Countrywide Conveyancing Services Avis 

Absolutely do not use they can’t return a document amended with weeks so they obviously don’t know how use email. Our completion date was due a month ago and still not sorted they don’t respond they don’t act and looking at the reviews from others
Im surprised they are still operating absolutely terrible response times and waste of money and no customer service do not use them ever

My estate agent recommended these cowboy solicitors who have no human connection, relationship building skills, nor are they good at what they do. I was quote around 1600 from various other Conveyancers, however, the seller of my property made a condition to use the same solicitor to ease things up. Therefore, i used Countrywide Conveyancing Services and was quoted 2,200, however, at the end with hidden charges was charged 3,400 GBP for just a buyer fees. They are liars, dishonest, disgusting and shambolic. Bairstow Eves RAINHAM recommended them, PLEASE DONT GET CONNED, I LOST THOUSANDS.

I would not recommend Countrywide Conveyancing to anyone. House move on its own is stressful enough - the last thing you need is a complete lack of courtesy and communication from your designated conveyancer responsible for the sale of your house in a chain. Our whole experience with them was extremely disappointing and a complete opposite to what we were promised by Dixons for using their “internal conveyancing services”.

If you want to save yourself a big headache, time and stress then stay away from their services. They don’t even deserve 1 star.

2 months after buying the house (which took over half a year due to difficult or lack of communication with Countrywide) we are receiving letters from HMRC threatening us with bailiffs because apparently our Stamp Duty hasn't been paid, yet Countrywide had taken the money and claim they paid. I had to contact HMRC myself to explain this, they say it is up to Countrywide to contact them to identify the payment, for 2 months I have been asking them now to sort this out, it is just one phone call they have to make, and I am still stressing when somebody knocks the door, happy life in the new house, thank you Countrywide, never again.

Buying a house is a notoriously stressful process. The conveyancing part is expensive, but a good conveyancing solicitor will lend their experience and expertise to make the process as smooth as possible. So, with a proper lawyer working for one, conveyancing can be worth the money.

I found that, rather than oiling the wheels, Countrywide Conveyancing Services (CCS) often threw a spanner into the works. The “portal”, a safe webpage which allows secure communication was not kept up to date. In one instance a communication was dated 01 January 1800. Yes, I know that someone forgot to type in the correct date, so the system entered a default. However, I was paying a lot of money for accuracy and attention to detail. By not bothering to check that the correct date had been entered, CCS were proving that they were careless and indifferent. This was negatively affecting my confidence that the CCS team were focussed on the job.

Over the phone I was told that certain documents were about to be uploaded to the portal when, later, it transpired that the vendor had not even received copies of the forms to fill in, let alone sent them back to CCS to be uploaded. This sale fell through. I was very disappointed, and I cannot help wondering how much CCS contributed to the transaction being aborted.

And the very high percentage of other unhappy customers (over 90% of the experiences are rated one star on Trustpilot) is really damning evidence of the poor performance by Countrywide Conveyancing Services.

After reading all the reviews I have to admit, I was really worried about using countrywide as we had already agreed to use them as the seller was using them.
I honestly did not have any issues with anything, we went from offer accepted to completion in 12 weeks. It actually got held up as we went on holiday for 10 days.
Claire was fantastic, always answered the phone (or called back), we had a swift reply from emails on Connect (the hub with all documents and info). We were always updated, we received all documents and information quickly.
People mostly post bad reviews rather than good.
I would use them again if we ever sold. We used the manchester branch and seller used Cardiff.

As a conveyancing company .6 months trying to no avail. 3 times we where told we can complete. 3 times let down at our expense. Emails unanswered not returned solicitor unreachable. Some queries they asked were deemed essential were then dropped as non-essential. 20 minutes on hold to speak to our solicitor for the call to be cut off then again as it was near to 12pm lunch.I could go on but there is not enough time in the day.We ended up pulling out, so we lost our house due largely in part to them. Do not use waste of space

My experience of countrywide as an organisation has be incredibly negative. First some context. I purchased a property in November 2021 via Woods estate agent (part of the countrywide brand). The vendors solicitor is countrywide and I was paneled out to a solicitor called PCS legal by the in house countrywide mortage advisor. I am a first time buyer and the gentleman I am buying from is moving into a retirement home - thus, there is no chain. With this in mind, it is now 9 months on and we are yet to even be issued an estimated completion/exchange date.

The vendor, the countrywide estate agent and the in house countrywide mortage advisor have all been desperately trying to contact the countrywide solicitor to no avail. Their calls are not answered and further to this they receive no call back and no response their emails.

The countrywide solicitor has notably sent incorrect or incomplete information to our solicitor on a number of occasions. Countrywide have also tried to shift blame onto the vendor. They have demonstrated explicit discrimination against the vendor, questioning his faculties "because he's old". They insisted that he had never sent them a series of documents and thereby blamed him for the hold up of the sale. They then found these documents, stating that they had been "misplaced" and issued no apology to the vendor.

The quality of service provided by countrywide as an organisation is terrible and their internal communication, as well as their communication with their clients is obismal.

The gentleman I am purchasing from has sadly now lost his place at his retirement home and has advised that he is considering pulling out and restarting the process with a new solictor and estate agent. Unfortunately this will likely result in me losing the property as he will likely re-list it for a higher price and I will be unable to transfer my mortage offer (which I have already had to renew once due to the length of this process).

In sum, countrywide have no regard for their clients and provide a very unprofessional and inadequate service.

That said, I would like to give thanks to Meg Paddock, Taylor Bennett and Ruby Wright for their efforts. I only wish to organisation as a whole was able to embody the work ethic of these select individuals.

Following a response to my formal complaint, I will be escalating this to the Financial Ombudsman.

So I've sold two properties and bought three in my time, and generally had quite a poor level of service from solicitors. Our solicitor for our recent sale, Katie Lawton, I have to comment was amazing. She was proactive, great communication, and most of all, understanding. She made the process easy (which sadly too few people do in the housing market!) This was the first time we sold our property and bought another, so we experienced two solicitors and it was a major mistake to not use Katie for both of the processes. We had an poor service from our estate agent, and I'm not sure what we would have done without a great solicitor. I've never experienced a great service from solicitors before (indeed have found them to be a very frustrating part of the system), but Katie was brilliant and she's a great asset to Countrywide.

The sale of my property has fallen through because of these conmen.

An elderly man, who has recently retired, was really keen to buy the bungalow my family left me. He has been in his house his whole life and wanted something more accessible in his twilight years. He was so keen to move in that he offered 5 grand over the asking price and a cash buy to speed up the purchase.

His estate agent recommended Countrywide conveyancing and they provided him with such a poor service that he has now decided to withdraw the sale of his own property and sue both the Estate Agent and Countrywide!!! The experience has been so bad he doesn’t even want to move anymore!!!

My private solicitor were really efficient and sent all the paperwork to Countrywide immediately when he put in the offer. Countrywide confirmed receipt of paperwork when it arrived in an email in which I was cc’d.

However, they did not pass on the paperwork and told my buyer they never received it. Meanwhile, my solicitor was emailing them constantly to ask for the contracts with me cc’d and they ghosted her. Every time she tried to call them directly, she was left on hold for over 20 minutes and no one answered.

When the buyer found out that we had actually sent the paperwork he tried to call Countrywide multiple times, but was also left on hold with no one picking up.

A month went by, and he never received any paperwork, or any contact from Countrywide.

In the end, the whole experience put off his wife and she decided that she didn’t want to move anymore after everything that had happened and they should sue Countrywide instead.

Countrywide finally emailed my solicitor to say they weren’t instructed in the matter anymore - that was the only time they contacted her - to say they’d been fired!!!

And they still have all my paperwork and haven’t returned it!!!

So, I lost the sale of my property and all my paperwork and I had put an offer on a place I really liked.

I HATE these people! How can they sleep at night trying to swindle an elderly retired couple? And how can people work for them in good conscience?!!!

Also the one five star review is clearly by a staff member trying to improve their ratings. Grow up and get a better job that won’t make it impossible for you to sleep at night. You deserve 0 stars and all your customers, and those who have ever dealt with you, HATE YOU.

Countrywide were highly recommended by my estate broker for buying a new property and was guaranteed that everything would be much smoother and quicker if we use the same solicitors. Shortly after i paid them a fee they have allocated my case to some random solicitor in Wales ( i am based in Surrey) which were absolutely dreadful and don’t even exist anymore… so 18 months later my property is still not registered and I am going around in circles to find who has taken my case. And countrywide say that they can’t do anything. They are just an expensive solicitors platform that doesn’t care about their clients as soon as you pay them the fee. Please do not be fooled and find a real company.

We decided to use these people as they were recommended by our estate agent and were being used by our buyers and those buying from them. We mistakenly thought this would simplify and speed our sale.
We could not have been more mistaken!
Our conveyancer was doing a good job, but encountered problems with her colleagues at what seemed like every step. She informed us she was leaving the company during our sale, but we were not informed when she left nor who would be acting for us afterwards.
Attempts to contact the firm were a nightmare, with voicemail messages and emails left unanswered.Calls to the main number invariably involved a long wait for an answer and on one occasion I was simply cut off after waiting sixteen minutes for someone to speak to me.
When I complained to a “manager” called Taylor (her first name) I spent about thirty minutes on the phone outlining my concerns. She assured me she would investigate and respond by phone in a couple of days. I never heard from her again and attempts to reach her were simply ignored!
I have never had the misfortune to be involved with such an unprofessional shower and based upon my personal experience would strongly advise potential clients to avoid them like the plague!
You have been warned!
If I could give zero stars I would.

I don't want to even give one star as they're completely incompetent. Please DO NOT USE Countrywide! My seller unfortunately is with CountryWide, I sold my house 4.5 months ago to a first time buyer. My buyer has had little to no communication in this time and was only told 2 weeks they have received the searches through... if you can even believe that! Due to this I could now loose the property I have had an offer agreed on due to the amount of time taking by Countrywide. This has caused me a serious amount of anxiety and stress, as you can imagine. The lack of communication is disgraceful and their service is appalling. Please DO NOT use them!!!

Absolutely horrific. We are in the most unfortunate position where our buyer and seller are both with this terrible firm. I've never been so frustrated in my life. My solicitor just waits and waits for them to call her back, when she calls them the phone often just rings out. She's probably getting a response about once every two weeks?! Honestly, this whole experience has been diabolical and I'm tempted to just throw the towel in. Please, for the sake of yourself and everyone in your chain, DO NOT USE COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!

Where to begin!? Absolutely impossible to contact despite claiming to be open seven days a week, when you do finally get hold of someone they don’t answer your question, if you’re really lucky you might get half an answer…..after waiting a week or so for it.

If you enjoy pain, suffering and being kept completely in the dark, the Countrywide Conveyancing are the company for you! Personally I’d find it really useful to know whether I’m moving house on Friday or not! I’ve never encountered a worse solicitor, instruct them at your peril.

YOU. HAVE. BEEN. WARNED.

This is a terrible company. I have been in a 3 week deadlock with their so called conveyancing expert who will not accept a certificate of death as legitimate document. I had to ring the city registrars office and send Countywide extracts from the government website to show them that I was right and they were incompetent. Appalling. Plus they work in some form of time warp with letters posted back and forwards, no modern systems.

Worst service ever

I’m in the middle of buying a property. Countrywide is not my solicitor but they are vendor’s solicitors. Vendor has instructed Countrywide about more than a month ago but they haven’t prepared draft contract yet. My solicitor has been chasing countrywide for more than 15 days and contacted multiple time for draft contract but countrywide is not sending draft contract to my solicitors yet

My mortgage offer and everything is done and the legal process can’t move forward until countrywide sends draft contract to my solicitor

Very slow in process

To be honest, I would never hire countrywide as my solicitor ever

Worst service ever

Tried calling them to ask about my shared access and rights and they said “we cant access the archives right now ? Useless and asked me to speak to my neighbours who are the ones causing the trouble !!! Really annoyed they are so unhelpful said to call back in 2 weeks !!!!

You would be better taking a pile of money and just burning it . Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES use this firm. If there was NO OTHER option on the planet ... DONT use them. I have NEVER dealt with such an incomptent firm EVER. dont reply to calls, emails, details wrong in packs ... AVOID AVOID AVOID

Incompetent is the best word to describe this organisation. Cash buyer no chain 8 months to complete. My solicitor was pulling his hair out with this useless organisation. As a developer my solicitor has completed and exchanged in 3 weeks in similar circumstances. This company do not communicate and when they do documentation is wrong. Avoid them and any estate agent who recommends them.