Solicitor going on holiday week before completion, leaving us waiting!

weenock

I've now read through everything that we have had from the solicitor including the "Terms and Conditions of Business" and found the following;

(edited for names of course)

"People responsible for your work

The solicitor/person responsible for dealing with your work will be Mr X who is a partner of the firm, whose charge rates are set out below. The secretary who may be able to deal with your queries and who will be pleased to take any message for your is Mrs Y. We will try to avoid changing the people who handle your work but if this cannot be avoided, we will tell you promptly of any change and why it may be neccessary.

The partners of this firm with final responsibility for work done in this department are Mr A, Mr B or Mr C. The Senior partners is Mr D"

Now i received a letter the week before last, dated 12th October (Tuesday) stating the following;

"We have received draft contract documentation. Our searches are already in hand. We enclose a copy of the fixtures and fittings list for your information.

We have raised a number of enquiries and will refer to you further in due course."

Then this week just passed i received the following on Tuesday i think, dated 16th October (Monday).

"We have received mortgage instructions from The Mortgage Business.

We have the result of our environmental search. We are currently waiting for the results of the drainage/water search and local authority search."

The final letter that i received on Friday, dated 19th October (Thursday) is as follows;

"Thank you for your fax (it wasn't lol it was an email). It is Possible that the documentation could be ready for signing next week, but the writer will be away for the week.

We are waiting for the result of out local search only. Apart from this we are ready to proceed.

We note from your two emails the trust deed position, which obviously the writer needs to deal with, with you personally.

We are currently preparing a financial statement setting out all the monies that need to be sent to us, to avoid double telegraphic transfer fee charges.

Our bankers details are set out on the financial statement.

We need to consider what arrangements you are making in respect of buildings insurance as it is your responsibility to insure the property from exchange of contracts.

Whilst we await the search, it might be just as well if you arrange the telegraphics transfer of the funds, which should take not more than twenty-four hours.

We also notice that the mortgage offer is in the names of Mr F and Mr F. This is surely wrong and TMB will probably need to amend the offer and issue a new one."

Now reading through this again with a clearer mind it makes me think that things can progress this week even though the solicitor is away - at least as soon as the results of the local search and the transfer of funds.

I'm not sure how long it will take to draw down the mortgage funds from The Mortgage Business, but that's an unavoidable delay anyhow.

Slightly confused by the reference to the mortgage being in the names of Mr F and Mr F (me and my brother) and not also in the name Mr G (our friend with whom we are buying the house) since the whole point of getting the Trust Deed is that there are three people contributing £20K each towards buying a house each of whom will be equally responsible for the mortgage payments - but the reason that Mr G isn't on the mortgage application is that he hasn't been resident in the UK for long enough to be on our TMB Self Certified mortgage application. The solicitor has been made aware of this - it is in fact the sole reason for bothering to get a Trust Deed.

I have noticed that on the first letter we received from the solicitors it does state that

"we normally advise a minimum of ten working days between exchange of contracts and completion to enable the neccessary paperwork and searches to be completed and in order to be able to obtain cleared funds from your lender"

- at the end of the day i am simpy trying to ensure that things move as quickly as realistically possible and aren't held up by unneccessary waiting or holidays

There wouldn't be any point in ringin up, asking for explanations of the delay only to find that there is a fall back to saying "well we told you 10 days".

Sorry for the long post, i do like to be thorough. Any advice for my next move on Monday would be much appreciated :rolleyes:

Mrs_pbradley936

I think you are mixing up the terms exchange and completion. The exchange is when you agree to buy the place and cannot back out without financial penalty you only pay a deposit usually 10%. Completion is when you get the keys and can move in, it is also the day all your money must be paid by. Your paperwork says they like ten days but many people have 28 so that they can arrange for a removal van, change all the utilities, organize time off work etc. It is possible to exchange and complete on the same day but it is not usual.

Mrs_pbradley936

It your first post you said:-

“…We end up finding out that because the friend is a French national and has only been in the UK since January that we will have to put myself and my brother on the self certified mortgage, and then get a Deed of Trust between the three of us. We are all going in with a 25% deposit split three ways, will be covering 1/3 of the fees each, and will be liable for 1/3 of the mortgage every month…”


Then later on you said:-

“Slightly confused by the reference to the mortgage being in the names of Mr F and Mr F (me and my brother) and not also in the name Mr G (our friend with whom we are buying the house) since the whole point of getting the Trust Deed is that there are three people contributing £20K each towards buying a house each of whom will be equally responsible for the mortgage payments - but the reason that Mr G isn't on the mortgage application is that he hasn't been resident in the UK for long enough to be on our TMB Self Certified mortgage application. The solicitor has been made aware of this - it is in fact the sole reason for bothering to get a Trust Deed.”


Your solicitor is simply clarifying the situation, they write obvious things which you have already told them for the very reason that you either say “Yes that’s all clear, just what we want” or alternatively “No, no, that is totally wrong” in which case you are on the phone and putting them straight.

weenock

The most recent letter said

"We also notice that the mortgage offer is in the names of Mr F and Mr F. This is surely wrong and TMB will probably need to amend the offer and issue a new one"

now the mortgage isn't wrong - it's correct as it is in the names of me and my brother as it is supposed to be; our friend cannot be on the mortgage with TMB as he has not been resident for long enough.

That's the point of us having the trust deed as advised by the solicitor - as i understand it it is a separate arrangement which forms an agreement between us that we each own 1/3 of the property and are liable for 1/3 of the costs involved..

I don't see why the solicitor is clarifying the situation by stating that something is wrong which isn't

weenock

:T phew! I've just been on the phone to somebody else at the solicitors just now and yes it's no problem, one of the other partners can deal with it

I have no idea what my allocated solicitor was thinking - it's not a case of me misunderstanding him, he clearly told me that nobody else could deal with it in his absence and were it not for him going away we could likely meet the completion date.

AS it was Sat 28th wouldnt have been a Monday completion unless by some miracle we could have made the 27th.

I've now got to go and sortout tranferring £21K into the solicitors account, and they are going to call me back to let me know if or when another partner could see me later in the week.

Our lender is TMB The Mortgage Business, and that should take 5days to draw down the money as far as i know, but if we can get an appointment as early as tomorrow or Wednesday then there is no reason we won't be in by the end of next week :beer:

Nearly forgot to mention, this morning the results of the local search came in and there are no problems.

Still pretty disappointed at the complete confusion caused by our allocated solicitor which has been entirely unavaoidable - it's only through my talking to a bunch of people on the internet that i knew for sure to pressure and see what other avenues we could take.

As it turned out no pressure was needed - i simply asked if anyone else could deal with it and was told not a problem.

Debt_Free_Chick

weenock wrote:

Our lender is TMB The Mortgage Business, and that should take 5days to draw down the money as far as i know, but if we can get an appointment as early as tomorrow or Wednesday then there is no reason we won't be in by the end of next week :beer:

Five days is one week i.e. Mon-Fri so you would be lucky to get the money in by Friday. However, bank transfers often happen within 3 days (but no guarantee) or within hours if you're prepared to pay £20-£30 for a CHAPS transfer.

HTH

weenock

To speed things up a bit we were going to pay the CHAPS transfer fees. I should have clarified about the end of next week - Today is monday (i hope ) and by the end of next week i mean a week from this friday coming ie. the 3rd November. That would give more than the 5days needed if we can exchange before the end of this week (27th)

weenock

I've now got an appointment with the Solicitors for Tuesday 31st October to sign documents / exchange.

It was a difficult phonecall to an assistant at the firm to actually get any answers or pin down an appointment. It feel like every time i talk to them i need to have a question, know what the two or three possible answers are, run through every one, and then i will get advice on the choices. If i don't already know the choices then whatever was already going to be done continues. This could be booking appointments, talking about transferring the money, or working out exchange or completion dates.

I have to talk to the lender TMB in the morning to check something as i can ask a question, be given an answer, find out from my own reasearch that there are other options, then go back to the solicitor and ask if instead of option A can i take option B, and then i get told yes.

Are all solicitors like this?

I'm actually in now major rush to get in - could be next week, the week after - any of them are good for me, but the vendor wanted a quick sale, and i know she is supposed to be moving into somewhere rented that is being held for her until the end of the month.

Now i have a query for the experts here;

Cleared funds of nearly £60k will be with the solicitors by close of business on friday, worst way close of business Monday. We have a 1 hour appointment booked at 9:30am on Tuesday morning. We are going to pay the £30 transfer fee to TMB who told me that cleared funds would be with the solicitors that day so long as we request it before 2pm.

After that lengthy intro - is it possible for us to exchange and complete on Tuesday 31st?

Can we instruct TMB to draw down the funds on monday, so that Tuesday morning when we have the meeting the money will be ready to use to complete? Or does the solicitor need to instruct TMB himself - in which case since we can't see him till Tuesday morning will that have to wait till then?

We aren't going to be in the position of having a moving van full of furniture, and the vendor is also going to be out of the house already. For me it's a 5-10minute drive to get the keys.

If it's possible to sign whatever we need to sign, exchange contracts on Tuesday morning, instruct TMB to transfer funds to the solicitors, then the solicitors to transfer funds to the vendors solicitor so we can complete all on the same day then i want to push to get that done as it suits me a little and suits the vendor a lot.

I really don't want to push them for something which is not possible, but i know that if i ask my own solicitor i won't get a straight answer, and even if i am lucky enough to get what appears to be a straight answer history has shown that it will probably be wrong and be what suits the firm at the time

silvercar

You normally have your solicitor's meeting where they explain x,y & z to you and you sign the contract ready to exchange. The actual formal exchange doesn't take place then but later. A series of phone calls is made up and down the chain.

You may be being a little premature in thinking that you can exchange on Tuesday. Also have TMB said how much notice they require to release the funds? Some lenders require more notice than others.

Debt_Free_Chick

weenock wrote:

After that lengthy intro - is it possible for us to exchange and complete on Tuesday 31st?

Depends on all others in the chain

Can we instruct TMB to draw down the funds on monday, so that Tuesday morning when we have the meeting the money will be ready to use to complete? Or does the solicitor need to instruct TMB himself - in which case since we can't see him till Tuesday morning will that have to wait till then?

You don't hand over any money until you exchange and then it's just the deposit. Your solicitor will call the mortgage money from the lender on the completion date. The money is paid by CHAPS so the transfer happens within hours.

Once you sign the contract on Tuesday, you step away and let your solicitor handle everything - keeping you informed, of course.

I assume you know that this is not "a done deal" until you've exchanged. And even then, although it's not common, problems can still occur up to completion. I don't want to alarm you, but you should be aware of the position and the fact that it can still go t!ts up :eek:

Fingers crossed that it all runs smoothly for you.