BTMK Solicitors Avis 

Beware of getting involved in a chain where this firm are involved - check who your buyers have instructed and avoid any connection with these.
Delay of over 2 weeks at point of exchange - refusal to update anyone else in the chain, blocking and poor communication once challenged! Clearly don’t think they need to adhere to Law Society protocols or anything close to good practices within a chain .

Fantasic service, the conveyencing team were professional, knoweldgeable and attentive. There were complications on the sellers side during our house purchase and the BTMK team kept us fully abrest of the situation and did everything they could to keep the process moving in a timely fashion. Highly recommended!

BEWARE!
IN MY EXPERIENCE I WOULD RECOMMEND NOT TO USE THE CONVEYANCIING TEAM AT THESE SOLICITORS.
I am adding my voice to the other reviews to say my experience of them has been horrendous. So much so I am thinking of reporting them to the SRA. The delays involved cost me dearly, financially and emotionally. All communication was extremely poor and when visiting their office, we found the paralegal rude and dismissive. Just one of the issues - the paralegal who was originally dealing with our house purchase, sent us an email on a Thursday afternoon letting us know she was leaving the next day and someone else would takeover our case. Not only did she NOT let us know in good time, the other solicitors handling the sale that she was dealing were not informed at all! Our house purchase should have been straight forward as there was no chain and we weren't selling our property. It took BTMK five months to complete. Our mortgage broker says it the longest transaction he has on his books!

Over priced and over rated! There are a lot of companies local in the Southend are that can provide a better service. BTMK were a recommendation, I feel like I wasted my money. Shocking service, slow response time, failed to resolve/settle our issue.

Many thanks to Kevin Bourley and his team for making
our recent move as stress free as possible.
Quick to reply to all queries no matter how insignificant.
Polite never condescending, professional service from start to finish. Welldone all much appreciated.
Terry & Theresa

Very slow & not providing accurate information . They are acting on behalf of our sellers .Our solicitors sent them instructions on Saturday 9 th September advising of both parties wish to exchange last week , so that they had adequate time to prepare .
They told estate agents they couldn't comply due to lack of notice as they'd only received request the day before .
Obviously there is an email to prove this was untrue .
Very disappointed that a professional firm behaves like this .This has caused us undue stress. We had to rebook our removal company again as our belongings are in storage & move from where we were staying to another property for another week .
I certainly would not recommend them to anyone .

I was recommended to use BTMK from my estate agents as a first time buyer. The communication was extremely poor, it would take days to get a response to an email, I tried calling many times but could never get hold of them directly either. The estate agents chased me on numerous times because they were unable to get hold of my solicitor. It felt like I was being completely ignored. This made the whole experience extremely stressful for me. After being in the property for 6 weeks, I got a letter from HM revenue to say my land registry had not been paid (although I had already paid the solicitor this fee.) After contacting them, they admitted to submitting the paperwork late and that they would be covering the fee. In my opinion, their fees shouldn't be so high when they are unable to deliver great results. I would never use them ever again and would not recommend them.

Thank you so much BTMK for making the sale of my house go smoothly and without any stress !!

I was quoted standard market rate and charged more than double that quote Apparently the ombudsman thinks that doubling the bill and only telling me two days before I have no choice to pay us totally fair despite me asking three times if it's changed. Completely underhanded practices.

Gabriella and Aimee did a fantastic job. Gabriella understood the details of the dispute lead the process all the way to a successful conclusion. The Mediator congratulated Gabriella on the case presented by BTMK, saying what a great job had been done.

Great service from Yolanda Hollis and Irfan Kunes.
Prompt responses, always provided information in a clear and understandable way. Would highly recommend the team to anyone looking to purchase a property. Thank you.

Having used BTMK, Westcliff-on-Sea in July 2022 for my house sale and new house purchase due to being recommended, I didn't hesitate to contact them again to deal with the conveyancing of my dad's probate property sale, competitive rates, no sale no fee (which not all Solicitors offer). The sale fell through 4 months in but we got another buyer straight away and it has been pushed through in just 11 weeks, brilliant service from start to finish,

I was recommended these solicitors by my Estate Agent when I first made an offer on my property in February 2023. For a first time buyer this company has been horrendous to deal with. No communication at all, unless I message them first and even then it is the same response every time. "we are awaiting responses from the vendors solicitor". They are in no rush what so ever to deal with anything and will literally only chase things when you have messaged them. I have only ever dealt with their Paralegal. My property purchase has still not been completed and I generally don't think it will have once my mortgage offer expires.

We are very pleased Adam and Gabriella of BTMK for dealing my boundary dispute claim. Gabriella guided us through a couple very difficult years dealing with defendants. She always kept us up to date with progress and gave knowledgeable advice on the next step. All team members were very professional and thorough with attention to details. They were very efficient and I would strongly recommend them.
a big thank you to Adam, Gabriella and team

This company are so profession they keep you up to date right through the whole process

I had a very positive experience dealing with Gabriella Shepherd. She helped me resolve a tenancy agreement issue with a less than transparent landlord who was previously ignoring all my attempts to communicate, simply threatening court action. Gabriella was totally on top of the legal arguments than needed to be made, she responded quickly and helped me reach a satisfactory compromise. I did not shop around as BTMK were recommended by a trusted friend, so I am not sure if their fees are competitive - but I was happy to pay for their top notch advice.

Sarah Swain, Joe Burns and Abbie Macpherson have been absolutely amazing and helped me complete on a purchase when the seller's solicitors were particularly unhelpful. I really appreciated their sense of urgency, dedication (Joe reviewed some documents whilst on leave!), and communication. I would recommend with no hesitation.

We new that our litigation, trying to get our Facebook page back was difficult, but the way BTMK handled the situation was so professional, she was given little choice but to return what did not belong to her. Although we would rather spend our money or our vulnerable residents we felt this was a very worthwhile investment. BTMK went beyond all our expectations and we cannot thank them enough

Smoothest solicitors I’ve ever used thanks Guys

Our experience with BTMK was lacklustre at best, inefficient and shambolic at worst. As we live in Australia, we forwarded copies of communications with BTMK to several of our friends in UK to check that we weren’t being unduly unfair in our assessments of BTMK. They came back with a resounding ‘NO’ so we feel our assessment is fair and accurate.

What makes this experience all the more disappointing is that my parents thought highly of Todmans who had always handled their legal matters and in fact we had been impressed with Simon Jones when he was assisting us before my Mother’s matters were referred by him to BTMK for Deputyship; just before Todmans became a part of BTMK.

Examples below of reasons for our above assessment:

Despite Saul Caplan being awarded Deputyship of my Mother’s financial affairs, the Nursing Home did not receive any money towards fees for several months and then only as a result of several contacts by us as Essex County Council kept contacting us
Despite several requests for mail redirection to be actioned my Mother’s neighbours were still delivering the mail to BTMK for months after Deputyship granted.
Email updates only sent after we contacted BTMK – often with weeks even months going by without any contact from them yet in response to my enquiries there was always an update that we could have been informed of sooner.
Parents’ home standing vacant for nearly a year with no apparent action towards its sale - despite Saul having Deputyship
Not being told by BTMK that once my Mother died that the Deputyship ended and we were entitled to a choice of legal firm. We only found this out when they sent a letter a few months after her death detailing their fees. It was on my query that they admitted that perhaps they should have informed us prior.
We received several updates re house issues from my parents’ neighbours (as we asked them to keep an eye on the home as they live opposite) before being advised by BTMK inc: house break in, house damage and house actually being finally up for sale.
no explanation as to why there was no action towards property sale between 14th November and the 'break in' 8th December and or why keys to my parents’ home were not in BTMK’s care again until 7th January.
Failure to adequately secure the property after the break in, which enabled a cat to access and make mess in the home
Having to tell BTMK that the central heating system needed to be drained, as not being used, to prevent cold weather swelling and damaging pipes.
It took several contacts by myself on the nursing home’s request and finally the Manager as well for BTMK to provide funds for my Mother’s personal needs in the nursing home. This meant my Mother was poorly dressed (as she lost weight) and she always took pride in her appearance prior plus she would have been mortified to know that the poor hairdresser at the home was setting up a ‘tab’ for her just because her legal firm were incredibly tardy in arranging HER money to pay HER bills.
Utilities at my parents’ home not being paid in a timely manner resulting in overdue notices. Again, my parents were never late paying any bills and would have found this behaviour abhorrent.
BTMK re-packed items from my parents’ home for shipment to us in Australia. Luckily nothing was broken (despite ornaments moving in a box only 3/4s full) however things were unnecessarily dented and creased as there was no filler packing, no FRAGILE labels and no THIS WAY UP signs on the 4 boxes.
Having to wait over 6 weeks for our final ESTATE payment was the grand finale in this shambolic experience. Apparently, the ONLY person employed by BTMK that was able to action this payment was on leave. When this so-called expert returned to work, they transferred our payments in BRITISH POUNDS to our AUSTRALIAN bank accounts which led to the money being returned, resulting in the transfer having to be actioned yet again in AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS days later.
* Our experience started in September 2018 and ended in 16th August 2022 when I went to England and whilst there collected my Mother's Death Certificate
* please note that all these events were documented via our email communications with Sophie Bacon at BTMK

UPDATE 18 FEB 2025
Following my Trustpilot review BTMK contacted me to request my permission to conduct a thorough review of my files.
I can confirm that following their investigation, each of the points have been acknowledged and addressed and I can confirm that an amicable solution has been agreed