Muve Conveyancing

My experience with Muve Conveyancing was a nightmare from start to finish. Their lack of communication and transparency was appalling and they continuously failed in their duty to inform me about crucial aspects of my transaction.

As a first-time buyer, I was left in the dark about additional charges amounting to nearly double their original quote— which they disclosed only at the last minute when I was pushing for exchange and I had no choice but to proceed.

Amongst all the charges, I was charged a Building Safety Act fee, which they also failed to communicate until the very end of the process when they sent the pre-exchange report, once the work had already been completed. This fee alone amounted to £1,499 + VAT, nearly half of the initial quote, and was significantly higher than what they advertise. Shockingly, they admitted that this inflated fee resulted from my referral by an estate agent—a referral I didn’t request and that was initially portrayed as beneficial and that would help make the whole process "smoother". Absolutely no advice was provided to me about the implications of the Building Safety Act on the property I was purchasing.

I encountered repeated delays, contradictory updates, and a shocking lack of professionalism. I raised a formal complaint which provided no resolution or clear answer to my concerns and I found myself having to repeat the same points over and over again. I will now be escalating this to the ombudsman.

I would absolutely avoid Muve solicitors and do not let estate agents pressure you into picking them. I paid a huge sum for extremely subpar service. All I will say is please do not make the same mistake I did, do your research and go with a proper law firm.

TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE! MUST AVOID!! THEY DESERVE NEGATIVE STARS!!

It's my first time buying a new build flat and Muve said that they had a lot of experience for 1+ years completions. They also promised fast responses and that deadline can be met.

Took them 3 WEEKS to actually appoint a solicitor!
The communication is NON-EXISTENT, most the staff live abroad? so phone call is not possible and they seem to be ill and away at the most critical times. Even when I have taken days off work for them.

On the day of the exchange deadline they said they can't proceed either with cash or mortgage because the completion date was 1+ years! When I complained as recommended by them, it took them 2 months to reply saying that there was no issue from their part!

AVOID at all costs. They will take money and precious time from you!

The good reviews are very questionable. Perhaps bots... BE AWARE

I urge anyone reading this to not be me and genuinely learn from my mistake of choosing Muve. Honestly, pay the couple of extra £100 and go to a traditional high street solicitor. I am currently the night before completion, and have absolutely no confidence that this will happen tomorrow. I also think this review will earn me a few more "essential enquiries" that will also cost me dearly, not to mention ANOTHER delay...but I am trying to stop you being stung the same way that I have been.

The reviews on here that are positive HAVE to be fake/paid for reviews. There can just not possibly be THAT many 5* reviews of this absolute shambles. I have HAD to give 1* in order to leave the review, but if I could give 0 or even negative stars then I would.

We are a very simple transactional, first time buyer. We are buying from the landlord of the property that we are currently renting. So there is no chain on either side. There are no issues with the 2008 built detached property. It IS a leasehold, but Muve knew this when we instructed them. They were on our lenders recommended list of conveyancers - although they have since been removed from it.

There have just been a catalogue of errors and throughout all of our transactions with Muve.
Questions are not responded to, and very significant details are left out. That becomes highly frustrating.

Documents have been sent with incorrect names on. Documents were approved with incorrect names on them by our conveyancer, and then when WE (the customer) pointed this out, we were told that the documents with the corrected names on were not approved by the seller/management agency - but they WERE approved by the managing agent mere hours before when it was requested that these were signed and witnessed by us and sent back within 24 hours. That makes no sense.

I have repeatedly asked questions, and they go unanswered. I have asked the same questions, and again they are not answered. The conveyancer or the account handler, do answer the emails, but just with irrelevant information that wasn't asked.

My current invoice is more than double the amount that we were quoted. That is vastly exaggerated. I do not believe that I have been given enough information to consider any of these fees. I have logged a complaint with the Ombudsman. I have requested copies of the UK qualifications of the conveyancer. This has been ignored.

The conveyancer who was initially dealing with our case, just left. But we were not told this. There was absolutely no progress on our case. Then the new conveyancer, repeated work that Nethma had already done. A question that I had asked him and he gave me a positive answer (regarding buildings insurance). Later down the line, this turned out to be incorrect. The new conveyancer did not have ANY awareness of the work already carried out.

Muve took our house deposit, months before we were anywhere near being able to exchange. I repeatedly asked for an explanation of why this was done, and again it was never answered. I was told "we can refund it", I got very exasperated. I absolutely did not want to cause any further delays by having it refunded. I wanted to know *why* it was taken so soon when the file was not ready for exchange.

The case handler has been speaking about us and our case directly with the seller (not the seller's solicitor). I asked for this to stop, and it continued. I asked why she was doing it, and every single time, she did not answer why. I was then lied to by the conveyancer saying that the seller's solicitor had told Tinalee to speak to the seller directly. This was a blatant untruth, that when I questioned it was changed by confusion to speaking with the "landlord", used interchangeably with the "seller", again to cause confusion.

Every time I try to contact someone, I am told that they are not available.

I spoke with the conveyancer on the phone, and was crying, and she brushed me off completely. I wanted explanations of how things went so wrong. She lied to me again and said that she had been chasing the management company (who she did not even know what they were called) for over a month. I asked her to forward me the emails of the chasing, and she said she would after the call. I was very upset and angry, I requested that she forwarded that during the call as I did not believe her. She said she is unable to forward an email whilst she is on the phone. That is another lie. You can absolutely press forward whilst you are in a call. This went on for a period of time, and then she hung up the call on me. I still have not received the evidence of her chasing the management company. I have spoken to them directly, and this categorically never happened.

The portal is NEVER updated. Making it absolutely meaningless. I had to ask for it to be changed, and even now it is still not correct.

I have asked the conveyancer directly to ensure that the other buyer is copied into her communications with me because she is causing psychological stress on myself every single day ... she is still not complying with this. Only copying in my wife when it suits her.

We have zero confidence in Muve, in our conveyancer or our case handler. The seller's solicitor has informed us that they are asking for things that are very commonly known in law to be completed by the buyer's solicitor (Muve) post completion. It should not be at this stage.

I am incredibly frustrated, let down and impacted by the conduct of Muve. I have sent back the very important completion documents last week with a tracked postage service. I know that these were received yesterday...again, absolutely zero communication from the conveyancer or the case handler.

This has dragged on for almost 5 months. They knew at the very beginning that this was a leasehold purchase. Indumini has said that is not the case. I dread to think what would have happened had we had to move out of one property into another using them as our solicitors! Our landlord has very nearly pulled out of the sale, simply because of the money he is having to pay his solicitor every time they contact them with another irrelevant "query".

I have now also been told that the seller solicitor has requested a simultaneous exchange and completion so that they could charge us another £175+VAT Again that is a untruth.

Massive thank you to Stephanie and Sayuni for their help in making sure the whole process went without any issues. These guys were very professional and updated me with the whole process without me asking for updates. I got the keys to my new house within the time specified. I would recommend others to use Muve and get Stephanie as their solicitor because she knows how to deal with customers. Sayuni also was amazing in her part and again the updates were on point. Thank you to both.

Muve probably scarred me off moving house life and made a first time buyer purchasing an empty property take 6~ months. Here are the highlights:

• Weeks / months of “we haven’t heard back from the seller.” It took me asking them for their email chain out of desperation / boredom and realising they’d misspelled it. No apology from them, just “we can confirm you are correct.”

• Clearly only checked my account around 4pm on Fridays. Would ask for forms to be urgently printed / signed / on their desk Monday morning. Physically impossible unless working from home and with immediate access to a car; needlessly excruciatingly stressful.

• Uploaded a professional building survey to their document hub, with the only (simple) questions I wanted answers for. Upon completion when it was too late, they clearly demonstrated they had not once consulted or asked a question from it.

• Post-completion, was cold-called by someone from a different dept at Muve, not my Account Manager. Asked me to provide bank details over the phone as they were holding extra funds they legally had to return to me. I explained this was absurd; you have 6 months of bank statements on the document hub. He feigned ignorance / insisted. Against all judgment I provided them.

• 3~ weeks pass. No ‘refund’. I call Muve’s India-based call-centre which will be the only number they provide FYI, explain, they put me through, I explain. He got the last digit wrong. If they had JUST used the documents they had on file there would be no issue. As I explained how unprofessional this was in my frustration, the Muve employee stifled a laugh. I sent a summary of this exchange through their complaints system. Nothing.

From my calculations of what this circus cost me, I see Muve charged a total of £3,357.80. You can refund that, and THEN we can discuss compensation, or I will see to it that this review is THE most visible passage of text you will EVER encounter when you research Muve. Avoid.

I strongly advise against using Muve's services due to my extremely negative experience. Despite some positive reviews, which I now believe are fake, my time with them was plagued by delays, poor communication, and a significant lack of professionalism and responsiveness from our initial engagement in August 2024. Their inaction and the numerous queries they raised five months after our initial engagement caused me significant stress and ultimately led to the failure of my property purchase.
Muve's mishandling of my case, including providing incorrect information about the exchange and completion deadlines, brought me to the brink of homelessness. During the second and third weeks of December, when I was expecting to move into my new property, Muve suddenly demanded documents from the management company, a process that typically takes a month. This last-minute demand left me scrambling to find alternative accommodation and forced me to pay my prospective tenant £1,000 to remain in my current rental while searching for a new property.
Muve's performance deserves the lowest possible rating, and it's unfortunate that there isn't an option to reflect that.
In the end, Muve charged me £525 for the work they have done (I guess they haven't done anything except making sure that myself, with my 2 kids, go homeless