Bennett Oakley Reviews 

The current issue with Absa Mauritius is being followed and monitored effectively.

Bernadette was very efficient, polite, friendly and most of all you could relax and ask questions. I'm very please with the service I received and would recommend her to both family and friends.

Brilliant, friendly, helpful, efficient, professional service.

I personally had a great experience with Bennett Oakley for my flat purchase. The process was completed within three months, which in terms of conveyancing is pretty quick! Sarah and her team were consistently responsive, supportive, and proactive, even when the seller's solicitor went silent for nearly a month.

The only thing is I never had access to their online portal, which I was told I’d be able to use when I first instructed the firm. Having access would have saved both me and the solicitors a fair few update emails!

Very professional service. Procedures are carefully explained and next steps discussed.

It’s taking 6 months for a remortgage to buy a family member out of the property and is still ongoing…
This should not be taking longer than a traditional house sale. Completion date has now been moved three times now.
It seems they are not taking the case seriously at all and are identifying a lot of errors a few weeks down the line.
If you want a team that is reliable, pro active and trustworthy then I would NOT recommend them!

[Edit in response to Bennett Oakley's reply: Their response is inaccurate and misleading. The Housing Association were aware of the sale, and I had introduced Bennett Oakley to the sales rep I had been engaging with in their resales team - Bennett Oakley simply never engaged with them and did not provide me the necessary guidance that would allow me to take things forward to the next step. We were searching for a property, but we had made it very clear in the TA forms that we did not want our search to get in the way of our sale and if necessary we would complete and find a short term rental - we specifically raised this with Bennett Oakley to ask for guidance on how to approach this and received nothing. Also - I am impressed that Bennett Oakley was quick enough to challenge this review for defamation (which was rejected by Trustpilot) and review my case, but I never experienced any of this efficiency when I had instructed BO on the sale of my flat]

Avoid at all costs unless you wish to waste months of your time and nearly have your sale fall through. The best decision I made was uninstructing Bennett Oakley. I instructed BO on the sale of my shared ownership flat as they were on the recommended panel of the Housing Association, and as they were one of the more expensive options on the panel I had boldly assumed that would be reflected in the quality of the service, but sadly this was not the case.
I requested guidance on the basic forms I needed to fill in (the likes of the fixtures and fittings forms). After weeks of pleading for guidance I was told I had to pay the deposit, which I was fine with, but why hadn't I just been told that right from the very start so I could sort the payment immediately? After paying the deposit, I still received practically zero guidance, merely "fill it in the best you can".
After 2 months of close to radio silence from BO, I decided to set up a call with my solicitor to air my frustrations and hopefully get everything back on track. The solicitor I had instructed was the CEO of BO and on the call made it abundantly clear that she did not want to be on the call, and would constantly interrupt and talk over us as we tried to get our point across and understand where we are, and what still needed to be done. We asked if it would be possible to schedule a regular call to discuss the case, so we could prepare for the next steps etc. However we were told by our solicitor (the CEO) that it wasn't possible, and that "we would have to trust her and her 25 years of experience". However as this was the first time in 2 months that we had had any interaction with our solicitor, this incredibly combative position eroded our trust in BO as a firm, and our solicitor. So we decided to take the risk and go elsewhere for the sale of the flat and the purchase of our new home, and I am so glad we did.
It was a very strange experience, BO seem to have assistants do all of the work, or at least the solicitors do not communicate with you directly.
After 2 months we requested a refund for the deposit, and after some costs were deducted, we received the refund several weeks after what was promised.
All in all, a horrific experience. BO were combative, refused to listen to us or even speak to us throughout the experience. It is mind blowing that after 2 months they had missed some fundamental steps (which as a seller, we weren't aware of, but as a solicitor on the panel of a Housing Association, there is no reason why they shouldn't have picked it up immediately).
I have written to my Housing Association to provide them feedback on my experience in the hope that they will take necessary action to avoid other sellers having a similar experience.

I used this company to facilitate our recent move and found them to be efficient and polite throughout. I will use the again. Thank you

Very efficient and friendly service.

UPDATE (7 months on): Another email from the company saying there is a NEW payment needed (3rd unexplained payment now after completion). I am now considering contacting the financial ombudsman just to get these people to leave me alone.

UPDATE (2 months on): "I can also confirm that we will write the overdue balance off." This reply by the company was a lie as it was already paid and no refund was given (ie it was not written off). They have made no effort to contact me what-so-ever and now another month after that they have requested a NEW late payment. If I could give a negative number I would...

Quite telling how the company only seems to reply/acknowledge good reviews...

We ended up with this company as our mortgage advisor's normal company had too much work on and so we basically got sub-contracted to Bennett Oakley to do the paper work after the new deal was already found (re-mortgage).

We seem to have been contacted from multiple different people at the company of whom none seemed to know what was going on or be talking to each other. We had to do identification verifications twice, which I thought we were being scammed originally although turned out to be legitimate request and I can only assume they lost of the first set of credentials. We actually ended up defaulting to a variable rate on our mortgage because these guys kept saying everything was done then asking for more paper work last minute and still a month after we finished I get an email from a credit agency (which in all honestly I thought was spam/fraud at first again) asking for an overdue payment... of £7?!? God knows where it came from because we never got told about it?!?

Anyway, everything (hopefully) has finished now. Although even our mortgage advisor apologized that's how bad they have been. In all honesty, if I heard there name again I would even abandon my mortgage advisor at this point just to avoid this company. The reviews seem very hit and miss from what I have read so proceed at your own risk? Maybe you will be lucky!

Good solicitors that made my remortgage easy, kept me informed and resolved any issues quickly and efficiently, would use them again

If I could have left zero stars, I would of. What a shambles. This business hides behind emails, and scared to pick up the phone to communicate. If you want a painful, lengthy process, which comes with no communication and errors, then please proceed to choose Bennett Oakley as your solicitor.

The incompetence from what you would expect from experts who miss deadlines, forget to transfer funds, lose documentation, give next to no communication unless you want to chase everyone in the chain yourself!

I seriously don't need to write any more, I wouldn't even be paid to use this business ever again. Shocking.

STEER CLEAR from this joke of a solicitor firm.
Ignored on numerous occasions in relation to my transfer of equity and re mortgage, anyone would think it was a free service the way that I was treated.
Lost documents of mine that were signed for by their reception, and then accused me of posting empty envelopes to them.
At this point I don't even know if my case has finished...but I haven't heard back from them since I emailed asking why my bank says one amount was released, but then the solicitor documents say a lesser amount was released.
Bunch of clowns in a conveyancing circus that have zero customer service, Deborah Palethorpe (head of conveyancing) needs to re consider her career path.

Very professional & would highly recommend

Despite my case taking off slowly, the team has been responsive. No problems encountered so far.

Priya when she took over my file unfortunately half way through the transaction was very efficient and got the job done.Yvonne was helpful and steered me through the final stages.Great service but stages communication could improve!

Excellent service all round…

A very helpful team at Bennett and Oakley. Priya Ruprai was excellent at communicating with myself with prompt emails and phone calls to get the exchange complete...Will definitely consider again 😀