Slippery Solicitor

Hi,

I have had a terrible time with my solicitor.

I appointed them in September last year when I received my decree misi (after 2 years serparation) in order to get the financials into order.

They have been continuosly poor with communicating with me. They are hard to get on the phone- often not even the admin staff will pick up the phone and they do not give any updates on their progress but rely on me to call or email (they never reply to those)

My solicitor asked me to complete the form E and contacted my husband''s lawyer to ask him to do the same.

4 months later my husband was still refusing to fill out the form E so I instructed my solicitor to apply to the court for a Clean Break order and the Decree Absolute. That was at the end of January. I called the solictor''s office several times to get an update and was told I would expect a date for the order in court in the next couple of weekd.

After several weeks I thought something odd was going on so contacted the court myself. The court came back to me and informed me that they had not heard from my solicitor once.

I forwarded this communication to my solicitor and called them. They are outraged that I am effectively calling them liars- however I have no evidence to the contrary- even should they have sent letters to the court and they had been mislaid they cannot have followed up with the court to check that they had been received.

My lawyer is now suggesting that I settle with my husband outside of court.

Besides lodging a complaint with them and asking that I am not billed for any (fictional) communications that they have had with the court is there anything more that I can do? They have taken £1500 of my money so far and I am loath to give them any more.

I have looked at the legal ombudsman site they have had 2 judgements against them in the past year.

Should I simply lodge the complaint, ask for them to return my Form E and and money still in my account and fnd a solicitor who is more reliable? I feel that they are making a stressful situation more stressful

I really feel for you - I would definitely change solicitors. Regarding the complaint I think if you speak to the ombudsman they will tell you the protocol for raising a complaint. I had a similar problem and in the first instance I had to write to complain to my solicitors office each practice has or should have a complaints officer. After this if they don''t respond within a certain time say 7/10 days I would inform the ombudsmen in writing to make an official complaint. They told me the procedure to take. Other may know the correct way to go - but this is what I have been told. Good luck with it all it is a difficult situation without all this but definitely change solicitors and make sure you look into them first - I found in my case it''s all about who has the best solicitor - unfortunately I didn''t - but have learnt from my mistakes and now got a decent one. Good Luck! X