This has taken me a long while to put together an honest review. I used Franklins law conveyancing for the sale of my leasehold flat and unfortunately I can’t write a positive review. I was instructed Janice Gabbott (head of conveyancing) to act on my behalf but I can’t say that was fully the case. The lack of communication couldn’t have got any worse; ignored emails, ignored calls, calls not returned and so on. I felt I was having a battle with Janice throughout the whole process and felt she didn’t want to act on my behalf but instead she just wanted an easy transaction so didn’t fight for my rights but instead just kept asking me for more unnecessary money for things that wasn’t needed. My first sale fell through as my original buyer was difficult to deal with, however Franklins did nothing to fight my corner and prevent the sale from falling through. At this point, if it had been feasible to go with another solicitor for the resale of my flat I would have but I was already at a loss with the fees built up to date with Franklins. I was never informed when Janice was on leave, therefore my file would get left for weeks as although it was ‘handed to another solicitor’ nothing ever got done during those weeks, therefore delaying my completion until Jennifer Garner took over and what a difference in service, she at least seemed to be trying. Whenever I put a complaint in or raised my concerns, Janice would get defensive and argumentative with me. Very poor professionalism as you don’t do that to a paying client who is relying on you to get the sale completed.
Yes, give credit where it’s due, we had deadlines and Janice ensured the deadlines were met on time, however that wasn’t purely all down to Franklins as I did half the job myself to get to the deadlines. I was constantly chasing, I made calls to people which wasn’t down to me, I got answers and fed them back to Franklins when in actual fact that’s what I was paying them to do but I did it to try and make my life a lot less stressful as Franklins did the total opposite for me.
I ended up exchanging contact numbers with my buyer and we ended up dealing with most of the sale between ourselves, chasing documents, chasing management companies and supplying legal documents to both our solicitors - that can’t be right?!
And to top it all off, on completion day, Janice ‘FORGOT’ to transfer my sale proceeds meaning I had to go a whole weekend without my money or my flat and I never even got a sorry, thank goodness I was not relying on that money in my account! DO NOT use Franklins Law, if I can save even just one person from using this company, my review was worth it!