By Dawn Murden
Following the recent closure of well-known law firm, Norman Saville & Co, by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), another solicitor has spoken out to warn brokers about the dangers of choosing the wrong conveyancing partner.
Goldsmith Williams’ – a law firm specialising in conveyancing, remortgages, road traffic accidents, and wills – has said the action by the SRA should serve as an important reminder to all mortgage brokers.
The firm urged brokers to choose their conveyancing partners carefully, as law firms, like any type of service providers, can be vulnerable to being closed down or going out of business.
Norman Saville & Co, which also traded as UKconvey, was closed down by The Solicitors Regulation Authority last month, and Russell-Cooke Solicitors have been appointed to safeguard their client’s files and money.
Norman Saville & Co had offices in London and Birmingham and was “intervened into” by the SRA on 5 July 2010.
On 13 July 2010 the principals of the firm, Kiran Nahar and Farhat Malik-Masud, issued proceedings to challenge the intervention and those proceedings are currently ongoing.
The firm once claimed to be the UK’s number one property conveyancing solicitor boasting its ‘no completion, no fee’ deal. It apparently received a new instruction every 12 minutes. Eddie Goldsmith, a senior partner at Goldsmith Williams, said: “Mortgage brokers should check any firm they recommend to clients because if that firm subsequently goes out of business, it may have a negative impact on the broker’s own reputation.
“If a broker has no experience of using a specific law firm or conveyancing specialist they should take some obvious precautions, such as checking the firm’s reputation with other brokers or estate agents and also establishing its credentials.”
He added: “A quick internet search will often reveal any significant dissatisfaction with a firm.”
Speaking of which, Norman and Saville’s website now contains a message from the SRA, and at the time of writing the UKconvey website link is broken.
Information has been posted on the directory website, solicitorsfromhell.co.uk, containing a link to the Norman Saville website and a short summary on the firm’s closure.
The site allows users to post complaints against solicitors, and the latest post reads “They have taken large sums for coneyancing amongst other cases and jeopardised many deals”.
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