P.B.S.Solicitors

Never even got the chance to see if they lived up to their website. I called for an appointment to get an oath sworn for a docunent, and was told the solicitor "has too much on" [presumably cases] to watch my witness sign a declaration and swear an oath.

I have used the services of Michael Sayer for over 40 years and more recently Helen Brown for all of my personal, family and business legal advice.
It has always been of the highest professional standard and I would have no hesitation in recommending PBS solicitors.

In a word - disgusted.
These solicitors were holding my mum’s original Will. I attended the office with a copy of the Will, ID etc. Rather than showing empathy and support only days after my mums passing Helen Brown flicked through the Will laughing at the contents! She made the process far more difficult than it needed to be. I had to chase them almost daily and the telephone manner of the receptionist was abrupt and rude - obviously a trait required to work at PBS. I lodged a formal complaint with no response to date. Next step Legal Ombudsman. Avoid this company.

It's with great sadness I write this. Helen Brown has been my go to solicitor for many years around 20, to the point of considering her as a friend (in loose terms). I've used her 4 times personally,plus once by my daughter and once by a partner, unfortunately the last 3 dealings have had a lot to be desired... As a person, Helen is a lovely lady, although I do feel like, with hind sight, there comes a time in our lives when it's time to move on. I feel this should have been done around 6 years ago.
I last used Helen 4 years ago, and things were missed, recently coming to my notice having now sold my home, the deeds to the property were in 2 parts, something I've very recently been made aware of, after 6 weeks of unanswered emails from my new, fantastic solicitor a visit was in order, not only did these deeds still belong to the previous owner, and ignored 6 weeks of emails, she'd also lost my entire file with no records on any computerised system. The offices are a mess, files everywhere, an obvious lack of order and array and are dank, dingy and smell of mould...
Having already lost my files from 4 years ago, and now hugely delaying my new purchase and move, I can only now say... PLEASE AVOID AT ALL Costs! Its will be a mistake to even for a split second consider using...

Used PBS to buy our house. We’re brilliant to start with, chased all the necessary parties, responded almost immediately etc, we couldn’t fault them. Buying our house took 8 months. About 2-3 months into that 8 months, our solicitor Helen at the Ripley branch started to ignore us, she wouldn’t respond to emails or phone calls. We rang numerous times a day for it not to be answered to then be told we never rang - we always kept a log of the times and dates we rang and still got accused of lying. I rang a few times and the very few times they answered, they put the phone down on me. We followed their advice to postpone our searches to be done which then cost us a month whilst waiting for them. We found the Ripley branch to be very unprofessional. The way the dressed was just like they were dossing about - not professional at all, we went for a meeting (the first appointment at opening) to be at the solicitor there to then have to wait 15 minutes for her to gather our file rather than preparing it the day before when the meeting was arranged. We feel all this had a negative experience on buying one first home. We asked for the complaints email numerous times and they either ignored our request or refused to give it to us. After our house sale went through we asked for advice about the condition of the house as it wasn’t left like it was meant to be (due to contracts etc) and we were basically told to deal with it and leave it. We definitely won’t be using PBS again, I’d avoid at all costs.