exchange of contracts and deposit

aqueoushumour01

:)Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can answer a question I have.

FTB - if I need to exchange on Wednesday, say, and I transfer my 10% deposit on wednesday morning guaranteed to arrive at my solicitor's account by 5pm that day - can exchange take place if the money arrives at 4pm, 4:30pm, 5pm...? ie is there a cut off point beyond which exchange cannot take place? (can we assume for the purposes of this question that it is not possible to send the monies any earlier than wednesday .)

Presumably, before the buyer's solicitor exchanges, they will 1) need to see the funds in the account, and then 2) remit the funds to the seller's solicitor. At 5pm, presumably this will not be possible? Or is it sufficient to see receipt of the deposit that day to exchange, and then send it the following day to the seller's solicitor?

G_M

Exchange is done by solicitors on the phone. They all (all involved in the chain) speak to each other to say they are ready, then agree to exchange.
If your solicitor has not got the required funds, he will not be able to say he's ready. Leaving it till 4 or 5PM makes it unlikely that it will happen that day. remember it's not just you and your vendor exchanging - there may be a chain with 5, 8, 12 + solicitors involved.

By the time your solicitor has checked your money's arrived, and rung the next one to say "OK - I'm ready", and he's rung the next one to say "I'm ready", the one at the top of the chain will have gone to the pub for the evening!

Get your money there the day before.

Seanymph

I lost a purchase because my money came through too late once.

Richard_Webster

Once your solicitor has the money he can exchange. He doesn't have to transfer it to the other solicitor that day. If there is long enough for cheques to clear he will send a client account cheque the next day.

If the time is short and the cheque won't clear in time he "holds the deposit to the seller's solicitor's order" so that the full amount is actually physically paid on completion. If something goes wrong the seller's solicitor can require the money to be forwarded to him and the buyer has not say in the matter.

aqueoushumour01

thanks. and in terms of completion - if the mortgage company sends funds on the completion day can it be assured it will get to the seller's solicitors that day? Presumably they send it to my solicitor first? Or do they pay directly to the seller's solicitor? Is it better to organise mortgage funds to be transferred the day before completion day?

Richard_Webster

thanks. and in terms of completion - if the mortgage company sends funds on the completion day can it be assured it will get to the seller's solicitors that day? Presumably they send it to my solicitor first? Or do they pay directly to the seller's solicitor? Is it better to organise mortgage funds to be transferred the day before completion day?

Your solicitors will organise the funds to come to them from the lender and they will be very stupid if they tell the lender they want them on the day of completion because they might not arrive until after the cut off time for completion. Most sensible solicitors ask for the money to arrive the day before.

Yorkie1

My solicitor insisted that my funds were cleared in the solicitors' client account (and also the mortgage, I think, for completion) by a certain time the day before exchange / completion, for reasons given by Richard.