A S K Legal LLP - Buckingham

NIGEL N.

I WAS VERY HAPPY WITH THE WAY THAT ASK LEGAL DEALT WITH MY HOUSE SALE, AND WOULD PARTICULARLY LIKE TO MENTION SOHANI HERATH FOR HER ASSISTANCE.

Sandgross O.

A huge thank you to the team at ASK Legal LLP for their exceptional service during my property purchase in Chesham Their professionalism and attention to detail were evident from the outset, and they made the entire process seamless. I was impressed by their efficiency and ability to keep everything on track, ensuring a timely completion. I would highly recommend ASK Legal LLP to anyone seeking reliable conveyancing services.

Lilian

Juvid A.

DO NOT WORK WITH ASK LEGAL ESPECIALLY MARCIA KILLEN. One star is too many for this law firm.

This firm's business model is to undercut the competition, take on more work than they can actually deal with, and as a result consistently drop the ball, ignore, and gaslight you.

Marcia Killen will begin working with you by telling you that she doesn't promise to respond to you within 24 hours -- unlike pretty much every other solicitor I've ever encountered -- and boy does she mean it.

I requested her help in completing some conveyancing for me. The case was complicated by the local council suffering a security breach, causing my searches to be delayed. Totally out of her control, I was understanding of this. However, Marcia's way of managing my expectations was to ignore my once-two-weekly emails requesting an update -- this was too onerous a request for her busy schedule. Only at the point of sending her one-liner emails saying "Can you please respond." would she finally get her keyboard out. She is impossible to reach via telephone, and her supporting staff who do answer the telephone were often rude, and unhelpful. We eventually satisfied ourselves with incomplete searches, and bought an indemnity for the princely sum of £99. Maybe Marcia doesn't value her time at more than £99/2 months given the rates she charges, but mine costs more than that. Could we have not gotten the insurance earlier, Marcia?

Once I finally got my long-delayed searches after maybe 2 months of waiting (the duration for many home purchases in totality), I discovered that Marcia sat on my leaseholder information pack for an entire month claiming that it hadn't been received. When I reached out directly to the seller's solicitor to ask what was going on, the seller's solicitor told me they'd sent it over weeks ago. The very same day ASK Legal magically find my leaseholder information pack. I know managing your emails can be tricky, but folks -- you had one job. And it wasn't very hard. Click forward to me, job done. Happy customer. Nope, too hard -- they're busy people over at ASK Legal.

To put the cherry on the cake, on the day I was promised we would exchange, for maybe 72 hours both before and after the transaction was supposed to take place, I didn't hear a peep out of ASK Legal. I got, I think fairly, rather angry at my legal representatives after not notifying me of the outcome of a transaction which was supposed to move my entire life savings from A -> B. Is their firm a complete scam, I thought to myself? They've certainly not acted particularly professionally up to now.... Again, a simple timely email is too much to ask from ASK Legal. Just Don't ASK.

The stress of occasionally answering my emails proved too much for Marcia. After I called out a spurious decision of hers on the title plan of the property, and that I was apparently "chasing" her too much, she dropped me as a client. The day after we were supposed to exchange. Four months into the transaction. Mortgages tend to expire in 6 months. I genuinely believe spite to be an explanation for her behaviour, and an indirect attempt to undermine my transaction. Spite borne out of a lack of time to provide simple courtesies to her clients by being overwhelmed with work due to a poor business model, and a customer who felt that wasn't a good enough excuse. I can't prove it, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility. I wonder what the Solicitors Regulation Authority would think about the whole situation...

I went to a more competent solicitor and got the job done in an additional 10 weeks. I type this from my new flat. Despite Marcia.

Don't work with ASK Legal if you value your time or sanity.

Marius J.

Good points:
1) Substantially lower fees than other soliciting companies.

Bad points:
1) Extremely poor communication with all parties involved (estate agents, mortgage advisors, customer, etc). As a first time buyer got very little explanation on what is required, what would be the due dates, processes involved, etc. I had to chase solicitors for information constantly. They didn't notify me that a different solicitor has picked up my property purchase case, until I chased up for more information. Each time I call the office a different person picks up the phone and say they will "look into it" or "pass my message" but I never got a call back or an email, unless I continued to call the office and chase up with more emails.
2) Absolutely no drive to close the deal and exchange contracts in a timely manner. I don't know if this is due to them being massively understaffed, or plainly incompetent. But what I do know is that dealing with ASK legal has cost me £1100 in fees, ~8 months of lost time, and not being able to purchase the property because loan offer had expired its 6 month offer period.

I hope this helps any future potential customers to make a better informed decision if they want to use ASK Legal soliciting services.

Natalie A. D.

I visited to inquire about having a copy of my birth certificate stamped and approved by a solicitor as my partner and I are getting married abroad (Jamaica) and we need to send our authenticated documents to the resort prior to the day. I was told I need to visit a notary office to have my documents translated. The woman in reception assumed that because of the way I look, I was from elsewhere; I was so offended as both my partner and I are UK born and bred. I don’t recommend visiting this place unless you ‘look English’.

MSL F.

Absolutely terrible service, before we got to the door woman barely wanted to let us in. Straight away stereo typed for not being able to speak english before we had a chance to talk! Don't recommend this place to any one, take a short trip to Milton Keynes it will be worth your wild because this place is not!

amanda R.

Absolutely disgusted with the service I received. My husband and I were going through a tough time in our lives so it was pretty stressful and upsetting already, Marcia just made it 10x worse. The service was that bad I wouldn’t even give it one star.
Mr reeve and I had to constantly chase up Marcia, we were getting more service from our estate agent. Our names were typed wrong in emails... the wrong estate agent name was wrong... we were being lied to..and when we questioned her; calls and emails were becoming non existent. I was lied to on the phone saying emails from my land lord had been received and she would send them to me after the call, this never happened and always had to chase her 2/3 times a week sometimes in a day!
The worst of it all, on my completion date Marcia transferred me nearly 30k of my Xs money, massive mistake!!!! Figures were explained to her and my Mortgage advisor so this should not of happened. Thankfully my x and I are still talking to each other and between us solved the problem. I was told I would complete by 2pm, I waited in the estate agent... mix messages were being told and was told by the estate agent my solicitor hadn’t called. I kept calling and calling her and sheepishly she rang the estate agent at 5pm saying they could release the keys. She forgot to call and the same time she had the nerve to ask me to do a bank transfer of 30 k back to her even though I had a full van to empty. I got charged nearly £900 of being messed around, not reliable and would not go near this company again.

Frank H.

Malcolm is really knowledgeable, responded quickly to my questions/requests and made my purchase as easy as possible. From offer to completion it was all done within 2 months. Very reasonably priced for the service provided. I highly recommend using their services and will definitely be using them again in the future.