Lanyon Bowdler Reviews 10

Absolutely appalling experience. The solicitors have made a catalogue of mistakes with our house purchase. I would not recommend using them under any circumstances.

A genuinely terrible experience. My late father used this company for his Will, and they no doubt recommended writing themselves into the Will as trustees and executors. Since his death, dealing with them has been a long, drawn-out process: staff leaving, others seemingly always on annual leave, and emails going unanswered for weeks at a time.

I decided they were not fit for purpose and requested that they remove themselves via a deed of renunciation. They claimed they could not complete the official form required by the probate office due to the way their company is structured, and that they would not simply produce a letter. Yet that is exactly what they did — a basic template letter with a couple of names changed, followed by a second page of partners’ signatures. For this, they billed three hours at £350 an hour (plus VAT).

When I challenged this and again requested the correct form the probate office wanted, I was told that this type of letter had been used before and accepted, hence confirming this was a commonly used template by this firm.

So, a cautionary tale: I would not recommend them for writing a Will or for dealing with probate matters in general. Even after I paid their invoice for this “work,” I recieved an out-of-office auto-reply saying one of them was on annual leave — which pretty much sums them up.

Lanyon Bowdler let us down, and we received no apology. In April 2022, they agreed to act for us regarding registering our house with HM Land Registry. This was to enable us to move more quickly when we put the house on the market to downsize (being an old house we have had since before 1990, it was not registered). We heard nothing for over a year, so contacted them by email in May 2023 requesting a progress update, and were told that they would contact us once registration had been completed. In January 2024, after over 20 months and still hearing nothing, I contacted HM Land Registry direct. Their website stated registration was taking 15-17 months, so we were well overdue. I was informed by HM Land Registry that our house registration had in fact been completed over 3 months earlier in October 2023, and they had issued confirmation and evidence of registration to Lanyon Bowdler on that date. Lanyon Bowdler had failed to inform us.

If I hadn't contacted HM Land Registry directly myself, we would likely still be waiting. Lanyon Bowdler knew we were anxiously awaiting the outcome, so we could start downsizing plans to sell our house. Our large garden has become too much for us now we are in our mid-70s. We received no apology in their formal response, and were offered a tiny amount off our total bill (which we had paid in advance)- for a service they had failed to provide.

Lanyon Bowdler were definitely in the wrong, despite what they may say. HM Land Registry replied the same date I contacted them, confirming notifications of the registration had been sent on 13 October, over 3 months before. In any event, Lanyon Bowdler should have had fail-safe monitoring/progress checks in place at regular intervals (eg 3-monthly). Lanyon Bowdler failed us on at least two occasions and were reactive, not proactive, during the whole process as we had to chase them up.

Furthermore...... they did not respond to the Legal Ombudsman's request to refund part of the fees we had paid within 10 working days, and the Ombudsman had to follow this up too. This reinforces my experience of their uncaring and disrespectful attitude and the fact that their working procedures are not up to scratch.

We put our trust in them, and I still feel upset about the way we were treated. If they had had the courtesy to send an apology, I may not have had to write this review. A few polite words can go a long way.

Thankfully we have now found another solicitor, and our house sale and downsizing plans are making good progress.

If I could give less I would! I wish I had viewed Trustpilot before wasting my time with this solicitors.
Numerous phone calls and emails, an initial response then nothing. If you don't want your time wasting go elsewhere!

Do not contact this law firm, I would give 0 stars if I could. Waste of time. I contacted them because of professional negligence against GP and hospital, because of my husband and my case. They pretended to be interested in our case, they contacted me several times within a short period of time, they asked for important personal information, data, evidence, as soon as they received the information, approx. 20 pages, the next day they sent out a form letter, to my husband and me, stating that medical negligence could not be proven, even though we provided them with evidence. If they knew in advance that they would not take on our case, why did they ask for personal information, data, and evidence?

[This review relates to experience with their wills and probate department.]

My experience with Lanyon Bowdler was by far the worst dealing with professional firms over many decades.

The business itself, administration of probate for an estate, was badly handled and when we complained, which we had to do more than once, rather than dealing with things quickly and amicably, they diverted us into a formal complaints process that was adversarial and endlessly time consuming. At the end of this process they ignored our suggestions and decided how to resolve the issue for themselves then invited us to escalate to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority if we didn't like it. Result being enormous stress, sleepless nights and fruitless and expensive delays.

In relation to delay, they held a fair amount of money for a fair amount of time but passed on only a pitiful amount of interest. When we asked them how this was calculated they refused to give us an account.

I could go on....

If I could leave 'no stars' I would.

My recent working with Laydon and Bowdler has been exemplary, with the most professional and friendly service I have had the pleasure of experiencing. Ruth Edwards, Catherine and the team were so helpful and careful to explain what I needed to know to avoid any later issues, all round fantastic service

I had Lanyon Bowdler represent me when selling and buying another home. I also at that time was being represented by them for my tripping accident in Oswestry. They had good knowledge regarding selling and buying my home. And, though expensive were helpful. However, if I would have defaulted in anyway the auctioneers I bought through would have kept my money for using them, and I might have not got the house. But, when my actioners defaulted. I felt I was poorly represented by Lanyon and Bowdler on that account. Even though I paid extra money towards any unforeseen preambles that may arise. They simply said, the actioners didn't need to pay if they defaulted. I was told so over the phone but they wouldn't have had time to check that out surely. They simply told me the actioners said they didn't need to compensate me. And, concerning my tripping accident claim against Shropshire Council over a raised signal box. They told me they were not affiliated with Shropshire Council when they agreed to represent me. And, said to call it hands off. That I couldn't win even though I had a witness that saw me fall over a raised signal box. If I went ahead it could cost me up to £10,000 or more. A few weeks later after signing hands off document. I saw they had won a case for Oswestry Shropshire Town council against a large supermarket worth about a million pounds. They told me that Shropshire Town council and Shropshire Council are two different entities. I remarked to my solicitor but, I had heard she is a councillor working for Shropshire council. She said it was too late now because I signed hands off. She then walked away. I felt it was wrong because you cannot represent both sides surely at the same time. I have not used them since. That said, there was a number of people working there that certainly were excellent. That I could recommend. It was just unfortunate for me that I didn't get justice. I still have kneck trouble to this day fallowing my tripping accident.

Hi .... We found LB Oswestry to be most unhelpful regarding a new simple back to back will for ourselves ........ we recently popped into their reception to enquire and were told that someone would get back to us shortly but nobody ever did so we popped in again a few weeks ago and asked for a price or indication of costs etc and were told that we would need to arrange a meeting to discuss this .... sensing they were not being totally up front or transparent with us i queried further and was only then told that this first meeting to find out costs would also be chargeable !!! .... To make sure we were not mistaken i later sent an Email to query further and they responded that they were too busy and we should go elsewhere etc ....... so they want to charge you just in order to tell you how much they want to charge you !!!!! ...... Crazy !!! and does not fit with their flashy website and brochure ..... and feels like a bit bit of a rip off to us.

Essentially just money grabbers.
Little in the way of expertise avoid at all costs.
I cannot stress more that you will be wasting your money, find a reputable company.