Help please - delayed completion / 'lost' mortgage funds

Mandog

Sorry to hear about this mess, Puddleduck.

We had a similar situation a year ago, but thank goodness the money reappeared just in the nick of time to complete on the day. Unlike you we were in a chain - our vendors needed the money from us before they could complete on their new place. They weren't nice about it but then they must have been pretty stressed, imagining spending the night in a hotel with their kids.

Best of luck tomorrow.

Millie_Millsters

martindow wrote: »

You're right, but I can't help wondering whether you are timmyt in disguise !

Check my posting history and you'll see that I'm not! ...but I did move house a week ago after 6 long months, so have massive sympathy for the OP as I know how stressful exchange/completion can be even when things go right.

JimmyTheWig

Are there any solicitors on here who have come across this situation before?
How have you dealt with it in the past?

We're taking, quite possibly, about money in excess of £100,000. It can't just go missing, can it?

kmmr

I work in the banking sector (the bit people hate, not the useful bit) and I am not surprised at money going awol in transactions. It happens, and they will find it. The wheels sometimes just grind slowly when things go wrong.

Good luck!

JimmyTheWig

Any suggestions what the OP could be doing, kmmr?
Anything they should be telling the banks / solicitors to do?

puddleduck

Thanks again everyone.

Just had a call from our solicitor, and the money has been found and is now sat in the solicitor's bank account. :j:j

The seller's solicitors are sending over an invoice for the interest so they're waiting on that before transferring the balance + interest to them, but hopefully we *will* complete today...

We've been asked to make a list of our costs, so am going to do that now.

Will update again later, hopefully with more good news!

JimmyTheWig

That's great news, puddleduck. Well done for staying sane through this.

puddleduck wrote: »

The seller's solicitors are sending over an invoice for the interest

On a £200k purchase at 6% interest, this would be about £130 for 4 days.
I'm not saying that you should end up paying this (in fact, I'd be furious if I were you and ended up paying it) but even if you did in the scheme of things when buying a house it wouldn't be a show-stopper.

moneybunny123

I recall a similar thread in late Spring/early Summer this year. Someone posted on here that money had been transferred but the person doing the transfer had got the account number wrong by two digits and the purchasers solicitor had "left the office early" on a Friday. People were asking if and suggesting that the solicitor had legged it to the Bahamas with a quarter of a million pounds, but it all turned out ok in the end.

As someone said above, there is a lot to be said for not completing on a Friday. Something I will definitely bear in mind next time....

WestonDave

From experience normally if the bank admits it was their fault - which in this case seems likely, they will normally be prepared to pay reasonable costs such as any interest incurred. I know personally of one case where it went over a weekend (fortunately the family were allowed in under licence by the vendors) and the bank coughed up the interest, additional removers costs plus flowers and wine for the parents and a box of sweets for the kids (they offered the last bits!). Provided you are fair (i.e. not making things up) they should be reasonable about getting it sorted for you.

Not completing on a Friday is a good idea if you can arrange it (but lots of people want it because you have the weekend to get straight) - partly because its busier so more chance that the people whereever who are dealing with it are under pressure and have less time to sort it, partly because if something does go wrong you are then 2 full days before anywhere opens again to sort it out, and partly because movers often charge more on a Friday. All that said in perspective of the number of transactions even on a Friday, the number of problems is still very low.

puddleduck

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

That's great news, puddleduck. Well done for staying sane through this.


On a £200k purchase at 6% interest, this would be about £130 for 4 days.
I'm not saying that you should end up paying this (in fact, I'd be furious if I were you and ended up paying it) but even if you did in the scheme of things when buying a house it wouldn't be a show-stopper.

Thanks Jimmy - it's a £300kish purchase but the solicitor said the interest was only about £30 a day, so it isn't nearly as much as I thought we might have a bill for when this first started going wrong on Friday! (And our mortgage interest is only £34 total for the 4 days, if that).

Solicitors have said they're going to take it up anyway (presumably they've lost a lot of fee-earning hours with this saga and will be chasing for some recompense for that). They will cover our sellers and our costs and then get it back from whichever bank is at fault, so we shouldn't be out of pocket once it's all sorted out.

Thanks again,