Reclaiming Interest from Deposit

Jay1b

Could someone please tell me whether you claim back the interest earnt from ones money whilst its being held at the solicitors? If so, are there any limits on it etc?

Thanks.

Mrs_Optimist

Jay 1b - I work for a Solicitors firm and yes you are entitled to any interest accrued on your money held in client account - there is no limit - the interest is yours. You are resonsible for informing the TAX man of the interest earned though, in the event you have to pay tax on it.

Hope this helps.

Tassotti

Interesting one this.

What interest rate can you claim for it?

OP may have it in a savings acoount at 4.75%

May have had it in a child;s savings account at 10%

Could have invested in stock market and earned ?%

How does that work

Woby_Tide

"We invested your deposit on the stock market to try and get you the best return but we picked a duffer. You owe us £200 plus broker fees."

I'm still not overly convinced on this argument. The solicitors doing a job for you, they aren't bothered about earning interest on your behalf just needing a transient store for cash that can be moved in and out to complete purchases. Business account rates are hardly going to be spectacular anyway(plus they could argue if they bank with Cahoot for example that by holding your deposit they have gone over one of the rate limits and therefore receive reduced interest rates, could they claim the loss of interest back from you?). If you are worried about the loss of interest from your savings acocunts or childs savings then get a balance transfer credit card or something. Unless they hold the deposit for months on end it's a bit of a waste of effort IMO. if I thought it would be sizeable I'd chase admittedly, but that's unlikely

Tassotti

Do agree on a 'regular purchae'

What if the deposit was 1/2 million pounds?

Robert_Sterling

You might actually have a contract which says that you pay 10% of the price of the property at the time of exchange of contracts and the rest at the time of completion.

Mrs_Optimist

The Solicitors accounts rules specify that any interest earned on client money whilst held in a firm's office account does accrue interest which belongs to the client. The Law Society are very very strict about that, I have heard of a firm that was closed down because of irregularities in client accounts, including "borrowing" money that belonged to a client and also not holding interest. I can't speak for all firms but our client account interest accrues pretty quickly.

david29dpo

i am fairly sure you only get the interest if if has been in the solicitors account for more than a few days. my parter used to work at a average size practice and the money they made in one year on clients money was £70000!!!

RiskAdverse100

The attached link gives details of when solicitors have to account to clients for interest earned on monies held. The relevant page is 33.

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/documents/downloads/Profethics_SAR.pdf

RiskAdverse100

Bossyboots

Well done Risk Adverse. I tried to do that link last night but we are having horrendous internet problems at home at the moment and it bombed out again mid post. Gave up and went to bed after that.

Jay1b

Thanks.......