Poole Alcock Solicitors Reviews 

Terrible experience partner is getting divorced and waiting for his forms . Kept emailing us telling us the forms are coming but no forms yet

They have not had the decency to respond to emails.We cancelled our conveyancing with them because they did not honour what was promised at the outset.To compound this we requested £100 refund.Six weeks later we have not recieved.I would not trust or recommend this online conveyancer.

We just wanted to say thanks for all your help regarding our house move. Seeing the amount of work and chasing that goes into the process from a legal perspective was pretty incredible and we genuinely appreciate all the hard work and support put in throughout the process - we couldn't have asked for more.

AVOID AVOID AVOID!!
Just called to find out if they could help with child court order. The lady said that they would need £1300 to see if they can help!! Which would be for me to send the current order so they can read it.
I immediately laughed and asked her to repeat!!
..and clarify ...I asked her if the £1300 was only to tell me if they could help... She said that they would like me to send the current court order and pay for them to read it ...£1300!!!
I asked her if she was serious and if people actually paid for basically nothing. She nonchalantly said, yes people do!!
Wow!!! Then I said thank you but no thank you...went on reviews to see that there is a HIGH percentage of people very very disappointed and dissatisfied with the audacity of this company!!
Unbelievable!!!
I am still laughing at what this woman said!!!
Lawyers (smh)...benefiting from people's misery...but won't be from mine!!!

No words diabolical - am stuck using them. Do not reply to emails and then when you state that, apparently they say they are busy they cannot reply to emails and you can’t always expect a reply. Good luck calling as they are always on the other line
Arrogant lot
Read the reviews and you’ve been warned look at all the other ones !

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
No chain house sale dragging on for 6 months due to a lack of communication from Kate Heath’s team. Emails are ignored or only answered after several weeks. Contracts were incorrectly drawn up several times with silly mistakes repeated, at one point apparently the contracts were sent out to both myself and my ex husband but neither appeared. Very odd that we should have fallen foul of such a niche coincidence that only affected the two of our post in two separate countries.( I think not.) Rang for updates to be told they are still waiting on information that was provided by myself 6 weeks ago. At one point they told me that they didn’t have my current legal name and address, despite having sent paperwork out to that exact name and address. Literally beggars belief how useless this team are.

If there were an option for zero stars, I’d still be asking for less. The level of communication was non-existent, progress slower than a snail on strike, and updates felt like rare archaeological discoveries. Every simple task turned into an epic saga of delay and confusion.

I’ve dealt with some challenging solicitors before, but this was genuinely worse than awful — it was painfully impressive how little seemed to get done.

Would not recommend unless you enjoy chasing, waiting, and wondering what on earth is happening with your sale.

I just phoned the Cambridge office hoping they could help as they have a 5 star rating. I wanted help with a will LPA and how I might protect my assets in case myself or my wife have to go into a care home, I was told we cannot offer advice very disappointed

These are my buyers solicitor and have caused no end of problems.
Chain free, empty property has been ongoing for 5 months due to the sheer incompetence of this firm with still no exchange or completion date.
After lots of chasing from my solicitor, the estate agent, the buyer and 10 weeks from receiving contract pack, they raised enquiries. These were sent back the same day and all standard enquiries. This was the first day of September. It's now mid October and I am now pulling out this week as the seller as we have continued to chase and been assured after 2 weeks they were preparing a final report. 6 weeks later and today the buyers solicitor, Emily, had only said she will begrudgingly look at enquiries today!!
I would not instruct this firm at all, they lack basic communication and the ombudsman is now our next step for poor service and inability to do their job.
They have stalled at every opportunity
EDIT 5/11
so Emily decided not to bother looking when she said she would in October and after chasing every day after, it was passed to Sarah after just over a week and marked as urgent. Told that Sarah would review Friday, but Monday the very latest.
Finally told today on the 5th that everything is complete and suggested a date for completion. Absolutely should not take 2 months of them promising they were making their final review and would be days away from reporting to actually do it.
AVOID AVOID AVOID!

No empathy, no transparency despite website claims.
Then expect you to pay a solicitor just to find out how much it would cost to speak to a solicitor. Embarrassing and unprofessional

Elinor and her team were excellent. Incredibly efficient & made things very straightforward.

From the first phone-call to the end i was treated well! Would recommend to anyone especially if you’re quite anxious regarding any legal matters - They are there to support you!

Money before even scoping the request!
I called their offices to enquire about a legal matter. I wanted to understand whether my issue is something they can support with, what the route will be and associated costs. Before I could even articulate what I require, I was informed that the hourly fee is GBP 400 or so, and was asked if I would like to book in. I mean, book in and pay for what? To only be told if they can help in that area of law? Pretty pathetic and sales pushy. Not an issue with paying for a consultation, but to be expected to pay to only find out if they can support with my legal matter is a little out of order and money desperate. Would not be calling them again for sure.

I emailed the company just to ask how to book my next appointment with a solicitor as they had not made the process clear. I was then Charged for that email which simply read 'How do I arrange another call with you?' That cost me £37.50!!!

Then when someone called me to arrange an appointment that 20 second call also cost me £37.50. I have no problem paying for solicitors time but not for admin! I rang to complain and was told its in the contract. They would speak to a manager and come back to me but nothing happened. i basically have a £1000 bill for a 30 minute phone call, Rip off!

It's worrying that this solicitors is rated number 1 in Teesside.
They can't get the basics right, like getting back to you with an appointment.
The enquiries team were very unhelpful and one girl hung up on me!
I was eventually given a telephone appointment and they didn't call.

I was going through a voluntary redundancy claim. I had some helpful and professional advice, the whole matter was delt with quickly, efficiently and painlessly.
And I would have no hesitation in recommending them.

I need advice on divorce and thought they offered a free initial call but after 5 minutes of them calling me they said they can't help me as their fees are £450 an hour. They asked about my income and savings and made the assumption I am too poor. All in the first 5 minutes. Talk about made to feel stupid and irrelevent....

Called several times to local and head office and was told that I have spoken to the wrong person though I'd explained the reason for the call and then made to feel like it was my fault.
Awful service would not recommend them for any services.

We contacted Poole Alcock online to arrange the advertised free divorce consultation.
We missed the initial callback and returned the call a few minutes later. We asked to speak with Faith, who called us originally, but she was unavailable. We explained the situation to the lady who answered and she said that they're not taking on any further legal aid cases.
We explained that we're not legal aid and just needed to book the advertised initial consultation and then a plan to move forwards. She raised the legal aid point again and we made clear that we weren't looking for legal aid.
We eventually ended the call frustrated and a little confused.
We checked the Poole Alcock website and it is very clear about the free consultation.
We emailed back to arrange another call and 2 weeks later, still nothing. We followed up again by email and have heard nothing back.
We think we're being blocked by the lady that we spoke to.
At a difficult time, we needed help, but got nothing. This is not the standard of service expected given the online reviews. How disappointing.

Update 15th August
I always find it really interesting when there is no response from the company to a bad review. Tells me everything I need to know.
These guys are cowboys.

Update 20th September
Just thought I’d add that no attempt has been made by Poole Alcock to get in touch or understand what happened.
Do not use these people - there are so many other better solicitors that care about their clients.

Poole Alcock handled my house sale efficiently and professionally reaching completion as quickly as they could have. The pre-sale information from the company was very helpful and James Williams and his team kept me up to speed throughout the process. My experience was drama free and they always responded to my inputs promptly and in a friendly and helpful way. Overall, a very positive experience.

I paid a premium for this firm based on positive reviews, but my experience was nothing short of awful. They repeatedly lost important documents that we had emailed, some as many as four times, despite acknowledging other parts of the same emails. Each time they asked us to resend something, there would be a delay of weeks before they responded again, meaning it could take months for them to finally process a single document.

They frequently forgot what they had or hadn’t seen, misread key figures, and claimed they couldn't proceed because of missing items - the very documents we had already sent.

Their disorganisation and slow responses led to serious delays in the purchase process. The sellers became frustrated and repeatedly threatened to pull out, which severely weakened our negotiating position after the survey. This may have cost us thousands. On top of that, the delays meant we were stuck paying rent for additional months - again, costing us thousands more.

I very nearly lost the house because of their errors and communication failures. This process caused extreme stress and financial loss. I would strongly advise others to look elsewhere, paying extra for this level of service was a huge mistake.