TP Legal Ltd, trading as TP Legal Solicitors Reviews 14

As loads of people say, I wish there was a way of giving no stars...

What a nightmare dealing with this firm has been. Now, five weeks and two days on and when I should be nearly completing on my (very straightforward) house purchase, Hutchins Law are demanding extra proof of funds and identity checks which they should have asked for at the beginning (if they were really needed, which they're not) and refusing to act further unless I provide these.

In reality, they are just trying to make it look as if all the delays and obstructions are on my side and not theirs.

These people don't answer e-mails, they don't give progress reports - nothing. They don't follow-up on necessary things, they sit on things on which they should be taking action - the list of what they don't do is very, very long.

I started with a paralegal [NAME REDACTED] who was very quick to ask for money (which had already been paid) but not so keen afterwards to let me now what was going on (or do anything? I have no way of knowing). Finally, after lots of e-mails, I had to get the conveyancing broker (Onthemoov) to chase Hutchins Law for me. I was then allotted a 'trainee solicitor' [NAME REDACTED] instead, apparently overseen by the managing partner, [NAME REDACTED] (who then rang me, interrupting my work which he had been asked not to do, when he had not read the file and had nothing useful to say about my case).

Then there was another seven days of nothing apparently happening and no response to e-mails until the conveyancing broker had to be asked again to intervene to galvanise Hutchins Law into doing something - including replying to e-mails.

The whole sorry saga has dragged on and on, creating a huge amount of stress at an already stressful time (moving house) - in what they admit should have been a straightforward conveyancing matter.

So now, five weeks and two days later, I've had to sack them and am having to start all over again with a different firm of solicitors.

I don't know why there are all the good reviews for this law firm here on Trustpilot - and I'm puzzled about the fact that none of the paralegals etc. mentioned in the reviews are on the Hutchins Law website. Does this mean that the recent restructuring has resulted in big changes which have turned a previously good law firm into a very poor one?

Anyway my strong advice is, obviously, AVOID!

Update 29 December 2025: This firm, who happily take over a week to respond to an e-mail (or don’t respond at all), lodged an objection to the above review within twenty-four hours of it being posted(!). They objected to my giving the names of their employees who were responsible for the appalling service I suffered – despite the fact that there are over one hundred other reviews about them which give names of their employees.

Hutchins Law really is the absolute worst.

After instructing Hutchins and Co (which merged without any prior warning with TP Legal) on the recommendation of our mortgage advisor, the communication was initially quick. The instruction documents however contained numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes which roused our concerns. Naively we went ahead with the firm, being first time buyers, on the suggestion of our advisor. From that point onward all went downhill as it took a week or sometimes more to get a response from our solicitors, and took just as long for them to respond to the seller’s solicitors. Communication was so poor, that until we went back to our mortgage advisors and threatened to take them to an ombudsman (3 months into the process and without any completion date in sight) we were still totally in the dark as to how far along in the conveyancing process we were. Our mortgage offer came through at the 2 month mark and we have still not heard a thing about it from our solicitors. It seems likely that with the Christmas shutdown we will not be completing on the purchase for at least another month. A 4 month + conveyancing process is far in excess of what should be expected for a simple no-chain transaction.

Initially TP Legal/Hutchins & Co seemed quite promising. My case handler was prompt and helpful. However after around a month, email responses seemed to stop. A month goes by with no communication whatsoever, despite multiple emails and phone calls made. Eventually I was told that my paralegal had been off sick from work for a month and no one had bothered to pick up his workload, so essentially nothing had been done for an entire month! Unacceptable.
A new paralegal was assigned to my case, and it has all been extremely slow, frustrating and confusing since. I was then told that Hutchins & Co were imminently being taken over by TP Legal, which I feel has further delayed any progress while the companies merge.
So here we are over 4 months since the process began and still have not completed. It takes several days for emails to be responded to, and when they are they are of limited use and read like they were written by an AI.
Overall I can’t recommend TP Legal/Hutchins & Co at all.

Woking , Tp legal Ltd Solicitirs.
Conveyancing specialist. I was fortunate to have them for my case . My solicitor was Miss Sukhdeep Bambara she is very intelligent and expert in her work . She took and worked on every single detail of my case from start to finish . Company is very good because they have price transparency which mostly lacking in legal community I highly recommend them . I am very thankful to Miss Sukhdeep Bambara who made my journey As smooth as possible . What else any one want .

In a nutshell:
- TP Legal Ltd. failed to spot the most common issue in a property sale (which they were acting on behalf of the Buyer): the Seller of the property not having a registered title deed for the property they were selling;
- TP Legal Ltd.'s gross negligence has had devastating impact on our finances;
- TP Legal Ltd. have misled us, for over 1 year, telling us that the delay in getting our title registered with HM Land Registry was due to backlog at HM Land Registry – when it was 100% due to the Seller not being in the position to sell;
- TP Legal Ltd. have repeatedly taken money from us without providing proof of payment.

Here's how this situation unfolded...
On 20-May-2022 I completed the acquisition of a new-built property directly from the Builder. We exchanged contracts for the said property on 19-Dec-2021 – while the property was being built.

When making an offer to buy this property, in Oct-2021, we naively accepted Builder's recommendation for conveyancing services: TP Legal Ltd.

Ms. Janine Raine-Cooper was the Case Manager assigned to our case.
Throughout the conveyancing process, Ms. Raine-Cooper has done the Seller’s bidding, not ours (her customers). All our technical queries have been responded late, vaguely, by simply pointing us to a report so obviously copied & pasted from a previous case. She hasn’t once acted on our clarifications questions – which we had to take to the Builder directly, via the Sales office.

For their services, we have paid TP Legal Ltd. £1,915 as follows:
- £600 in Oct-2021, when we instructed them to act on our behalf (to this date, we still have seen no proof of this payment from TP Legal Ltd);
- £1,248 on 27-Dec-2022;
- £67 on 20-May-2022, the day of completion (again, no proof of payment provided).

At 10 months from the completion, in March 2023, we were still not in possession of our title deed because our Solicitor (TP Legal Ltd.) had failed to perform the most basic check: whether the Seller was indeed the legal owner of the item being sold. As it turns out, not only the Builder didn't have a title deed for the land, the individual who sold that land to the Builder didn't have one either. An unbelievable chain, of which TP Legal Ltd were not minimally aware (or interested in closing) when they asked money from us.

As a result of this situation:
- we've been - since March 2023 - unable to sell the property;
- also, we have been unable to re-mortgage the property, in order to let it out;
and move to a smaller/cheaper property, which we can afford to pay for.

Coming to an end of our fixed-term deal with the Lender, we have been forced to take the most expensive deal from the same Lender - which increased our monthly installments by £1,200 (!!!)

All this because TP Legal Ltd (and Ms. Raine Cooper) didn't do their job.

During this time, all our enquiries regarding the estimated time of getting our title registered by HM Land Registry have been responded by TP Legal with lies such as:
- “it’s running late because of HM Land Registry’s backlog and lack of personnel”;
- “they (HM Land Registry) are facing major staffing issue and all applications are delayed by up to 2 years”;
- “they (HM Land Registry) are giving us a target date of May-2024”.

On 23-Mar-2023, I contacted HM Land Registry myself, explaining them the difficult situation, and asking them to expedite the title registration.
To our massive surprise, HM Land Registry told us that there was another major obstacle, entirely outside of our (and their) control: the Builder had not even requested yet, let alone obtained, the transfer of the title for the land from the previous owner to themselves (!)

I escalated this situation to the Director of TP Legal Ltd. (Mr. Tariq Philips - "TP") on 31-Mar-2023. Mr. Philips answered almost 4 weeks later, on 26-Apr-2023 - pretending everything was fine and Ms. Raine Cooper "has worked diligently on your case and have been committed to resolving the issues related to your property registration". Despite mountains of evidence provided in my letter to him, Mr. Philips chose to cover up the negligence of his employee, Ms. Janine Raine Cooper.

That's when I realised there's no chance for a resolution to my case - and decided to take legal action against TP Legal Ltd. A conveyancer who shouldn't be allowed to practice anymore - so that no other family is exposed to what we've gone through.

Jayne and the team were very helpful and informative when selling our flat. Would highly recommend their services and will be using them again in the future.

Janine Raine-Cooper handled both our sale and our purchase (completion dates separated by several months) including a bridging re-mortgage, so this was not a straight forward pair of transactions. She was brilliant throughout the whole process; prompt, responsive, pro-active and efficient at every step. The purchase, inspite of the complexity, was completed very quickly thanks to her chasing down every little issue so it was quickly resolved. She would readily respond from vacation if there was something urgent so we always fealt appraised of what was happening. In contrast to my previous experience with house move transactions and solicitors, she actually took stress out of the process. In addition she is also very nice, friendly and pleasant to deal with. If I could give 6 stars I would!

Two members of TP Legal gave me opposing information that the owner Tariq Philips wouldn't clarify.

Matthew Digling said to me: "I believe it is quite clear that this parking space is solely for the benefit of the property." His senior colleague Jayne Gill said to me: "If the parking space is not within the boundary of your property I would suggest based on the limited information we have so far that there is no exclusive right for you to park there."

Matthew Digling said to me: "Indemnity insurance would only really be available if there was a known breach of the covenants, and the policy would provide cover for yourself if any enforcement proceedings were made by the Association in the future. Cover would not be available for a suspected or ‘foreseeable’ breach of the covenants." Jayne Gill told me: "You can take out an indemnity policy whether or not there has been any breach but the seller is unlikely to agree to pay for it unless we can show or they admit that there have been breaches."

I lost faith in Matthew over a number of weeks. It became increasingly clear to me that he was not up to the conveyancing on the property I was buying due to its numerous restrictive covenants. I asked for Jayne to take over. Was told 'no'. How can you have faith in someone when he is telling you the complete opposite of what his senior colleague is telling you? Given she was more senior surely she was right? The company wouldn't clarify that.

The bumptious Tariq Philips got involved. I got a 'telling off' and was told by him: "it is your responsibility to cooperate with us". I was basically deemed "uncooperative" as I didn't want Matthew to continue with the job and wanted Jayne to take over. He also said apropos of nothing: "...treat all members of our staff with respect and in accordance with our equality and diversity policy" - I was never disrespectful to anyone and equality and diversity never came into it (nothing was said by me to any member of staff to cause him to mention this). He also said my replies were: "rude about Matthew which I cannot tolerate". The rudest thing I said about Matthew was "he should have had the intelligence to explain the process before now - he's had many opportunities to" - this was in response to Jayne saying she'd get Matthew to call me to explain the process (after I'd asked him about some things numerous times but didn't get an answer - even "I'll get to that soon" would have sufficed).

Of course, Tariq still wanted to keep my business even though he labelled me rude, condesceding (I've had to spell that incorrectly to put it in this review) and uncooperative. The way he spoke to me was total overkill for my worst 'crime' - insisting I didn't want Matthew to continue and saying something mildly rude.

If anyone was condesceding it was Tariq Philips. I was a customer yet was treated so patronisingly by him even though I had good cause to not want Matthew to continue. I feel he's a bit of a bully as his reaction to me was totally over the top and unnecessary. His over-the-top response when I asked for clarity smacked of the best form of defence is attack.

Conclusion: Matthew is polite but doesn't have the experience to do the conveyancing on more than a straightforward property - certainly not one with restrictive covenants. Jayne seems more competent but high-handed as despite me listing numerous concerns on the two issues above and a number of others she insisted I continue with him. Tariq chucks egregious accusations around to get you to toe the line and likes to try and dominate you.

If I have time I might still put in a complaint with the SRA. Surely it isn't right to receive contradictory information with no explanation given when asked?

The flat I wanted to buy was subject to probate so was a long process but Janine Raine-Cooper never took her eye off the ball. I received regular updates and everything went smoothly. She is now going to deal with the sale of my house.

Matthew Digling was so helpful and made the process seamless and stress free. He was great with communication and easy to understand, friendly and professional with clear advice. Thank you very much

I used TP Legal for advice on an employer settlement agreement and found them to be concise, friendly, knowledgeable and professional and they managed the work to the budget required.

I contacted Richard Hiron for some employment law advice following a situation I found myself in at work. The onboarding was extremely slick and efficient, which enabled me to book an appointment within a day of starting the process.

Richard's knowledge and understanding of employment law was apparent with his ability to competently answer my questions and provide me with clear advice. As a result, I was able to make a crucial decision about my employment very quickly and confidently.

I would highly recommend Richard to anyone who needs some advice on employment law.

Thank you for all your patients in explaining the legal jargon and helping renegotiate the employment settlement agreement. Richard Hiron made a challenging time a little easier and less stressful, which I greatly appreciated.
Sal