Trethowans started out well with our solicitor being Peter Hawker. He was very good and handled our work well, he did not keep in contact and we had to call most times, but that's somewhat expected from all solicitors. He was friendly and nice to work with, it definitely felt like he was on our side.

It all changed when his manager, and a Partner of the company, Mark Daniels took over the case when he was on holiday. He forwarded an email to me which he sent to the sellers solicitors calling me 'pushy and naive'. We put in a formal complaint and their reply was that he was under some stress and it was solicitor jargon to get the deal complete. I'm pretty sure 'pushy' and 'naive' are not jargon, and I understood it perfectly. He also continued to say they may have to look at increasing our charges, as it was extra work (not by us we might add, but by the other side of the purchase). Luckily when Peter returned he explained he was never planning on charging us more as non of the issues we have had from the purchase has been our fault.

As we were purchasing into a shared ownership, this disrespect could have affected our ongoing relationship with the company we were purchasing it off of, luckily it didn't, but we didn't know how that could have affected it. In the end the complaints department offered us an apology and which we acknowleded, as we wanted nothing more from them other than to finish this process and we felt that Trethowans obviously thought nothing of insulting their clients.

We sometimes had forms and letters with spelling mistakes, it doesn't take much to read through your work and make sure it is correct.

I believe Peter has now left this organisation. We know this as we have been waiting since we completed in July for the Land Registry to come through, with only radio silence on their end. So we have contacted them a few times and spoken to Joanne, who seems helpful enough.

Overall if you want a company that is happy to insult you to your face, then Trethowan is perfect. But other than that they can be hit or miss as to whether you get a good solicitor or not.