5 Days to house move, fee's paid and Solicitor gives our file to another Solicitor ??

Boomycol

Some Urgent help needed here, something I think strange is going on.

We the middle of a 2 house chain, 1st time buying coming into ours and the people were buying off are moving into their daughters.

Solicitors have been poor all round and we have had 3 move dates moved back because of all the solicitors not talking so all parties had a go at them and forced a move date of next Wednesday.

Now its taking Santander 5 working days to get the mortgage funds ready which our solicitors activated yesterday (wednesday) and today (thursday) we paid our Solicitors fee's, Estate Agents and Stamp duty all done and dusted.

Now our Solicitors have said that due to the rush to get our case finalised our file will be moved over to Santander own solicitors who will handle the case from there on in, which we though yet a ok then no problems with that.

So bacs transfer all went through today and solictors confirmed they have received the funds into their account.

Now I got a new contract sent through to me by email this afternoon from another solicitors who I have never heard off, they havent even got a website and the email said "Due to a change in circumstances, we have now taken over control of your file" and they have emailed us a new client care letter contract to sign. Reading though this tonight it states that they are going to change us full wack over £600 inc vat and all the searches are listed in it as 'TBA' bar the Bankruptcy, Land Registry search and money tele transfer which have values against them all.

There is nothing mentioning that they are acting on behalf of Santander and they look a smaller firm that the one we have been dealing with.

Now we must move this coming Wednesday and we are been told we must sign this contract, it does look just like their 'generic' contract but we are concerned about signing a contract where they are stating they will charge us and all the searches are TBA so they could charges us anything yet all the searches,stamp duties every fee has already been paid to our original solicitor today.

The funny thing is they want the contract quickly as well, they just emailed us a standard Word document for the contract yet in the email they sent us they put this "This firm is not willing to accept service by fax or other electronic means." so we cant fax it or email it back ????

I dont want to get stung and having to pay over £600 or more for a contract that I have signed when ive already paid everything already. I've not contacted them yet as I didnt get to seee what was emailed to us until I got home from work when they weere already closed.

If anyone can help

dkmax_2

Boomycol wrote: »

Now our Solicitors have said that due to the rush to get our case finalised our file will be moved over to Santander own solicitors who will handle the case from there on in, which we though yet a ok then no problems with that.

This sounds strange but then it may because it is late or because there is information missing. What exactly have your original solicitors done for you so far ? Have they taken you all the way through to exchange but are now dumping you at the completion stage ? That is very odd.

The speed/timing of the transaction should have no bearing on it, it is largely just a matter of same-day bank-transfers now. Have they all decided to go on their holidays next week ? Are they being closed down or has Santander decided that your solicitors are not up to it - but that is something they should have determined earlier.

I would go back to your original solicitors and ask for a precise answer as to why they are not acting for you and what terms the new guys are acting under. "due to the rush" is inadequate and £600 is excessive.

Boomycol

Hopefully got it sorted now. Got confirmation by email from my first solicitor that I will not incure any additional fee's which was cc'ed new solicitor as well. They also both confirmed verbally as we will get no additional fee's.

Apparently its because Santander now only accept the use of one solicitor not 2 and our case file is one of the few left to have 2 so the solicitor representing Santander has had the file to speed up the transfer of funds because of the short time required to obtain the funds they can work directly with Santander removing my solicitor as the middleman.

All we are waiting on now is Santander to authorise the funds which they have known about since wednesday, the new solicitor has had a right moan and was this afternoon waiting for comfirmation