There is a particular silence that only conveyancing produces. You emailed your solicitor on Tuesday. It is now the following Thursday. The estate agent keeps asking for updates you do not have, and your mortgage offer has a countdown clock on it that nobody else seems to be watching.
Chasing works, but only when you do it properly. A vague 'any news?' is easy to ignore. A short email asking one specific question with a reply-by date is genuinely hard to leave unanswered. Below are ten templates covering the whole arc of a purchase, from the first gentle nudge to the formal complaint you hope you never send. Copy them, adapt the details, and keep every reply in one folder.
Quick answer: To chase your conveyancing solicitor effectively, send a short email with the property address in the subject line, ask one specific question (for example, 'have the search results come back?'), and request a reply by a named day. Chasing once a week during active phases is reasonable — UK conveyancing takes around 10 to 12 weeks on average and stalls most often at searches and enquiries. If emails go unanswered, escalate in order: the person handling your file, their supervising partner, the firm's formal complaints procedure, and finally the Legal Ombudsman if the complaint is not resolved within eight weeks.
1. Ground Rules: How to Chase Without Becoming the Problem
Your solicitor is probably running 40 to 70 files at once. That does not excuse silence, but it does explain what gets answered first: short emails that ask one clear question, from clients whose paperwork is already in order. Long messages that mix three questions with a paragraph of frustration sink to the bottom of the inbox, because answering them properly takes twenty minutes nobody has.
So make yourself easy to help. One question per email. The property address and your reference in every subject line. A named day you would like a reply by. And chase on a rhythm — weekly during the active phases is reasonable, daily is counterproductive. You are not trying to win an argument. You are trying to be the file that is simplest to move forward, because that file moves first.
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2. Template 1: The First Nudge
Use this about ten days after instructing your solicitor, if you have heard nothing. At this stage you are not chasing a delay. You are checking the file has actually been opened, ID checks are done, and the machine has started turning. Files do occasionally sit untouched for a fortnight because a form is missing and nobody mentioned it.
Subject: [Property address] — progress update, ref [your reference]. 'Hi [Name], I hope the week is going well. Could you let me know where things stand on [address]? Specifically: is there anything you are still waiting on from me, and have the draft contract pack and searches been requested? A one-line reply is absolutely fine. Thanks, [Your name].'
Notice the escape hatch — 'a one-line reply is fine'. You have lowered the cost of answering you to almost nothing. Most silences are not neglect. They are triage, and you have just made yourself cheap to deal with.
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3. Template 2: Confirming Searches Have Been Ordered
Searches are the single most common bottleneck in a purchase. Local authority searches take around two weeks on average, but some councils quote five or six. That is exactly why they must go out early — every day they sit unordered is a day added to your completion date, and you will not get it back.
Subject: [Address] — confirming searches ordered. 'Hi [Name], Could you confirm that the local authority, drainage and water, and environmental searches have been ordered for [address]? If so, roughly when do you expect them back — I understand [council name] is currently quoting around [X] weeks? If they have not yet been ordered, could they go out this week? Thanks, [Your name].'
Ring the council's land charges department yourself beforehand and ask their current turnaround. Ten minutes on the phone gives you a real number to quote, and a solicitor who knows you know the timescales tends to keep your file honest.
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4. Template 3: Chasing the Draft Contract Pack
Sometimes the hold-up is not your solicitor at all. It is the seller's, who has not sent the draft contract pack. Your solicitor cannot review what they have not received. But 'we're waiting on the other side' should never end the conversation, because the other side can be chased from two directions at once.
Subject: [Address] — draft contract pack. 'Hi [Name], Has the draft contract pack arrived from the seller's solicitor yet? If not, could you send them a chaser today and let me know when you last heard from them? I will ask the estate agent to press the seller from their side at the same time. Thanks, [Your name].'
This is the pincer movement. Your solicitor chases their solicitor; the estate agent chases the seller, who chases their own solicitor. The agent wants this sale to complete at least as much as you do — their commission depends on it. Use that.
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5. Template 4: Chasing Replies to Enquiries
Enquiries are the questions your solicitor raises after reviewing the contract, searches and survey — about boundaries, building work, guarantees, that extension that may or may not have sign-off. Transactions routinely stall here for weeks, because replies depend on a seller digging paperwork out of a loft while both solicitors wait politely.
Subject: [Address] — enquiries raised [date]. 'Hi [Name], You raised enquiries with the seller's solicitor on [date]. Have any replies come back? If not, could you send a chaser today, and tell me which specific enquiries are outstanding? If any depend on documents the seller needs to find, I will ask the agent to flag those directly. Thanks, [Your name].'
Asking which enquiries are outstanding matters. 'We're waiting on enquiries' can mean fifteen unanswered questions or one missing FENSA certificate. Once you know it is one certificate, the problem shrinks to something a seller can fix in an afternoon.
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6. Template 5: Asking For a List of What's Outstanding
There comes a point in every purchase — usually around week six or seven — when you genuinely do not know what is holding things up. Searches are back. Enquiries went out weeks ago. And yet nothing happens. This is the moment for the single most useful email in conveyancing: the outstanding-items list.
Subject: [Address] — what is outstanding before exchange? 'Hi [Name], Could you send me a short list of everything still needed before we can exchange, and who each item is waiting on — you, me, my lender, or the seller's side? I would rather chase the right people than guess. Thanks, [Your name].'
This email does two things. It gives you a map of the transaction, and it gently requires your solicitor to look at the whole file rather than the last email on it. Silence is not always inaction. Sometimes more is progressing than you realised, and this is how you find out.
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7. Template 6: The Mortgage Offer Expiry Warning
Mortgage offers typically last three to six months from issue, and an expired offer is not a formality. It can mean a full reapplication at whatever rates now exist, which is how a delayed purchase becomes an unaffordable one. Your solicitor knows your expiry date is in the file somewhere. It is your job to make sure it is also at the front of their mind.
Subject: [Address] — mortgage offer expires [date]. 'Hi [Name], A reminder that my mortgage offer expires on [date] — [X] weeks away. If we are unlikely to exchange comfortably before then, please tell me now so I can ask [lender] about an extension, as they need notice to arrange one. Could you let me know by [day] what needs to happen in the next two weeks to keep us on track, and whether you see any risk to that date? Thanks, [Your name].'
Send this at least six weeks before expiry, not two. Lenders can often extend an offer, but they do it on their timetable, with their paperwork, and occasionally with a fresh valuation. Deadlines are only useful when everyone can still act on them.
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8. Template 7: Proposing Exchange and Completion Dates
Transactions drift when nobody names a date. Everyone works 'as quickly as possible', which in practice means no urgency at all, because there is nothing to be late for. A concrete proposed date changes the physics of the whole chain — suddenly every outstanding item is measured against something.
Subject: [Address] — proposed exchange [date], completion [date]. 'Hi [Name], The seller and I would both like to aim for exchange on [date] with completion on [date]. Is there anything on your side, or waiting on me, that would prevent this? If so, could you tell me by [day] exactly what it is, so we can deal with it now rather than the week of exchange? Thanks, [Your name].'
Agree the dates with the seller through the estate agent before you send this, so your solicitor hears one unified message from both ends of the transaction. A date that everyone has already said yes to is very hard to ignore. Deadlines move files; hope does not.
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9. Template 8: The Follow-Up When You've Been Ignored
You sent a perfectly reasonable email a week ago and heard nothing. Before you escalate, send one clean follow-up — partly because it is fair, and partly because when you do escalate later, a documented pattern of unanswered messages is what makes your case unarguable.
Subject: [Address] — following up my email of [date]. 'Hi [Name], I emailed on [date] and have not heard back. If email is difficult this week, I am happy with a two-minute phone call instead — I am free [two specific time slots]. Either way, could you reply by [day] with a brief update? Thanks, [Your name].'
Offering the phone call is not a courtesy, it is a tactic. Some fee earners will pick up a phone far sooner than they will compose a written update, and two minutes of conversation can tell you more than a fortnight of inbox silence. Take the information in whatever form it comes.
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10. Template 9: Escalating to the Supervising Partner
Every fee earner in a regulated firm has a supervisor, and firms take partner-level emails seriously in a way they do not always take the fourth message to a drowning inbox. This is not aggression. It is using the structure the firm itself has built for exactly this situation.
Subject: [Address] — request for review, client of [fee earner's name]. 'Dear [Partner name], I am a client of [fee earner] on the purchase of [address], reference [X]. I emailed on [date], [date] and [date] without a substantive reply, and the transaction appears to have stalled — my mortgage offer expires on [date]. Could you review the file and let me know by [day] what is outstanding and when it will progress? I would much rather resolve this informally than make a formal complaint, but I do need communication to do that. Kind regards, [Your name].'
Keep the tone exactly this level: factual, dated, and calm. The sentence about preferring not to complain is doing quiet work — it tells the partner precisely where this goes next, without a single raised voice. Files touched by a partner have a way of moving within days.
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11. Template 10: The Formal Complaint
Every solicitor's firm in England and Wales must have a written complaints procedure, and invoking it formally starts a clock: if the firm has not resolved your complaint within eight weeks, you can take it to the Legal Ombudsman. This is the email you hoped never to send, and also the one that finally makes a named person accountable for your file.
Subject: Formal complaint — [address], ref [X]. 'Dear [Complaints partner / Client care partner], I wish to make a formal complaint under your firm's complaints procedure regarding the handling of my purchase of [address]. In summary: I instructed you on [date]; searches were not ordered until [date]; my emails of [dates] received no reply; the transaction has now taken [X] weeks with no exchange date. My mortgage offer expires on [date]. I would like: a full update on the file, a named person responsible for progressing it, and your proposals to resolve the delay. Please acknowledge this complaint and respond within the timescales in your published procedure. I am aware that if the matter is not resolved within eight weeks I may refer it to the Legal Ombudsman. Yours sincerely, [Your name].'
Facts and dates, no adjectives. A complaint that reads like a timeline is easy to uphold and awkward to dismiss. You are not burning a bridge — plenty of purchases complete perfectly well after a formal complaint. You are simply refusing to be the file that can be safely ignored.
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12. When Email Isn't Enough: The Ombudsman and Beyond
If eight weeks pass after your formal complaint without resolution — or the firm's final response does not put things right — you can take the matter to the Legal Ombudsman, free of charge. There are time limits: broadly, you must complain to the Ombudsman within a year of the problem, or of becoming aware of it, so do not sit on a bad final response. If your conveyancer is a licensed conveyancer rather than a solicitor, the complaint runs through the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, but the Ombudsman can point you the right way.
In parallel, ask yourself the harder question: is this firm capable of finishing the job? Switching solicitors mid-purchase costs money and typically loses two to three weeks, so it is a last resort — but on a purchase that has already lost two months to silence, it is sometimes the fastest route left. Most purchases never get anywhere near this point. The templates above exist so that yours does not either.
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This guide is for general information only. It is not legal, financial, mortgage, insurance or removals advice. Always check important arrangements with the relevant professional or provider.