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

Imelda

Hope it all works out for you, it can be stressful can't it!

My solicitor went on maternity leave THE DAY I WAS MEANT TO COMPLETE, no one told me, I phoned them at 11am to check everything was going to plan (I had got the mortgage co to draw down funds a day earlier as I had heard this could cause delays) and the chap on the phone hadn't even heard of me. I completed at 3.30pm. Good job I wasn't in a chain really or I don't think anyone further up it would have moved that day.

weenock

Thanks for the replies. I am fully aware that things can go pear shaped even at the last minute, but it does seem to me that i have been getting better advice from this site and google than from my solicitors office!

The chain is very short - it is simply us, and the vendor. She has all but moved out of her house and is actually living with her partner in his house, but will be renting a new house as soon as we complete. She has found a perfect place which is the right size - main issue was other houses were too small but would do if she had to take them.

We are first time buyers, TMB have told me that if the money is requested before 2pm with no notice that it will be with us by the end of the day - for a £30/35 fee (the booklet we were sent says £30 but the girl on the phone said £35 - i'll pay double that if it means sorting it all out quickly.

The cleared funds in total of £52,500 plus all solicitors fees, stamp duty, and all the fees for searches will be in place by the end of the week.

After we sign i will be stepping back and leaving it with the solicitor, but based upon my experience so far it seems i need to tell him exactly what to do and how (which method, how to get me, etc.) to ensure that is the way it gets done. This is the same chap who told me that it was not possible for anyone else at the firm to deal with it in his absence - not that they were too busy which has turned out to be the case, but that it wasn't possible. Also the same person who told me that it takes 5 days to draw down the money from the lender, when in fact it's 3-5days and we have the option of a CHAPS transfer - now if you were a solicitor and knew that your clients were happy to pay, and very keen to move things along swiftly wouldn't you think it was obvious to make sure that you discussed standard money transfers and same day money transfers? That's the way it seems obvious to me, but it feels like i need to do all the leg work.

I'm actually very calm about all this, but my infuriation level rises rapidly when i find out i wasn't told something, or what i was told was wrong or downright misleading.

Am going to call TMB now to make my own enquiries about the exchange and money transfer - although we can't be fitted in on monday for the 1hour we've booked for tuesday i'm going to ask if they can make time to arrange the transfer from TMB on Monday - unless of course some clever soul on here know that it isn't possible until we've spent the hour signing documents.

Thanks for all you help again.

Debt_Free_Chick

weenock wrote:

Also the same person who told me that it takes 5 days to draw down the money from the lender, when in fact it's 3-5days and we have the option of a CHAPS transfer - now if you were a solicitor and knew that your clients were happy to pay, and very keen to move things along swiftly wouldn't you think it was obvious to make sure that you discussed standard money transfers and same day money transfers?

In an ideal world, no decent solicitor would leave it until the last minute to request money from the lender. They like to "line the lender up" and give them notice that the money will be needed on a specific day (completion).

Lenders always transfer by CHAPS on the day of completion. If they transfer before then, you end up paying interest on a mortgage for a property that you don't actually own.

Your solicitor is not spelling out all the detail of the process. Perhaps he thinks you don't need to know and/or you can do without "too much information" when you already have enough to be getting on with, at a stressful time.

I don't think you should be too suspicious of your solicitor. The comment about no-one being able to progress the sale in his absence is odd, but that's been sorted. You will go stir-crazy if you try to check up on every move that your solicitor makes or every word he says. Yes, be aware of what should be happening and when, but none of us work particularly well with someone else peering over our shoulder, scrutinising our every move :rolleyes:

Good luck

loveandlight

In an ideal world, no decent solicitor would leave it until the last minute to request money from the lender. They like to "line the lender up" and give them notice that the money will be needed on a specific day (completion).

Lenders always transfer by CHAPS on the day of completion. If they transfer before then, you end up paying interest on a mortgage for a property that you don't actually own.

Your solicitor is not spelling out all the detail of the process. Perhaps he thinks you don't need to know and/or you can do without "too much information" when you already have enough to be getting on with, at a stressful time.

I don't think you should be too suspicious of your solicitor. The comment about no-one being able to progress the sale in his absence is odd, but that's been sorted. You will go stir-crazy if you try to check up on every move that your solicitor makes or every word he says. Yes, be aware of what should be happening and when, but none of us work particularly well with someone else peering over our shoulder, scrutinising our every move

Good luck

I agree. Couldn't have put it better myself!

weenock

It's good to hear a 3rd party perspective on this. Although i really am not peering over the shoulder of the solicitor. In the last 7 weeks we have only met in person once, and spoken on the phone a few times. I have been chasin certain issues up in the last few working days as we were told a whole bunch of things that were wrong. Bearing in mind that the completion date to aim for has been set for nearly 2 months i think it's not unreasonable to be kept aware of things that will influence the sale; holidays and methods of transferring the money being two that are fairly high up on my list of priorities.

In a very nimble house purchase situation of first time buyers with cash ready and a mortgage fully organised, and a seller who is effectively already out of the house there is no reason i can think of that can hold things up - certainly nothing that i shouldn't be made aware of by the solicitor.

I've now spoken on the phone with The Mortgage Business and they said that i should instruct the secretary at the solicitors to ring them, quote their Panel Number, and request a Redemption Statement, or an Amount Owing letter to be faxed over. According to TMB this will enable us to CHAPS transfer the funds as soon as possible on Tuesday morning without having to be delayed on the day waiting for forms.

Now i have made my own enquiries and found this out myself - isn't this the kind of thing that a solicitor is paid to do? To present me with options and then advise me which route to take depending on my requirements. If we were in no rush to move in because we had to book a removal van for the end of the week, or next week - then rushing to exchange and complete asap would not make any difference. Since we are ready to drive round, pickup the keys and have a cup of tea, and enable the seller to get into her new rented place i'd have thought it made sense for the solicitor to advise me whichever way would be quickest, but make me aware that it may cost a little more.

I have to do this in my job as an IT Consultant - it would be silly if my clients came to me, paid me to tell them what to do and how to do it, then presented me with the options to get the job done and i said "ok then lets do it that way".

Maybe i have the wrong end of the stick - but as i sit with the options in front of me i have no faith that if i turn up on Tuesday morning expecting this request redemption statement information to be there that it actually will.

Note that i am not implying that all solicitors are this way - maybe i've just ended up unlucky?

I'm certainly not going stir crazy chasing up the solicitors - i spoke to them on Monday morning for 10-20minutes, and then yesterday for the same time, and have been on the phone with the lenders customer service line for about 10minutes in total. I'm currently waiting to hear back from the seller about the results of her chat with her solicitor, at which point i will ring the solicitors to confirm what TMB told me a little while ago.

BTW - thanks for the well wishes. The whole situation really isn't that stressful, but it's nice to have positive comments and helpful advice

weenock

Latest update from the Solicitors yesterday, who told me that all the funds had cleared into their account

Mr White

They advised that if we telephoned before 10.00 a.m. it gives them time to transfer the funds into our account within 2-3 hours. We have to allow time for the money to come into our account and then we transfer it to Francis’ Solicitors. The latest time that we can send monies from our account is 3.45 p.m. I will copy this email to

Mr Pink so that he is fully aware of the situation on his return.

Regards

Xxxxx Xxxxxx
Xxx Solicitors

Now this is of course no promise or guarantee, but as i had been told elsewhere it should be perfectly possible for things to exchange and complete on the same day, allowing for draw down of the lenders funds by CHAPS, then a further CHAPs transfer to the sellers solicitors - assuming no cockups along the way that are out of the hands of the solicitors anyway.

Getting there was like getting blood out of a stone, but - got there in the end!

Fingers crossed for Tuesday now - i'm going to ring the seller and let her know. Got to find a decent bunch of flowers for Tuesday now.

Suddenly i'm like a kid at Xmas again