Shakespeare Martineau Reviews 

Following an excellent conveyancing experience with the sale of two houses earlier in the year, I engaged Shakespeare Martineau again for the sale of a further buy-to-let property. Although the process was complicated, involving a protracted eviction process and a change of buyer, Vidhya Panchal's guidance and support was invaluable, her attention to detail was faultless and she achieved a successful outcome in the shortest possible time. An impressive performance!

Terrible experience, I used Shakespeare Martineau to buy my first house about 2 years and a half ago, huge mistake.
During the process, nobody would answer my calls. I have to teach maths to the lady dealing with my house buy because according to her, I had to pay an extra 10k for the deposit. I literally had to make a spreadsheet to show what she was doing wrong. Then after pestering, it took 2 years in half for my deeds to be done, bear in mind, all my neighbours that bought the house at the same time had their deeds ages ago and even sold and bought another house while I was waiting for mine. When I finally got it, my name had slightly misspelt and they didn't get me the exchange property contract, I have to myself they lost it because when I finally got it back, it was an old version scanned - not even got the trouble to print it and send it to me as they demanded me to do for them. Please, don't throw your hard earn money down the drain with this company, hire someone else to handle your house exchange. Mainly someone that knows how to do maths.

Excellent Service from Vidhya Panchal and Shakespeare Martineau. Excellent communication and working with tight deadlines. Was continuously informed with updates and next steps. Turn around time on answering queries was amazing. What a service. Highly recommend Vidhya, wont be going anywhere else in the future! 6 stars!

They were employed by my building society to register my property. After being in my house for 4.5 years, found it hadn’t been done and after a further 5 months of chasing, they admitted they had lost my deeds. Shocking service and communication. Very arrogant in their attitude. Keep away from this Law firm.

Shakespeare Martineau, Tom Ansell and Adam Jakubik left us homeless after continuously lying, ignoring calls and correspondence and being the most unprofessional conveyancing team in England. Seven months and they had not completed a conveyancing process on a vacant repossessed property with no chain attached.

We had our offer accepted on a property in May 2022 which was a repossessed property being sold by a Management Group (AMG). Tom Ansell at Shakespeare Martineau was appointed as conveyancing solicitor along with his assistant Adam Jakubik by AMG.

We were informed AMG wanted a turn round time of six weeks as the property was vacant and the property repossessed and as first time buyers there was no chain.

Shakespeare Martineau were dreadful from the start. It took them four weeks to send the draft paperwork to our solicitor for no apparent reason. Following this it then took Tom Ansell eight further weeks to answer a basic list of enquiries. Our solicitor informed us as it was a repossession and being sold by AMG the queries were basic and only a short list therefore should have been completed far far quicker.

Following this we were then told in September 2022 that they were ready to exchange on the 19th September. They then a week later changed their minds as they had clearly forgotten to request redemption statements. They assured us they had requested this and we’re ‘chasing it’ (their favourite phrase). By this point we had already handed our notice in on our current rental as we were under the impression that solicitors were meant to be honest and transparent. On the 12th October Adam Jakubik confessed the Redemption statement had not been requested and had only been done that day with a specialist team. He had been lying and by the end of October there was still no sign of a redemption statement. Adam Jakubik also informed us Shakespeare Martineau had failed to order a redemption statement at the beginning of the process. Shakespeare Martineau did not have all the relevant information and therefore RBS refused to provide the statement. This led to a specialist team needing to be contacted causing further delays all caused by Shakespeare Martineau.

Tom Ansell and Adam Jakubik have left my partner and myself homeless due to their dishonest, unprofessional and immoral behaviour as legal ‘professionals’.

The words used to describe these conveyancers were unprofessional and dishonest. Our solicitor informed us that Tom Ansell has not once answered his work mobile in some six months and often had out of office email responses set up a week after returning from annual leave.
Furthermore it was obvious to see from email chains that Adam Jakubik hides behind generic ten word emails and refuses to answer or return calls. The word to describe both Tom Ansell and Adam Jakubik is quite clearly incompetent and disgraceful. Adam Jakubik also disclosed numerous private details to me despite not being their client before later denying this when the matter was raised with Karen Phull in a complaint.

Purchasing your first house should be exciting and enjoyable but Shakespeare Martineau, Tom Ansell and Adam Jakubik have ruined this for both my partner and myself. Purchasing this house became a stressful chore due to the nature in which Shakespeare Martineau dealt with this case. Congratulations for not only ruining our first house purchase but also making us homeless in the process.

Further to this we lodged a complaint with Shakespeare Martineau through their complaints manager Karen Phull. Their own website says they will acknowledge the complaint within two working days… guess what that never happened. Karen Phull was uncontactable on every occasion. This was typical of the disgusting level of service experience throughout. The Legal Ombudsman has been contacted and we await their response on this dreadful company.

My advice would be to avoid Shakespeare Martineau, Tom Ansell and Adam Jakubik for anything required to do with Conveyancing. I’m sure if they respond they will note I am not directly their client however I have still been impacted by their appalling service. If this company are appointed as the sellers solicitors go and find another property and stay well away from this firm.

Really bad experience with this firm's conveyancing team. The vendor of the property I was buying unfortunately used them. Half of the things they were responsible for doing, my solicitor ended up having to do. They were also pretty rude and uncooperative. The sale dragged on for so long, it ended up falling through. I would avoid.

Letter received on 9th Sep - regarding an issue I thought had been resolved with a different company! Sent proof of payment through which was made in April!!! Sent proof to Company House and previous collectors also (nothing actioned) - resent on the 9th to this company with the proof. Come in to the Office today to claim paperwork! Its like banging your head against a brick wall!!! THE BILL WAS PAID in APRIL CHECK PROOF AND CLOSE OFF its as simple as that or not so in this case! No replies to original email! After a call today it's NOW gone over to Companies House for them to them to check which could of been done 2 weeks ago!

Terrible company. Sent me the incorrect bank details for a companies house penalty. Took days to respond to my email asking for the correct details, I paid off my fine in and asked if that would be the end of it. They replied telling me yes it’s resolved then still filed a CCJ against me. They take hours on the phone passing you around from one person to another. Just an awful company.

I have produced a video on my you tube channel Where's Walshy Titled LORD JUSTICE GOLDRING - FRAUD BY ABUSE OF POSITION where i go into detail about the discrimination my family was subject to by the oath breaking white collar criminal pretend judge Goldring. Counsel of shakespeareMartineau is a party to the fraud.

My husband tried calling them everyday continuously to pay Home office debt , Asking the girl Sahar on emails that we need to pay by card because the bank details she gave doesn’t match when we are trying to pay
Please someone from this company even respond back ? we are so fedup

Constantly having small claims against my company made without any prior warning or notice. They do not provide any information for what they are suing you for and do not give any legal notice before action is taken

Avoid this firm, they represent disgraceful and disgusting companies such as UCB. They want my county court claim to be struck out without providing any evidence.
Ben Humphreys, your client University College Birmingham have said they didn't receive anything? They never responded back to my complaints or questions ? I have made a county court claim against them due to their treatment with specific members of staff who attempted to cover up their malice practices and not respond to my complaint and questions which I have uploaded on social media.

Terrible law firm - wish there was less than 1 star! Chose them to represent me and failed to carry out basic due diligence even when there were massive red flags during the proceedings.
My experience was being incredibly over charged wanted full pay even though half completed. I would not recommend this firm at all

I called on Friday afternoon at 1530. There office is open till six. The receptionist tried 15 different people for me, including managers, as I obviously had a complaint due to their complete lack of attention and after she had tried all 15 of them, and more than once I'll hasten to add, not a single person would pick up the call. I sent an e-mail to the case handler to call me urgently. Obviously she ignored it. Do not touch this company with a barge pole!!!! Avoid at all costs just as they will to you!!!!

Worked with Shakespeare Martineau whilst buying a house and they acted as our conveyancer.

Great experience start to finish. Lisa Cox was amazing to work with - thorough, quick and super responsive.

House bought in 9 weeks over Christmas with no hitches.

I'd highly recommend.

We sold our deceased mum's flat on 23rd July 2021. Metcalf drive Romiley. There is NO chain but the sale is at risk due to the inactivity of this solicitor on behalf of Kindle homes. Their lack of action/urgency is disgusting.

Terrible service sent a letter to my partner saying he owed for car hire & when he tried to find out more about the bill they wouldn’t reply. Appear to be a company that like to scam people. Wouldn’t go near them for any kind of legal advice!!

Guys to make a payment which seems like a completely unachievable task, call 01789 416 400 and use the long number with an underscore located in the address section at the top of page 1. I cannot believe they don’t give this information in the claim form or anywhere else. I’ve had heated exchanges with the girls on the call, I say girls because they sound 16 with no experience of how to deal with these claims or the tone and register in which to do so.
Make the payment or and the defence form pack asap because this company is making it their business to make it harder for us to pay or defend. I feel so sorry for those who just wouldn’t understand the process because it full of BS.

Good luck!

I recently bought a flat that had a RTM company to manage the flat block, that was run by the lease holders. Some how they had managed to issue CCJ against the company for what appeared to be personal debt from previous tenants, as the RTM had not issued any recent maintenance. But because I am not the previous tenant and had not been made a RTM company director yet, they would not discuss any details of the debt. We had only just moved into the new flat to find the CCJ issued with very little time to resolve the debt before it was made permanent. To top it off the RTM company was registered to the flat and they were threatening to send enforcement officers to remove goods if the debt is not paid.
Unfortunately the lease agreement we have required us to keep the RTM from going insolvent. So with very little opportunity to dispute it or get any meaningful dialog with Shakespeare Martineau we felt forced to pay off the debt that we could not even find out the details of. Either Shakespeare Martineau don't care and will use any means possible to collect debt or the whole debt recovery process is unfair.