Kirkstall Property Lawyers Reviews 

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

They do not even deserve one star!

We were recommended to use this company by our estate agent, we trusted that they would make the process of buying and selling as painless and as quick as it could be. Having used similar conveyancers in the past we had no reason to doubt this........oh, how wrong we were!!
Their communication skills are non existent and there is clearly no customer care whatsoever!
They seem to enjoy dropping bombshells on you on a Friday afternoon and leaving you to worry that you are about to lose you dream home over the weekend.
If you enjoy conveyancing work and wish to pay lots of money to chase and do everything yourself then this is the company for you.

On a serious note please avoid at all cost.

Yes, there were a few hiccups at the start of this journey of selling and buying for the first time in 53 years. Yes, there were lots of printing off documents because in choosing Kirkstall its done 'on line' so need to expect this. However I then discovered Craig Dobson who talked me through and solved my problems and was a Godsend to my sale/purchase, Thank you Craig you kept me sane, well almost!
Also thank you to Nicola & Ross who did their bit too.
June

Not helpful, assume way to much, can't pick up a phone and rely on a poor IT platform for everything. Oh, they haven't heard of sustainability, to date I have printed approximately 60 pages of A4. Not impressed.

Dear Katriina,
I’m sorry I can not reply to your email, but leaving another review looks like is the only way.
Even thou we are not your clients, we are directly affected by your actions or luck of it better said and I will justify my words:
Last Friday for the imp time our solicitor forwarded your all the requested documentation and as a backup measure we have cc in the estate agents. We had confirmation that the documents have been received and will be reviewed early this week, however today our solicitor received an email from your representative requesting the documents again. We now had to send them all via fax and yet again not a reply.
We are again, very disappointed on how the things are going.
We understood that there are procedures you need to follow however it doesn’t look good when our emails and tries to contact you are being ignored or not considered. We are really at a loss here.
Please try to understand that 3 parties are affected.

They received the buyers solicitor details on 26th January, today 26th March they still haven't drawn up the contract.

No matter how many times you call, they won't answer, even if they do, you get told wrong information, we've had three handler changes during our time.

If you want stress and your house move to fall through, then use these guys, if you want little stress and to move, then quite simply DONT USE.

Having never sold a house before I was a bit clueless and probably feeling a but fragile with it all as it was my late father's house.

I honestly couldn't have wished for somebody better to be assigned to me than Jess Bentley. She has been a little diamond for me and nothing was ever too much trouble for her. Kirkstalls have got themselves an absolute superstar, there.

Thanks for everything, Jess.

Jess the lady handling my sale was excellent, she kept me fully updated and it was easy to check documents through my account on line. Would definitely use Kirkstall again in the future.

Have been using this firm for over a year now and have had 3 sales fall through. You appear to have to constantly phone and message them to get any progress at all. Its possible they were not to blame for the sales falling through but its unlikely their glacial pace was not a contributing factor. I'm still having to contact them almost everyday in an effort to get my original documents sent back to me. Its been 19 days since I originally requested them now. Go ahead and use them if you want to be on the phone 2 - 3 times a week to them.

Very very disappointed.
I rarely ever post negative reviews and pride myself on the great relationships I have built with property lawyers throughout my 20 year career in the Estate Agency and New Homes Industry. However I'm now in a position due to your lack of communication were my vendors have had to relist their property and their buyer who did everything he could to salvage the sale is completely devastated.
Please could the gentleman (head of conveyancing) who contacted me on Friday get back in touch, you haven't replied to any of my emails this past two days - I removed my previous comments at your request as you promised that you would help to sort out the complications and delays at the bottom of my vendors chain - your client is desperately waiting to exchange and my buyers are about to lose their dream property because of your companies delays and inefficiency.
I will be writing a lengthy blog post this afternoon on my LinkedIn profile to all my property industry colleagues to warn them of what has recently happened and to make sure they see your Trust Pilot reviews before advising any buyers or buyers buyers to use Kirkstall or the other firm that you all have on your LinkedIn profiles for any of their conveyancing.

The only thing top rated about this company are my stress levels after months and months of incompetence. Every step of the way I was left in the dark and received no updates. They refused to pick up the phone when I rang and didn’t answer emails. On the rare occasion I got in touch with my handler Bobbie-Leigh she was incredibly rude and offensive, and immediately went on the defence if questioned. When I rang a manager the only answer I received was that Bobbie had a lot of cases so was incredibly busy… how is that my problem, that is a fundamental organisational issue and is clearly reflected in the torrent of negative reviews received on here. Either hire more staff or stop taking clients.

How a company (a legal one at that) can exist in this day and age is unbelievable. They are well and truly a COWBOY FIRM and please please please, don’t make my mistake… read the reviews first. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

As a retired mathematics teacher I am disappointed not to be allowed to use negative numbers in my rating. Kirkstalls is indifferent, incapable of initiative totally uncommunicative and seems to rejoice in our impotence and frustration. We are 8 months into a sale that has no chain, a buyer desperate to move into an empty flat and no mortgage problems. I have complained to the Legal Ombudsman about them. To enhance their ability to irritate they attach a puerile 'barometer of progress' to you personal space, which never moves and has a section claiming they have worked on the case a number of times in the last seven days. They have worked on ours 12 times in the last seven days, it has said so for over a month. So they do not even bother to update their obviously inaccurate claims. They do excel in one thing, to be fair, they can manufacture endless excuses to absolve themselves of blame. Ironically Kirkstall was recommended by our Estate Agent and I now find both are members of the Sequence group.

We were recommended to Kirkstall Property Lawyers by our estate agent. Our first dealings were shocking, they didn’t return our emails or calls and we didn’t have a clue with what was happening. Once we were appointed our lawyer ( Latoya) things were really easy and stress free. Things moved really quickly. Latoya made the whole process so simple.

Thank you

I was recommended to Kirkstall Property Lawyers by my estate agent,but I found them to be very slow at everything except asking for fees and even returning money! Messaging them does not get replies and there seem to many members of staff dealing with the issues you raise. I decided against selling my property and buying my deceased wife's property for financial reasons and have been waiting over a month for the return of my Deeds and associated documents. Messages sent on their website are not being answered still.
I think my next letter will be to the Law Society.

Following on from the extra information I sent to Katrina, I received my deeds and other documents back this morning without any covering message so that is an improvement.

I used Kirkstall as they were recommended by the Estate Agent. Absolutely awful service. Kept losing documents and asking me for the same information over and over.

shocked at how bad the service is and how drawn out its been my mum put her offer in on a flat back in june its nearly december still no completion date, told had sent paperwork out on a wednesday then told wasnt sent till a friday it still hasnt been received?? nearly a week later my mum is disabled and getting more unstable on her feet so desperately needs to move to her new flat they dont communicate about whats needs to be done or timelines my mum is literally living in limbo while they keep dragging there heels its ridiculous!

Runnnnnnnn away from them!!!! Connells tricked us that with Kirkstall will be everything smooth and great. 10 months now and we haven’t purchased the property. We are loosing money. They don’t care and most terrifying THEY DON’T KNOW THEIR JOB!!!!!! One word only: they are incompetent!!
We are looking now to change solicitors and hire some other to make a claim against them.
The funniest thing was that they asked us to transfer the deposit after 10 months to their account and guess what… there was another problem that they missed and now we have been informed that we cannot proceed! They never give an advise, we requested a phone call they never called us back they only thing that they do is to write a message on their platform “ we will chase” lol !!!! Guys Stop chasing all the time get some break get some rest! Next time I will definitely pay attention on the reviews and I feel so stupid that I didn’t!!!

Kirkstall Property Lawyers do not value your time, they do not care about your money, they do not care about your mental well being or issues caused by their pathetic inaction.

When it comes to the blame game of who caused the delay of our 7 month house purchase process, they are very quick to state it is everyone's fault but theirs.

Once we've been waiting a good enough time, they feel it's time to throw on an extra charge, completely ignoring the fact that they've just cost us through both Stamp Duty holidays being completely ignored and missed. Zero urgency.

They seem to enjoy throwing out random dates as of late "completion will happen here, exchange will happen here". So as it's a busy market you scrabble for a removals company and utilities changes, only to have them casually tell you "no that date we gave you isn't legally binding" a few days before the move is due to go ahead. More money down the drain, more time lost on calling round to resolve the problems they create.

I would never choose to use them ever again. I found out midway through our process that apparently our Estate Agent has dropped Kirkstall also for exactly the complaints I've made.

Do not answer the phone. Do not reply to emails. Trying to get simple updates is impossible. I would like to escalate this prior to putting on a public forum but there is simply no way of contacting them. Eventually got through yesterday to be told they would email me - i have heard nothing. No reply back and will not pick up phone. So frustrating and disappointing

This company is absolutely appalling. Ive been trying to buy a property for 4 months now and the solicitor who I'm told I'm not aloud to name.but it rhymes with hobby. will not return emails phone calls, emails from my estate agent, emails from my buys estate agent, calls from both. Please if you take anything from this review DONT USE THESE PEOPLE. don't get sucked in the the estate agents saying it will make it easier, IT DONT. PLEASE DONT USE THEM I BEG YOU.

The review was written on the 26.08.2021
I would imagine the positive reviews are all fake, so ignore them and read the negative ones. The polite replies to negative reviews from the lawyers are also just that 'polite replies'. If I could give zero stars - that would be it. They won't address any issues, so ignore those as well.

We have been purchasing a flat in Brighton and engaged this awful company on the advice of the Estate agent in Rottingdean (wish we never listened to them). We started the process in April 2021 and we have not exchanged or even agreed on a completion date yet! That is 4.5 months for a straightforward purchase!!!! The first lawyer they gave us was totally useless, we complained and they gave us another lawyer (male) who is twice as useless as the first. They will ignore your calls, messages and texts. They never call back when promised. They do not deal with queries from other solicitors involved in the transaction and keep things really slowly. We literally had to chase them every single day - simply leaving multiple calls and messages logged on the portal - make no difference as they literally don't give a f***k. They have cost us thousands of pounds already by not completing on time. Initially, we thought we would exchange by the end of June but they were so slow that it never happened. Then they gave us a deadline of the end of August - this is not going to happen now either as NOBODY is progressing things. If you call the office there is literally no one there, not even reception answers the phone. We now had to book a hotel for a 4 days stay that cost us a further £800. We hoped to be in our flat by then and not paying excessive Brighton fees... but hey, WHO cares?

Recent experience of our sellers' with the same lawyers was the same as ours and they had the wisdom to go with a different one. We, unfortunately, did not check them out and relied on the estate agent's poor recommendation. I can't express the amount of stress this company caused us. The worst thing -is that they don't really care. Not even the management.

So, if you want to be constantly chasing the lawyers, and doing half of their work for them, then be delayed with your transaction - go and engage Kirkstall Property Lawyers. They will do a great job and leave you stressed, frustrated and out of pocket, you will also pay for the privilege.

If you, however, want a smooth a fast transaction, don't touch them with a barge pole. Find someone locally who you can physically see in person in the office if you need to ( or speak to their manager to escalate things). They will be cheaper in the long run and better for your mental health.