Selling Without a Solicitor

sluice

We are selling our second house. Our solicitor has been closed down and we want to continue selling the house ourselves. Most of the information has already been passed to the buyers solicitor, so we see no reason why we shouldn't be able to finish it off ourselves. The buyers solicitor is saying that we must use a solicitor otherwise he will charge double the price to the buyers, who will pass on the extra cost to us. He was very snooty and dismissive of my wife (who owns the property) and needs taking down a peg or two. How should we deal with this?

Cannon_Fodder

You chose to appoint a solicitor in the first place. For his expertise. Because you couldn't do it yourself ?

How, without that expertise, will you tell how much "most of the information" is..? 60%, 75%, 95% ?

Or what the final stages of paperwork are, and what to do with them ?

The other solicitor knows that he would have to wet-nurse two amateurs through a process they do not understand.

Why should he do that for no fee ? Until he looks at the papers, he doesn't know what the other guy did or didn't do. As he would be professionally liable, he would want to check everything from scratch "just in case", which is effectively doing the whole job.

Would you be able to sue yourselves, if you got something wrong ?

The Law Society should pass the closing company's papers to another firm. Concentrate on finding that out, get them on the case, and keep it moving along, competently.

sluice

After further research, all the forms have been passed over - the buyers solicitor has admiited this. He just has a few questions to ask, he says, but is not prepared to ask us. We will have to be asked anyway. We are happy to provide proof of identity to him, although he has received it already with the paperwork from the now defunct conveyancer. BTW, the only reason we didn't do the sale ourselves was for the convenience factor - we have done it before, albeit several years ago.

Richard_Webster

Are you prepared to go the buyer's solicitors office for completion. He won't want to hand over any money until he has the documents signed by you.

Do you have a mortgage to pay off? If so the buyer' solicitor is going to want to make sure that the mortgage is discharged and he is not going to accept an undertaking form you to do this. A solicitor would need to be involved to act for the lender to receive the money and give the undertaking.

G_M

If you have a mortgage you will have to use your savings, or a bridging loan, to pay it off before you receive the Completion money, as Richard says.if no mortgage, you should be able to do the conveyancing yourself if you know what you are doing.

If the buyer's solicitor chooses to double his charge that is a matter for the buyer, not you. i have acted for myself on sales, and purchases, several times. Solicitors can be reluctant to accept this but in the end have to act according to their client's instructions: ie buy the house!

Bananamana

If you have a mortgage you will need to appoint a solicitor- it may not cost that much if the file is progressed as you say.

I would add to what is said above that if your last solicitor was intervened you may be able to re-coup some of the cost from the SRA.

See http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/solicitor-owes-money/claiming-compensation.page and the claim form is there.

Richard_Webster

If the buyer's solicitor chooses to double his charge that is a matter for the buyer, not you. i have acted for myself on sales, and purchases, several times. Solicitors can be reluctant to accept this but in the end have to act according to their client's instructions: ie buy the house!

If the seller was the other end of the country and was acting for himself and refused to come to the buyer's solicitors office in order to exchange contracts and again to complete the solicitor would either have to travel to the seller (at great hourly cost out of the office) or instruct a more local solicitor to act as his agent to visit the seller.

This is necessary because a solicitor cannot accept undertakings given by a non-qualified person. If he did and something went wrong then his buyer client would quite reasonably complain!

Either way it would cost the buyer more - so if I was acting for a buyer who had a lay seller I would insist the lay seller came to my office - otherwise I would tell my client to negotiate a price reduction to cover the extra charges that I would have to make.