Core Legal Avis 

Without a doubt the worst solicitors myself or my family have ever come across and my family own property so deal with solicitors regularly. What should have been a straightforward sale (no chain, first time buyers) ended up being the most horrifically unorganised and stressful 10 months of our life. Core Legal were our seller's solicitors (specifically Matthew Dickenson dealt with our case). Throughout the process, their communication was consistently poor, they were unresponsive to both our solicitor, the sellers (their client!!) and the estate agent, and they repeatedly delayed answering critical legal enquiries - some of which had been outstanding for months meaning our sale ended up taking 10 months rather than the advised 3 months once we put in the offer.
Key documents such as the Leaseholder Deed of Certificate, planning discharge confirmations, and building regulation certificates had to be sourced by us directly - simply because the seller’s solicitor failed to provide them. We were told certain documents "didn't exist" which was in fact untrue as after a couple of times ringing around we managed to source them ourselves, the buyer. This level of disorganisation and lack of urgency created unnecessary stress and caused us to very nearly pulling out of the whole sale entirely. The seller was the exact same.

There were times (as mentioned in previous reviews) they would simply stop replying and answering phone calls. There were also times they told us they had requested documents or were awaiting a response from another party which we found to be outright lies.

If you’re considering using this firm for conveyancing, I would strongly advise you to look elsewhere. In our experience, they demonstrated a lack of professionalism and urgency that no buyer or seller should have to deal with in an already complex and time-sensitive legal process. They were unhelpful and rude and if they were our solicitors we would have processed a formal complaint against them.

Sally Hare and her team at Core Legal have been brilliant along every step of the way in the process of buying our first home.

They are quick at replying, always accommodating with any questions we had and have moved the process along from start to finish in around 10 weeks!

Would recommend to anyone when buying a home, thank you so much to the team!

Fantastic team, quick responses and clear explanations. They helped us with a buy-to-let purchase and were really great. Matthew and Vivi were always available for clarifications and updates which is everything you need from a solicitor company. Well done!

We recently completed the purchase of our new home, and I can honestly say that Katherine Webb made the entire process so much easier than we ever expected. They were consistently professional, incredibly efficient, and always available when we needed advice or updates.

What really stood out was their attention to detail and their ability to keep things moving smoothly, even when delays from other parties threatened to slow things down. They were proactive, thorough, and clearly very experienced in handling property transactions.

It was such a relief knowing we had someone so capable looking after our interests. If you’re looking for a solicitor who combines expertise with excellent client service, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Kath. They were fantastic from beginning to end.

I had an amazing experience working with Matthew and Vivi during the purchase of my first home. As a first-time buyer, I was a bit nervous about the process, but they made everything incredibly smooth and stress-free. They were professional, responsive, and always willing to answer my many questions with patience and clarity.

What really impressed me was how efficient they were — they helped me to complete the purchase within just 6 weeks, which was far quicker than I expected. Their attention to detail and dedication gave me real peace of mind throughout the whole journey.

I couldn't be more grateful for their support and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a reliable and friendly solicitor team!

Great, very helpful

Really pleased with the level of customer service from Tiffany from start to finish. Always keeping us up to date with the process. Tiffany was very polite and professional. She did a superb job. Thank you very much!

Excellent customer service, communication every step of the way. Fast response with any questions I had and will use again. 5 star service. No faults here, great set of staff.

I am very happy with the conveyancing service provided by Core Legal excellent job in conveyancing my purchase

I am very happy with the conveyancing service provided by Core Legal York Office - they did an excellent job in conveyancing my purchase of a leasehold flat.

It took less than 7 weeks to complete on the 31 March 2025 just in time right before the increase in Stamp Duty taxes, saving me in higher SDLT.

I am very pleased with how the Core Legal team worked together Vivi, Ellie, Matthew to provide updates and running the process smoothly.

I am glad I was referred to them, will definitely use their services again and recommend their services.

It took 6 weeks to complete. Once you get the log in details to digital profile, it just goes really smoothly. It actually took Vivi 5 weeks to complete my purchase as I've completely missed the log in email for the first week! (Email went to junk). Vivi was very tentative and answered all my questions as we went along. It's easy to follow the process with Cores digital profile, it tells you exactly what's going on. I am thankful I was referred to you

My buyers solicitors .. I would never use or recommend very unprofessional and worse of all lie all the time. The lady dealing with the buyers sale was constantly on the sick causing a nice easy first time buyer sale to drag on then she left! and another solicitor had to pretty much start again, even on the day of completion caused issues ! avoid avoid avoid

I can’t imagine having a better solicitor than Chris Anderson in Core Legal Newcastle’s commercial conveyancing team. Ours (through no fault of Core Legal’s, linked to issues with the purchaser) has been an unusually protracted and difficult transaction, with many twists and turns along the road to completion. Chris has been exemplary throughout and we are truly grateful to him. There were 4 separate parties each with their own solicitors in our transaction, and Chris’s high standard of work, very fast responses and ability to get the crux of the matter quickly, made the others look amateur. He has consistently been there for us and gone above and beyond over a long period to bring this to a successful conclusion. I can’t recommend his services highly enough.

Core legal were fantastic throughout the purchase of our first home.

Always professional, communicated well. Answered all of our queries in a timely manner, explained each step very well. Suresh was brilliant on a very stressful completion date due to seller and key handover delay (Seller fault).

Suresh was really supportive and therefore kept me calm. Rang me the following morning, first thing to check in. Which I really appreciated. Cannot thank the entire team enough for all their help in making the process run so smoothly.

Highly recommend Core Legal.

Easy, stress free process from beginning to completion using their portal kept me updated.
Responsive, approachable customer service, need to highlight Vivi's "can do" approach, especially at the end of the process when I needed support an information flow the most.
Thank you again Core Legal team.

There are four families in the chain to sell our house, it is six months now and we are still waiting on core legal to finalise things. They do not pick up the phone or return emails to inform us if they are ready for completion. I will be taking this to the Legal Ombudsman also the SRA

Awful awful awful, very straight forward sale no chain and still managed to make a complete mess of it despite saying 12-16 week completion
Never available, they ignore you, lie about contact with other parties, forget to do searches, repeat paperwork and send everyone round in circles
Cost our buyers nearly 12k in additional rental payments as they managed to drag it out for 11 months and gave a different reason to everyone each time for the delays
They may be a bit cheaper than any other firm but it is honestly not worth the stress and delays caused
Apparently they are well know for being very poor, wish we’d have known this before agreeing via estate agent to use them!

Core Legal were engaged in 2019 to extend the lease of my father's flat as well as several others in the same block. After his death in 2022, I took on liaison with the firm on behalf of my mother. All the other flats were completed thanks to my efforts in January 2024 ... except ours.
They then cut off all contact with me: they won't reply to emails or letters and don't return calls.
They've been paid for a service which 5 years later still hasn't been delivered and there is no prospect of getting it done. The Legal Ombudsman dismissed my complaint (as seems to be their habit judging from reviews on here) so it appears that Core Legal has kept my father's fee without delivering the service.
Isn't that theft by most yardsticks?

3 stars only due to lack of customer service at times. I feel this company needs a customer relations department firstly to inform customers of how the process works in selling / buying a property what the necessary steps are , expected time frame etc etc - I had no idea what to expect but had I been informed I probably would have understood the process and not of had high hopes all the time. I also feel a customer relations department would help in weekly updates to inform customers of any updates , on occasion more than 1 email was ignored and there was at one point a 3 week wait on a response. Even if there is no update for the customer but just to send an email to say we have looked over your file this week and all on track nothing to update - as a customer and having worked in customer service departments previously I understand how important it is to keep customers up to date and this may help reduce the volume of incoming emails and phone calls to the company / solicitor , with customers chasing all the time.

Diabolical service-AVOID!!!!
Dealing with the sale of my property. Delayed for 3 weeks due to Dawn Walsworth sending exchange of contract documents attached at the bottom of an email outlining their Christmas opening hours (or lack of). Dawn also never responds and is abrupt when she can actually be bothered to. Also left documents sat on the desk for a week that needed to be passed to buyers solicitor. Unable to get an answer to a simple question and then Dawn blatantly lied and said she hadn’t heard from buyers solicitor when they had in fact emailed twice and chased core legal. At the point of terminating sale due to the incompetence of this ‘firm’. Ended up emailing my buyers solicitor myself for answers and the poor estate agent has made it her life’s work chasing. No attempts to chase why I hadn’t returned documents, no contact or updates unless I have chased and now delayed until at least 10th January for completion because they frankly can’t be arsed to do what they are paid to.