockwood Solicitors, dealing with unnecessary delays, miscommunication, and an overall lack of professionalism.

I initially instructed them to handle a land split application in March 2023, and what should have been a straightforward process turned into an almost two-year ordeal due to repeated mistakes and delays on their part.

Poor communication: I was often given incorrect information and had to chase responses for weeks.

Lack of accountability: I've had 3 members of staff handling my case leave the firm, and each transition led to further setbacks. When my first solicitor went on maternity leave, no one was assigned to take over, causing months of inactivity.

Incompetence: Critical errors were made in my TP1 draft, only caught because I sought advice elsewhere. The firm is also failing to respond to further queries from the Land Registry, further prolonging the process.

False assurances: I was told they couldn’t contact my lender due to clearance issues, only to later discover they could have done so all along.

After almost 1 year and 8 months, my application was finally submitted, but even then, they mishandled additional requests from the Land Registry. Despite my repeated follow-ups, I was left ignored and misled.

This firm’s lack of urgency, professionalism, and basic competence has caused me significant stress, lost time, and potential financial setbacks.

I submitted a formal complaint 25/1/25 and I was advised i would receive a response within 8 weeks. I am yet to receive a response to my complaint and I have had to reach out to the Legal Ombudsman to get a resolution.

I see can see from the reviews others are having similar issues. Unless you want the same, I would strongly advise against using Spencer Lockwood.

Employed them to help with the purchase of a property. Until this last week, I have had no contact with them since January, when they started. I have sent a few emails which my solicitor has ignored. The company trying to carry out environmental checks on the property I'm purchasing, has been trying to get hold of my solicitor since January and has had no response. The sellers solicitor, has also had no response from my solicitor. When I did manage to talk to my solicitor last week, I was told that the hold up was down to the people carrying out the checks, when I emailed and found out they were still waiting on the land registry documents from my solicitor, I contacted my solicitor, only to be told there was a hold up with the sellers solicitor and he was waiting on the sellers pack. It has only been in the last week that things have started moving, beacse I have had to contact all parties involved. I then find out that the sellers pack was sent on the 12th feb. My solicitor hasn't been replying to my emails, until recently and certainly hasn't been replying to other people's emails. I am paying nearly £1100 for their services and don't know why, as my solicitor has not been doing his job, until this last week, because I've had to kick him up the arse. Definitely not happy, as this is holding things up and the environmental checks should have been completed by now! I have emailed through a compliant, which I'm waiting on a reply from and I'm currently on the phone on hold, waiting to talk to someone. This is the second time this morning I have tried to reach them, was on hold for 15mins, have currently been on hold this time for 15mins again. Finally got through to someone, only to be told that the people I would like to speak to about the complaint, are not available. Will not be using them again.

Started well with them, but the person we were dealing with left. It has been over six months with no progress they do not respond to my emails or phone calls and are not sending back the enquiries to the buyers solicitors. This now means we face another hike in stamp duty. This was a sale between family so no chain and very straight forward. They do not seem to care!

Beware!!! If you are happy to pay for a inconsistent, incompetent and negliegent company than Spencer Lockwood/Ackroyd legal are the firm for you! I have spent months chasing for updates on my sale and purchase with no response. Paperwork has been lost, emails from other splicitors repeatedly ignored. Enqueries not answered and then upon completion did not pay estate agent fees until 3.5 weeks later after I had chased them. Their continued failiures and unresponse to ignoring numerous emails from my buyers solicitor, has now resulted in going to a small claims court over a matter that was ambigious and unclear on paperwork. Thus deniying me the oppuntunity to remedy the situation. They ignored this matter for 16 days before deciding to send on to me and when I questioned them, the response I received was that their fee starts at £1000. Fantastic aftercare for your clients Spencer Lockwood. Take your time to read the reviews, Spencer Lockwood will ignore you, meaning you never know the progress of your sale/purchase. They will pass your case between different solicitors causing delays and undue stress without telling you. Ensure you have enough time to repeatedly call and email if you require updates. I have no idea how they operate and get away with their failures! The worst firm I have ever worked with!

This firm was the cheapest, so we went with them. We are regretting this heavily.i appreciate that lawyers have many cases to deal with but I feel something is off here and needs attention.

1. Actions are delayed for no apparent reason. We waited a month after paying for the searches to begin.
2. All emails go unanswered for months on end. Phone calls are sometimes taken if you are lucky. Ackrowd legal claim they take 48 hours max to reply to any queries. They also claim they have the highest standards in client communication with regular and timely updates.This is far from true.
3. When lawyers have to take urgent leave or are on holiday, they have no email holiday response set up or inform their colleagues to hand over work leaving us in the dark.
4. Senior staff don't reply to escalation emails except for Ackrowd legal customer relations team who were helpful.
5. The process is not well explained at all

I'm summary, I suspect they are swamped with too many case loads with poor communication protocols in place. If you have time on your hands and cost is a factor for you then these are your guys, if not I would avoid them and look at a sole proprietor practise for more effective communication and action.

Sold my first property in December 24 through SDL auction who I am 100% happy with kept everything in house so used Spencer and
Lockwood I have just sold my last property and what an incompetent bunch they are from losing paperwork not being able
To transfer funds into a buisness account although have done before to bluntly
Ignoring my emails being
Told by my buyers solicitors my solicitor had left not knowing who was handling my sale the list is endless

I would very strongly recommend not using Spencer Lockwood for residential coveyancing. They are unprofessional and misrepresented their services.
They were assigned to us via Millenium legal via Ackroyd Legal. Apparently Spencer Lockwood is just a different trading name.
The case handler we were assigned was Khushi Patel. She was not on the website of Ackroyd Legal LLP nor Spencer Lockwood so we had no evidence that she actually works for either. More worryingly we discovered she is also not on Law society’s register nor is she a licensed conveyancer or recorded at the Institute of Legal Executives.
We asked Spencer Lockwood to address this very real concern. They have not responded despite stating in the contract a response time of 2 working days.
Its all a bit of a shambles so we have terminated the contract and asked for our money back. We have also cancelled our contract with Millenium Legal and asked for money back from them as well.

I will rate them 0 but unfortunately thats not an option
Beware beware beware!
Save yourself from this humiliation and dont even think to take this company on with your property conveyancing,
You will have to beg i mean literally beg to get an reply and when ever you call they say busy
No reply of an email,
They will turn your life into nightmare as they gave done with us,

They disappeared on the day of exchange without any confirmation ghosted all parties involved,
Then you will have to chase them every half an hour which obviously no one hears,
And on top they have sent different figures to my account and on invoice its different yet again no explanation and i am looking for an answer even now,
They have not let our housing association know that sale has been taken place and in their records we are still in our old house,
There are endless list,
What is strange for me that no one bother to even reply to you or call,

Stay away from them if you can,

Terrible experience. Impossible to get in touch with anyone. Emails go unanswered, half an hour waiting for the phone to be picked up. Very stressful and didn't meet the agreed deadlines. Avoid at all costs.

The worst customer experience I have ever had. Check Stirling Ackroyd (where you have to send your money) for a more accurate TrustPilot score.

When the conveyancer handling the sale of my flat left the firm one month before the completion date, no one told me and her email auto reply just said “The recipient's mailbox is full and can't accept messages now. Please try resending your message later, or contact the recipient directly.” The first few times I called the office no one answered - eventually a receptionist told me she would try to patch me through and when she was unsuccessful told me that the conveyancer was “probably on holiday, but will be back on Monday if that’s the completion date.” On the date of completion I phoned again and was informed that my conveyancer had left the firm a month earlier. The completion date was delayed by 24 hours (despite a paralegal named Lauren picking up the file at the last minute and doing everything she could to get it over the line - just to be clear, she was excellent and not at fault).

The problems at Spencer Lockwood appear to run deep - in my experience (working with them on a failed purchase of a house and the delayed sale of my flat) they overburden their staff with case work and do not allow sufficient time to manage sales/purchases with adequate communication.

I went through three conveyancers at Spencer Lockwood and was always chasing them for an update, rarely receiving information promptly or being put through the phone lines to speak to someone. There was a complete lack of communication throughout the whole process.

I would strongly recommend avoiding this firm.

I've waited until now to leave a review, as I wanted to ensure we completed before I gave my honest feedback.

I would avoid these solicitors at all costs. They were recommended to us by our Broker "Yes Can Do". Whilst our broker service was exceptional, the conveyancing process was riddled with issue after issue.

We started the process in August 2024, where we were assigned a case handler named Maya. Maya went on Jury Duty, however this wasn't passed onto us. It took us calling multiple times, before someone informed us that Maya was on Jury Duty and our case hadn't been passed along to another paralegal.
We then found out via Maya's email signature that she was leaving the company, this was never formally said to us, we found this information out 3 days before she left.

Our case was then handed to another case handler, who took 4 weeks to reply to us. This took us to within 3 weeks of our Mortgage offer expiring. After continuous chasing from myself and our broker, we finally got a response.

Whilst our final case handler did push things along, and ultimately ensured we completed before our offer expired, we as clients had to chase constantly. Despite multiple requests for SL to request my LISA to be withdrawn (it can take up to 5 working days) they only requested this the day before our suggested exchange date. This meant the money didn't arrive in time, so we couldn't exchange. I called and spoke with my LISA provider, who agreed to expediate the process and we got the money within 2 working days.

The point is, we paid for a service that we didn't receive.

AVOID. AT. ALL. COSTS.

Appalling. How do outfits like this charge for such an appallingly negligent service? Do not use Spencer Lockwood. What a joke.

My belief and experience regarding the selling of a property, where the buyer had engaged them is extremely poor. They were agonising slow and I would have pulled my property had it not been for the perseverance of my own solicitor and estate agent. I seriously believed at one time that they were possibly stalling. I gave them dates and they missed them whilst the buyer was waiting for their legal representative to Kush it through.

Very very very slow. Nearly 2 months since instructed and my case handler told me he only requested docs from the management company last week! This is despite confirming over the phone many times that everything had been requested, time after time. I get told I'll get updated and nothing ever comes. I was told that I needed to answer a quick question on Monday of this week, it's now Friday and the question is yet to come, despite discussing it again on Wednesday on the phone. He even said that he was so busy with other cases he forgot about mine. Lets hope it improves before I lose the sale. Everyone wants this to go as fast as possible except, it seems, Spencer Lockwood. If someone is reading this from SL and can escalate or change my case handler please let me know.

Tried to use Spencer Lockwood for conveyancing through their link up with Yopa. The automation in the relationship does not work and after eight weeks of faffing around I removed them as solicitors for the sale Unresponsive to emails which is not good on an automated system. Would not recommend using in combination with Yopa.

Terrible company, I do not recommend it at all. The lack of commitment and professionalism is evident!

Unfortunately, I have to leave an extremely negative review for this company. I have been waiting for documentation for over 2 years, and despite several attempts to get in touch, I have still not received any solution. Every time I call, I am directed to an agent who simply asks me to send more emails. I have sent numerous emails and never received any response. It’s a complete lack of respect for the customer!

On top of all this disregard, when I try to speak with a manager, I never succeed, and it seems like the company simply has no interest in resolving the situation. Due to this terrible experience, I will unfortunately have to resort to legal action to get what I am owed.

Slow and poor communication. Difficult to get basic information about the status of my transaction. Very lengthy waiting. Several changes in solicitor.

Complete waste of time, avoid at all costs. Solicitors running out the door and cases being dropped. Had them dealing with two matters, both of which were incorrectly filed to the land registry dealing a remortgage and sale. I've been trying to get them to rectify the issue for months and am just met with more and more incompetence.