Completion Day nightmare - solicitors and banks beware

LCK73

Danilou, if I was you I would call your solicitor at 9:15am and establish if they have instructed their bank to make the transfer yet and then keep on top of calling them to get a progress check as time goes by. I was originally told that my money transfer would take place first thing and it actually didn't take place till after midday (and I wasn't in a chain). I wish now I had checked first thing to save some heartache throughout the rest of the day.

danilou21

Ok will do, thanks for the advice. Im the first in the chain of 2 so it shouldn't take too long right?

LCK73

To be honest I don't know. I was simply unlucky this week, I think human error at my solicitors delayed things somewhat, hence my advice about keeping on top of them and all over them like a rash to ensure they do their job properly. I've been in a chain some 6 people long before now and still completed by midday....
I bet you will be fine.

FraudBuster

I would call your solicitor at 9:15am

Conveyancing solicitors have so little business at present that they don't actually start work until 10.30. They then have a coffee break for half an hour at 11. By 12.30 it is time to go to the pub for lunch and they will return about 3 and make your CHAPS payment if they remember.

Good luck.

danilou21

lck73- sorry to but in on your thread, but I am to having a nightmare completion day!

I called the solicitors at 10am to check on things and they said, oh we haven't done anything yet as you still owe us money (!!!!!!!) they said that they sent the statement to me last week but I had not received it, but no-one thought to tell me that I had to pay before today. ARRRGGHHH!!!
I have just got back from the bank, but the solicitors close between 1-2pm so nothings going to happen until later this afternoon (providing they havent f*****d anything else up)

cats!

Relaxing thoughts sent to all those having a stressful day!

Akeap

Solicitors as crap (well mine isn't hes a friend and has been smashing).

But we were due to Exchange mid last week with a completion Monday 7th.

But it seems the numpty solicitor didnt instruct her client (my FTB of my flat) that to exchange she will need his deposit.

For some unknown reason he proceeded to transfer from his saving account (I assume another bank) to his current account last wednesday stating it would take 3 days!! dont know why he didnt have it ready or infact at the solicitors account in preparation as he could even claim the interest back if he was that worried...great more delays on exchange but should be ok for completion.

To make things worse we only found out at the begining of last week he is going abroad on business for a month but his solicitor assured us he would have ALL paperwork and monies ready for exchange before he left :eek:

It turns out that the money turned up in his current account on the Monday LATE so from the USA he used internet banking to transfer the money to the solicitor.

Solicitor obviously didnt instruct him on how to do even though I explicitly relayed the process through the estate agent to make sure the solictor reminds him to use a CHAPS transfer this time from his current account!! and nor did his bank RBSonline tell him so he proceeded to transfer the £50k by using a normal BACS :mad: he had a limit of £10k per day and takes 3 days each payment so it seems the solicitor wont get all the money through until Tuesday 12th! :mad: :mad:

I spent the whole day Wednesday investigating how to stop the Tuesday bacs and then get him to use the Electronc Money transfer or chaps payment that would do the whole lot for about £21 charge and arrive in 24 hours with a view to exchange with full deposit as soon as the Monday bacs came in.

As hes in USA he didnt pick the messages up until the afternoon and I still think the solicitor didnt portray the importance of him trying to act on this so the message came back from the estate agent when they eventually got hold of him that he cannot cancel the further bacs payments set up for the remaing days so he cant then do a CHAPS :mad:
aslso he said his bank requires him to visit a branch to do the transfer....total bull^%^&!!!

Spent last 2 days re-arraning my work/client schedule (im self employed), removal vans, deliverys of applicances, telephone cut off etc. Now sitting with no broadband or sky :mad: for another week because of this idiot and lost a further days payment for work.

He obvioulsty wasnt too bothered as hes not coming back to uk for a month and thought it didnt matter about delays as hes not around to suffer.

I cant see why solicitors that do this work every day all year cant get it right 100% of the time they must know that people arnt up to speed with moving as they rarely do it and SHOULD step people through the process to ensure they do everything on time.

To put into contrast on the same day this all blew up, i manage to call my solictor ask for their account details, then call First Direct and ask "how do i transfer £15k from my account to my solictor in the quickest amount of time im exchanging on a house purchase/sell"

30 seconds conversation...CHAPs £21 etc whats the account to trasfer too
DONE.

If it was less than £10k it would have been free as they use the "fast pay" system now.

Which mystifys me why his bank RBS wernt using as the solicitor he was sending to was RBS too and he was sending £10 chunks.....weird they shoud all come through in 24 hours or less so at least all the money up till thursday would have been in by today and be could have cancelled the remaing....

anyway rant over....Exchanged yesterday with a smaller deposist just to get that stage done with completion of Friday 11th July.

"fingers crossed" :rolleyes:


Good Luck all completing today!

notisis

we find even when explaining in words of one syllable, one step at a time, explaining the urgency of the situation etc etc our clients still don't seem to take it all in. This is despite clear English letters, several phone calls and often a trip into the office by the client, again explaining that no you will need to go back to your bank and get a draft or chaps payment, that no if you want to complete tomorrow a cheque won't do as it takes a while to clear etc etc. (and yes we do have our own chaps terminal)

Let's face it not everyone is, how should I put it, that "bright"!!

LCK73

Careful, what you might take for granted as you deal with it all the time, your average person might take time to understand given they don't buy and sell houses everyday. Harsh words I think and a 'bright' solicitor would be able to spot those that need a bit more hand holding through the process and modify their approach accordingly. That's my view but maybe I'm being too generous in my view on how to treat clients and give them good customer service.

bubblesmoney

thanks for many view points that help FTBs. i am a FTB but didnt know about CHAPS etc as have never used them. also i dint know about the 10k limit on online transfers than many banks supposedly have as limit on amount of transactions per day.

it was just ignorance on my part and the reason was not that i was 'not bright'. more over my spouse works in a bank and my spouse just assumed i knew about these limits and chaps transfers etc and didnt mention these things to me. just because my spouse works in banks and deals with the chaps transfers etc every day and also with irate FTBs who have goofed up with their money transfer, more over my spouse did say it is taken for granted that when they see some one really stressed and shouting at everyone to clear the mess of the transfer of money, they know it is a FTB who has goofed up on the transfer. so it is very common for FTBs to goofup on this issue because they simply dont know how to go about things and are stressed so that doesnt help matters. everyone who does these sort of transfer regularly knows about these things. while the rest of us mortals who have never done these things or never heard about these things (till i read it in this thread now), hence the reason for the goof ups.

solicitors and EAs on completion of deals with FTBs should always make a checklist of things to do and for FTBs repeatedly mentioning how money transfers etc should be done should compulsorily be on the check list. and they should explain what a CHAPs transfer ortherwise they might goofup. mortgage issuing banks should also mention these things. these checklists should be used at every step of the buying and selling process and will reduce goofups. these sort of check lists are already used in the aircraft industry and operating theatres in hospitals and help in eliminating errors. frequently just handing out info doesnt help, herein lies the usefulness of these checklists as they factor in the human error element and helps in detecting these things at an early stage so that remedial action is taken fast.

all too often we see that people who do these things regularly frequently assume that FTBs will be up to speed with things and do not explain things explicitly. even if they did explain, they should repeat things a couple of times just to make sure things have sunk in to these FTBs. customer service is what 'actually' helps these FTBs and not what you think is enough.

have a nice day