Direct contact with buyer/seller's solicitors

paulisarobot

Hi all,

I'm aware that I'm not supposed to make contact with my buyer or sellers solicitors.

What I'm wondering is if I send an email to them would they be likely to open this and read it or if would be trashed on sight???

googler

What relationship do you have to the buying/selling transaction(s)?

paulisarobot

This is regarding the sale of my property and the purchase of another property and the contact I'm talking about is with the legal team representing the buyer of my property and the legal team representing the seller of the property I'm buying.

Is that what you were asking?

firstaspect

I'm sure they would read it but it would be probably unwise not going through your own solicitor.

paulisarobot

It's a bit of a last resort really.

Process has been ongoing for 5 months and my mortgage offer expires very soon, as much as I emphasise this to my solicitors I can't seem to get them to chase the others for responses on things which still need to be resolved and time is slipping away.

Typically every question that gets asked takes a week to be responded too, similarly any request for action of any sort takes a week to actually be actioned.

Email is a bit of a plea to everyone to respond to things with haste due to this deadline I'm faced with as I'm still not convinced that my solicitor has advised the others of this.

PANIC!!!!

loubel

They might read it but they wouldn't respond to it as all correspondence should go through your solicitors or the estate agents depending on the type of query.

ETA - sorry, you posted at the time time as me. Your best bet is to speak with your solicitors in that case and remind them that your offer is near to expiring - might also be worth a chat now with your broker to find out whether it will be extended.

G_M

Why not ring the buyer and seller and tell them there is a deadline and ask them to chivvy up their solicitors to avoid the whole chain collapsing?

paulisarobot

Thanks for responses everyone.

I have asked the estate agents to get involved in chasing both legal parties, I haven't clicked send on the email to the other solicitors but still considering doing so, I just want them to be aware of my predicament.

Loubel - this is an option but I'm quite uncomfortable doing it just yet. The lender advised that the application would need to be re-assessed by the underwriter and that their decision could actually affect the offer which is already in place!! While my circumstances haven't changed, the underwriter of the initial app did require me to raise an additional few thousand pounds and I'm terrified incase the offer I currently have gets changed.

G_M - Due to the length of time this has been going on the relationships aren't great. Seller has threatened to pull out numerous times and I'm worried that letting them know about my mortgage expiry might cause them to pull the plug.

loubel

In that case I'd also tell the estate agent that you need to complete before your offer expires and hopefully he can nudge people along for you.

DVardysShadow

paulisarobot wrote: »

It's a bit of a last resort really.

Process has been ongoing for 5 months and my mortgage offer expires very soon, as much as I emphasise this to my solicitors I can't seem to get them to chase the others for responses on things which still need to be resolved and time is slipping away.

Typically every question that gets asked takes a week to be responded too, similarly any request for action of any sort takes a week to actually be actioned.

Email is a bit of a plea to everyone to respond to things with haste due to this deadline I'm faced with as I'm still not convinced that my solicitor has advised the others of this.

PANIC!!!!

paulisarobot wrote: »

Thanks for responses everyone.

I have asked the estate agents to get involved in chasing both legal parties, I haven't clicked send on the email to the other solicitors but still considering doing so, I just want them to be aware of my predicament.

It really is not appropriate to involve other parties solicitors in this.

You do need to involve your Agent and the Agent for the house you are buying.

Solicitors are not employed to negotiate, they are employed to implement what has been negotiated. At the same time, they should not mess about with responses, just get on with it. Let the appropriate Agent deal with any solicitor other than your own.

rosyw

If you are in regular contact with your buyer and the seller of the property you wish to buy, why not just give each a call, if you know what the remaining enquiries are you may well find they will be able to give the required info to their solicitors and also ask them to speed things up, I had a call from my buyers yesterday wanting the answer to one last query from their solicitor, could give them the info required immediately, which has saved at least a week had their solicitor written to mine etc., and have also been able to sort out a couple of niggles with the property I'm buying in the same way, it saves an awful lot of time and keeps everyone happy as we all know what's going on.