Women were particularly hostile to the legal profession, with 60.4 per cent of female respondents responding that they were ‘bad’ or ‘terrible’ value for money.
Comments from the respondents included the following:
‘Solicitors are so hard to get hold of’, ‘at least estate agents are available at weekends,’ and ‘my lawyer insists on writing three letters when one e-mail or phone call would have been perfectly adequate’.
Solicitor, Caroline Havers of Salans law firm, said the legal aspect of the homebuying process has been a bit of a closed shop for years discouraging competition, but countered: “If you look at the mortgage process, lawyers have the least enjoyable job. Estate agents negotiations can be relatively speedy and the paperwork lenders have to find is very straightforward on the whole, but for solicitors, we are dealing with a chain of information and just have to accept what people say when they delay.”
Quality of service
1 Surveyor
2 Bank/Building Society
3 Estate Agent
4 Lawyer Overall Ranking
1 Surveyor
2 Bank/Building Society
3 Estate Agent
4 Lawyer
