Solicitor withholding proceeds of sale

Jamminella

Hi,
This is my first post on here after lurking for a while - hope someone is able to help...
In brief, it's taken well over a year to sell my flat. Then I was unfortunate enough to choose the slowest solicitor in the world - from my accepting the offer until completion it's taken nearly 6 months (the buyer is a 1st time buyer, there's no chain, so should have taken a lot less) . We've finally come to completion today and the solicitor is now delaying transferring the proceeds of the sale into my account, saying that he's waiting for confirmation from the mortgage company that the mortgage has been paid off in full. He said this will take around 3-4 days. I really don't want to wait any longer, I'm absolutely sick of him and all the unnecessary delays. I phoned the mortgage company myself and they said he hasn't even requested the redemption statement. I have now requested for it to sent to him, however it will take approx 3 days. Does he have a right to withhold the funds?
Any help greatly appreciated!
thanks

G_M

Yes. He has a legal duty to the buyer to ensure that your mortgage is paid off. He gave the buyer's solicitor a "Solicitor's undertaking" to this effect.

If he had not done so, or if the Law Society did not require solicitors to honour these undertakings, then the buyer's solicitor would have insisted you pay off the mortgage before Completion (ie out of your own pocket).

timmyt

Jamminella wrote: »

Hi,
This is my first post on here after lurking for a while - hope someone is able to help...
In brief, it's taken well over a year to sell my flat. Then I was unfortunate enough to choose the slowest solicitor in the world - from my accepting the offer until completion it's taken nearly 6 months (the buyer is a 1st time buyer, there's no chain, so should have taken a lot less) . We've finally come to completion today and the solicitor is now delaying transferring the proceeds of the sale into my account, saying that he's waiting for confirmation from the mortgage company that the mortgage has been paid off in full. He said this will take around 3-4 days. I really don't want to wait any longer, I'm absolutely sick of him and all the unnecessary delays. I phoned the mortgage company myself and they said he hasn't even requested the redemption statement. I have now requested for it to sent to him, however it will take approx 3 days. Does he have a right to withhold the funds?
Any help greatly appreciated!
thanks

sounds like your solicitor (I doubt he is an actual solicitor - did you go cheap??) has got the legals badly wrong and will need to account to you for your losses and interest.

on the day of completion the reasonable conveyancer will have already undertaken to the Buyer's lawyer to redeem your mortgage. To do that, your conveyancer will have already got a redemption statement from the lender (always done at the start of the file so the selling lawyer knows you are not in negative equity or face a forgotten about early redemption penalty - now that has scared a lot of conveyancers reading this...) and will know roughtly what they have to pay off on the date of completion.

On exchnage, your conveyancer can then get an acurate one to the completion date which is then known. Sounds like they forgot. Their fault, so they will need to compensate you. Shoddy job.

But yes, until the solicitor can repay the mortgage, they are not safe to release all the net proceeds to you. They could apporximate and give you some, and transferring it at their expense, or they will play safe. Either way, their fault you cannot have your money.

I suggest you look up the Senior Partner tomorrow, and email them and your conveyancer and say that you expect to be compensated for loss of interest (negligible) and whatever loss you have also suffered that has a reasonably forseeable value. Demand a rebate in legal fees for this shoddy completion work too. Demand that they get on the phone to the Lender - because you spoke to the Lender and they have not been apporach so remind them of this) and get a statement and at the same time RELEASE your money. Mention that you reserve your right to report this to the Legal Ombudsman.

Good luck

Good luck.

Richard_Webster

Unfortunately I have been caught out by Halifax giving me a redemption figure in advance as usual and then because it assumed that a direct debit would be honoured (but they didn't say this), when it was recalled Halifax wanted more money to make sure the mortgage was cleared.

In the end I persuaded Halifax it was their mistake, but my clients didn't want to pay and because I had given a professional undertaking I personally could have been lumbered with finding the shortfall.

So perhaps in this case that is the kind of thing the solicitor had in mind.

Jamminella

Thanks everyone for your help.

Jamminella