CDS Mayfair Avis 130

Active,chasing and updating the case all the time and friendly people to work with special in my case special thanks to Justina James who was very accessible.

My wife and I engaged CDS Mayfair for two property transactions. On both occasions, we received high quality, timely and reliable advice and service. A special thanks Justina who got both transactions across the line!

I have been a client of CDS on multiple fronts over a decade and the team is extremely knowledgeable and effective with outstanding leadership from the partners. Brilliant firm.

My agency and clients have been using this firm for nearly 2 years and the lawyers are professional, hard-working and dedicated. Happy to recommend them.

Avoid. We chose this company as recommended from Foxton’s as one of good and quickest solicitors. We didn’t know that we were going to get into a never ending nightmare. We had almost 5 months to complete and buy a freehold house. We were told that amount of time should be ok for a freehold property. CDS did not compromise to a specific date in no part of the process but said it would be probably ok. They also would always avoid to say how long they would consider the process long than expected that required an extra fee.
We had never had any help from the solicitor herself which was responsible for our case, it was always the paralegal that sometimes was not sure how to proceed. Not even when he was away on holiday she would step forward to continue the process.
During the almost 5 months of our case he had multiples holidays and no one took over the case. This added to so many delays. Additionally, he was a bit lost sometimes, but the main problem was asking for an indemnity to cover any future problems with the rentcharge for the lender without asking the lender if he was happy about it in advance. He only asked this question days before we exchange and on the exchange date, the lender said he would not accept the indemnity only a deed of variation. At the end, we waited 1 month for an answer regarding the deed of variation which was denied. This was 2 weeks before our tenancy came to an end which we could not renew as we previously mentioned several times, because the landlord was going to sell the property that we were renting. We were in a difficult situation with a baby, after almost 5 months of trying to buy a freehold property that should be simpler and faster! We end up moving to AirBnB!
The deal fell off at the end because the lender could not approve the property without the deed of variation.
We later found another property, freehold as well and manage to finalize everything with another solicitor within 1 month. It was a completely different service, faster and the solicitor was always available. I would not recommend CDS at all.

Awful. Incompetent. Avoid like the plague. I’m selling my flat and my buyer’s solicitor is CDS Mayfair. The conveyance has taken 6 months for a 1 bed flat. The reason for the delay is mostly due to CDS Mayfair. The lawyer kept bombarding me and my solicitor with repeat questions and not reading our emailed responses for months. It’s like an OCD syndrome with them and their copy pasting a long list of queries with trigger fingers. At one point there were 5 lawyers from that firm trying to sort out the sale. My solicitor and I felt stressed and harassed. CDS Mayfair alienated everyone involved in the flat sale with their incompetence and harassment and the managing agent of my apartment block stopped responding to their repeat questions 2 months ago. But CDS Mayfair didn’t take the decision to complete the sale or withdraw but kept asking the same answered questions for two more months! The first low point of the sale was three months into the conveyance of my all-electric flat, when CDS Mayfair asked for the gas certificate for my boiler. 😭 The second low point was when they missed three completion agreed dates over three months. The flat sale has been stalled at the point of exchange and completion for 4 out of the 6 months.
I complained to CDS Mayfair two months ago. Didn’t get a response in 7 weeks, true to form, as they don’t read their emails. I have escalated to the Legal Ombudsman to investigate.

Ask yourself, do you want to wait that long to buy/sell your property and pay the house expenses as a seller for 6 months while they are lackadaisical? Do you think you will enjoy your apartment as a buyer after your lawyer has antagonised the managing agent and freeholder for half a year and they’ve marked you as a trouble maker before you even moved in? If not, then go to another solicitor.

Update: I got an email on 22 Nov 2023 from a CDS Mayfair partner Richard Starr, with no apology for the incompetence in my flat sale as stated in my review. I've not been a client of another solicitor for over a year and they could have communicated to me soon after the flat sale, but they did not. He did ask me to remove my review as it has apparently "done the damage you sought". They just don't understand good customer service and think customers writing reviews are motivated to be 'vindictive' and my experience is just the normalised frustration of a seller. 👎🏽I can't wait for the lawyers to be disintermediated from the conveyance process by blockchains and smart contracts. Property transactions will be fast, stress-free, error free, cheap and good for people then. This company seems to do that but I've not used them ...Coadjute