Birchall Blackburn Law Avis 

This is the worst company to work with. Extremely unpleasant and unprofessional!!! Extremely slow, charged over £2000 for conveyancing and is very very sluggish. I will leave daily feedbacks of how irritated I am with them. Avoid this joke of a firm at all cost!!!. Ridiculous.
If you think mt feedback is a bluff, try them and see.

From start to finish, our experience with this firm has been nothing short of frustrating and disappointing. Communication was absolutely terrible — we constantly had to chase for updates that were either delayed, vague, or completely ignored. Emails would go unanswered for days (sometimes weeks), and even our estate agent struggled to get any response from them regarding important information

At times, I had to contact the management company myself just to find out what was going on because our own solicitor wasn’t doing it. There was no sense of urgency, accountability, or professionalism throughout the entire process. Every step forward felt like pulling teeth.

Buying or selling a property is stressful enough, but this firm made it ten times worse. I would not recommend them to anyone — save yourself the frustration and choose a solicitor who actually communicates and cares about their clients.

So, after blasting Birchall Blackburn and threatening to raise an official complaint, I actually made some progress, but now we're into the actual week when we're expecting to complete and everything is crickets again. No communication, no apologies from the conveyancing solicitor assigned to my purchase (that's Sherilyn Jones, for reference, who clearly could not give a crap about the cases she is working on), absolutely nothing. The only person I receive any updates from is the estate agent managing the purchase, who has also expressed frustration and horror about the way this firm has slowed everything down. It's just awful, distressing, and makes a very stressful situation even more stressful.

Entirely incompetent. The team at Birchall Blackburn need training in customer service. Rude staff, who actually blamed me for the delay to our house move as “I’d chased them too much”. Never pick up the phone and reply to emails after 4/5 days. Just checked my phone history and I made 119 calls in the last 7 weeks to them - just 3 times was my call answered. Ended up taking 14 weeks for a house purchase with no chain and a full search history. Anna Leblanc should be ashamed of the way she treats paying clients. Her lack of care for other peoples lives is shocking. Pay a little more and choose a good solicitor.

I had a great experience with Birchall Blackburn Law and toward the end of the conveyancing period when it gets rather exciting and intense I could not fault the patience, help, assistance and advice from both Lisa Golland and Najifa Bakth, they are ambassadors for business and I can't thank them enough.

Ignore the good reviews they must be done by themselves or something. Never reply to you. You spend all day getting put through to people then it just goes to voicemail and your back to square one.

If only I could give no stars…
16 weeks and 5 days for what is basically a cash purchase with no chain and still no completion date, they do not answer phones or emails, call back when promised, and the communication is diabolical, then every enquiry takes at least 2 weeks to answer, and to cap it all the legal advisors are rude, they are not solicitors, quite obviously a warehouse full of people who do the majority of work then hand it over to a solicitor for sign off…..AVOID AT ALL COSTS

If you are looking for a dynamic conveyancing services involving good communication, sharp minds and decisive action then my experience suggests Birchall Blackburn Law are NOT for you. Despite there being an empty house and no chain, it took months and months for Birchall Blackburn Law to complete the formalities in relation to the sale of my late mother’s house with the buyer’s solicitors. The blame for the delay was always someone else fault but from what I could tell there was very little proactivity on Birchall Blackburn Law’s side to get the sale over the line quicker. There was also a mistake in their billing for the conveyancing work which required a repayment from them to me but, true to form, even this took the “Slow Houses” weeks to process. Go elsewhere.

As a first-time buyer, I relied heavily on clear and professional guidance throughout this process; regrettably, the service I received fell short of reasonable expectations, particularly given the fees charged.

There were two key instances when my solicitor was absent without prior notice, which caused delays and stress. The first absence occurred when we believed we were ready to exchange contracts. I only discovered her unavailability when I emailed her and received an out-of-office reply. During this period, I would have expected Birchall Blackburn to arrange for cover to proactively contact me, but that was not the case, and I had to reach out to generic Birchall Blackburn inboxes before being connected with another colleague. While this cover was eventually more responsive than my original solicitor, I was unable to act on missing documents immediately, as I was abroad, and had previously been assured by my solicitor that no further postal documents were required.

The second absence occurred the day before we were due to complete the purchase. Again, no alternate contact was provided, and I had to reach out to the previous cover to be put in touch with two colleagues.

Overall, my solicitor's responsiveness was inconsistent. At the start, replies were slow. Following my feedback via a phone call to another colleague, responsiveness briefly improved before deteriorating again. Important documents were often sent combined into large files, with titles that differed from her instructions, making it difficult for me as a first-time buyer to identify what was required. On at least one occasion, her email and letter instructions conflicted, resulting in additional postage costs and unnecessary stress. In addition, where documents were shared via the firm’s online portal, there was a comments box intended for questions and clarifications. On multiple occasions, I left queries in this space, but they were never addressed, and I had to follow up by email instead. This added unnecessary effort and frustration to an already challenging process.

Furthermore, the financial statements provided contained errors. The initial statement double-counted the gift fee, and a subsequent statement omitted certain costs, which I only became aware of the day before completion.

The cumulative effect of these issues was a prolonged, stressful process, with a no-chain property sale taking five months to complete.

Now, over 4 weeks following completion, I still have not received the indemnity insurance document that I paid for. Worryingly, I have also received a letter from HMRC requesting that I pay the stamp duty tax, the exact amount of which was factored into the mortgage taken from the lender, and should have been paid by the solicitor.

I am also yet to received a response from Birchall Blackburn about my complaint, which was submitted to them formally on the 12th September. Their initial reply said to expect a response by the 7th November, which does not convey to me that they take these shortcomings, nor my experience as a client, seriously.

I cannot recommend this solicitor. Avoid.

I used Birchall Blackburn Law for the conveyancing on my first home purchase and the service I received was excellent. My solicitor, Davina, was fantastic. She was unbelievably efficient and detail-oriented, and she kept me well informed at every stage of the process. The online portal was also very handy for easily referring back to all the required documents. Would definitely recommend to anyone buying a home!

Ilsaah Ahmed was absolutely useless. I have never come across, a more incompetent person and company in my life. Our conveyancing was cancelled mid way through, without any valid explanation. We provided all the relevant documents but were still cancelled for no legal reasons. Why can't you just be transparent with your clients?

Avoid them at all cost, they will waste your time and give you a false sense of hope.

Maryam H. is absolutely useless.

Very efficient, patient and helpful. Could not have wished for a more professional service.
Thank you all BB Team !!

They were unable to exchange contracts in more than five months on a sale with no chain, vacant possession, no tree preservation orders, no land or neighbour disputes. Only got moving when I abandoned the sale. Difficult to contact, made omissions in the contract and were abysmally slow.

I was linked to BBL through a mortgage broker (Tembo) as I hoped for a quick and efficient wrap around service as I have very limited time. Tembo was great but the service I received from BBL was inefficient, slow, unprofessional and poor. This was a no chain purchase and delays felt unecessary and excessive.

There was virtually no personal contact and the majority of communication for the first few months was conducted through generic email addresses and I often waited days for limited, badly constructed responses. BBL operates its ID checks through a poorly functioning portal that no one at BBL can help with when it doesn't work. The other portal through which documents are provided set up a barrier between me and my conveyancer. Uploaded document titles often didn’t align with advisory letters and all letter were generic. Nothing was explained, never mind explained well.

Despite asking on various occasions, I received next to no feedback, on timelines or what to expect, which as a first time buyer was extremely frustrating - Google was more helpful. Questions often went unanswered, and I spent the equivalent of days doing research on my property purchasing queries. I feel like invoicing BBL for my time.

This review is not personal or specifically aimed at the people who served me - I sense staff are overwhelmed with too much work and deliberately distanced from clients through generic email addresses, apps and portals. I would not recommend BBL.

I cannot recommend Birchall Blackburn Law. My experience with them was the most stressful and disappointing property purchase I have faced in 30 years.

Excessive delays – The process dragged on for over 10 months for what should have been a straightforward residential leasehold purchase. This caused my mortgage offer to lapse, putting the entire transaction at risk.

Unnecessary and damaging enquiries – Instead of focusing on what mattered, my solicitor raised irrelevant questions (including suggesting it might be a “stressed sale”), which could easily have jeopardised the deal and pushed the seller to increase the price.

Lack of proactive case management – At no point did I feel my solicitor was steering the transaction efficiently. They failed to distinguish between critical and trivial issues, and did not take a pragmatic approach such as considering indemnity insurance. Instead of helping me progress, they created bottlenecks and stress.

Severe personal and financial impact – Because of their mishandling, I missed the SDLT reduction in April 2025, had to pay for unnecessary additional insurances, and faced huge disruption to my financial planning. For months, I had no certainty of completion, making it impossible to plan my move, works, or rentals.

Poor complaint handling – When I raised a formal complaint, I received dismissive responses which failed to engage with the substance of my concerns. I was essentially told their “final response” stood, leaving me no option but to escalate to the Legal Ombudsman.

I came to Birchall Blackburn on recommendation, expecting professionalism and a commercially minded service. Instead, I experienced delay, disorganisation, unnecessary stress, and a lack of accountability. I would strongly urge others to think very carefully before instructing this firm for conveyancing.

Excellent service again from Karen Williams and her team

They were efficient in all matters, responding promptly when needed.

We used BB Law recently for our house purchase after previously using them for our last sale which they made things really smooth and easy for us.

This time round though the solicitor was really attentive, every question we asked, queries we raised she got back to us really quickly. We’ve had solicitors in the past take days or even a week or 2 to get back to us but we had none of this, we usually had a response within the hour.

We don’t plan on moving anytime soon again but if we do we’ll use BB Law again and we’d recommend them to our friends, family and anyone who is reading this review.

We also found that they were one of the most reasonable quotes with no hidden extras.

Absolutely useless. Never answer their phone. Go else where if you actually want a service.