Is my money in no-man's land?

HES_2

I have sold my flat and have just been informed by the lawyer that , though the purchaser's cheque is guaranteed, the money will not clear in the lawyer's account for 5 days. They will then post me a cheque (an electronic transfer will cost £75) which I will have to deposit in my account. Since I don't have an account in the same bank as the cheque is drawn from it will take several days for the funds to be in my account. I calculate that from the day of sale until the funds are in my account will be 7 - 8 days. This is a loss of interest to me on an not inconsiderable sum. Do I have any redress?

m1ntie

You can pay a fee to your bank and have the cheque "specially presented", which speeds up the clearance. It depends how much the cheque is for and how much the additional fee is.

chewmylegoff

HES wrote: »

I have sold my flat and have just been informed by the lawyer that , though the purchaser's cheque is guaranteed, the money will not clear in the lawyer's account for 5 days. They will then post me a cheque (an electronic transfer will cost £75) which I will have to deposit in my account. Since I don't have an account in the same bank as the cheque is drawn from it will take several days for the funds to be in my account. I calculate that from the day of sale until the funds are in my account will be 7 - 8 days. This is a loss of interest to me on an not inconsiderable sum. Do I have any redress?

£75 sounds a bit steep for a CHAPs charge - the bank only charges £35 for CHAPs payments if I recall correctly, so the solicitor is slapping a £40 mark up on this (since it wouldn't take them much more effort than writing a cheque and posting it to you this £40 extra seems a bit over the top).

Also - surely they have to complete with cleared funds? When I sold the completion proceeds were wired to my solicitor on the day of completion and in my account that afternoon. I paid either £35 or £40 to my solicitor for the CHAPS payment.

basically sounds like they are being rubbish and slow in order to make you pay the £75 charge?

HES_2

m1ntie,
Thanks for response.
The bank is charging £25 and the solicitor £50. So Is it reasonable for me to expect my funds sooner?

Richard_Webster

£75 sounds a bit steep for a CHAPs charge - the bank only charges £35 for CHAPs payments if I recall correctly, so the solicitor is slapping a £40 mark up on this (since it wouldn't take them much more effort than writing a cheque and posting it to you this £40 extra seems a bit over the top).

Also - surely they have to complete with cleared funds? When I sold the completion proceeds were wired to my solicitor on the day of completion and in my account that afternoon. I paid either £35 or £40 to my solicitor for the CHAPS payment.

basically sounds like they are being rubbish and slow in order to make you pay the £75 charge?

I agree - certainly in England/Wales we wouldn't complete with a cheque unless perhaps it was for a thousand for a piece of garden land or something like that - so I don't get the wait 5 days for cleared funds bit. Need to read your solicitor's T&Cs as to how money is to be sent to you following completion. £75 certinaly seems over the top for a normal CHAPs transfer.

I charge £30 + VAT for doing the electronic transfer - that' s part charge by my bank and part staff time entering on computer and doing security stuff. I normally send funds out by cheque on the day of completion. If the client wants a same day transfer, provided we get the money early enough to turn round and I get notice from the client of this before I've done my accounts on the day of completion, that's OK. If they ring at 2pm on completion day and say they want a CHAPs transfer when we've done the letters, written the cheques and all the accounts and VAT invoices have gone through my accounts system I charge more for unscrambling it all at the last minute and then doing the electronic transfer!

bazzais

You could have probably earnt more in the time it takes to follow this thread. Why are you worried?

And if it is substantially more, why are you worried as you must be so loaded?

Gee man why sress about the interest on anything for that amount of time? Yes its unfair but thats just part of the crap of life isnt it?

Captain_Mainwaring_2

bazzais wrote: »

You could have probably earnt more in the time it takes to follow this thread. Why are you worried?

And if it is substantially more, why are you worried as you must be so loaded?

Gee man why sress about the interest on anything for that amount of time? Yes its unfair but thats just part of the crap of life isnt it?

Wow, Gee, Wow.....

Actually I just transfered GBP 225K to the IOM from ICESave, before they would allow two linked accounts, now they have changed their rules on this point. All transfers had to be made to the linked account, by the time I received the incoming payment and then transfered out again, there was a loss of interest around GBP300.

Tell you what basil, since you have so much dough that you can afford to be blase about it, get in contact with me by PM, and I'll give you my IOM account number and sort code and you can make up the difference, how about that??

To the OP, i'd suggest to the lawyer that he thinks again about his game to win a bit of interest.

neverdespairgirl, there are some posts that you really don't have to thank, the one above was one of those.