Didn't complete on completion day!

Emma18

Hi

Long, stressful story cut short....

We moved 2 weeks ago. Were due to complete on the Friday - got phone call from our solicitor at 10.30am to say the bank wouldn't release the funds because they did not have all the title documents in place - we are still to get to the bottom of what exactly went wrong.....

Despite 6 hours on phone to bank sorting the problem out ourselves, we did not complete until the Monday (but our sale had completed so we were homeless for 3 days), got sued for breach of contract by the sellers of our new house, have had to pay interest on the purchase price for 3 days, are expecting to have to pay our sellers costs, currently estimated at £1,200 as well as having to fork out £720 extra costs to our removal company for the extra storage time required!

We are obviously thinking the solicitors mucked up somewhere here - should they have not known about this BEFORE 10.30am on the day of completion...?????

We want to go to them to get our costs paid and our money back (which of course they have already taken out of the monies when they were transferred, as per our contract).

Anyone know legally where we stand here.....?

Many thanks

AlexSnow

Hi Emma,

It does on the face of it sound like a possible mistake by your solicitors but without more information about what went wrong and why it is impossible to say whether it is their fault or your mortgage lenders. The first thing to do is speak to your solicitor and ask them for an explanation and for their confirmation that they will cover your additional expenses and the losses of other parties in the chain unless they can explain why it wasn't their fault.

If you aren't satisfied with their response, ask for a copy of their complaints procedure and follow that, it should include the file being referred to one of the senior lawyers in the firm to respond to you. Finally, if you still don't get it sorted you'll need to contact the legal ombudsman. DO NOT go direct to the legal ombudsman without following the firm's complaints procedure as your complaint will be rejected and you'll simply be told to go through the firm's complaints system first!

G_M

AlexSnow wrote: »

Hi Emma,

The first thing to do is speak to your solicitor and ask them for an explanation and for their confirmation that they will cover your additional expenses and the losses of other parties in the chain unless they can explain why it wasn't their fault.

If you aren't satisfied with their response, ask for a copy of their complaints procedure and follow that, it should include the file being referred to one of the senior lawyers in the firm to respond to you. Finally, if you still don't get it sorted you'll need to contact the legal ombudsman. DO NOT go direct to the legal ombudsman without following the firm's complaints procedure as your complaint will be rejected and you'll simply be told to go through the firm's complaints system first!

I agree with the above though I would not do this on the phone.

So don't "speak to.. and ask..", WRITE to them and ask...

You need a written explanation:
a) it forces them to be more precise and
b) you can think about it at leisure, make sure you understand it/review it and
c) use it as a starting point for any complaint/claim in the future

KateLiana27

It is the job of the solicitor to ensure things are in place for completion. That is the point of having one.

The vendors are right to sue for breach of contract and claim all additional expenses. You are right to ask the solicitor to reimburse these. The buck stops with them.

Start writing the letter as G_M advised. Keep it formal and to the point, and send it by registered mail.

Badger_Lady

If it's the solicitor's fault, they pay up. If it's someone else's fault, the solicitor makes them pay up. Either way your solicitor needs to make sure you're not out of pocket here - that's their job.

paddy's_mum

Badger_Lady wrote: »

that's their job.

...and what they have already been paid for!

Emma18

Thanks everyone. We requested a copy of our file from the solicitors over 2 weeks ago now and still have not received it, or in fact a reply of any form from the solicitor involved or the partner, as requested.

We have started to construct an official letter - Formal Complaint and are awaiting some back-up docs from the bank & plan to send it at the end of this week.

When my hubby spoke to the bank yesterday, they said that the solicitor did not send the title deed to them (as required by the bank at least 5 days before completion) until the Monday before completion due on the Friday - that's really scraping at the 5 working days if you ask me! It was then apparently of too poor a quality for them to be satisfied with it.

Thanks AlexSnow - we see that we have to follow a precise process now. We hope that their non-response so far will maybe do something to help our case......they certainly do not seem very competent! They appear at the moment to just be ignoring us.....

sonastin

Just playing devils advocate here as I am pretty sure that the solicitor is in the wrong based on the story we've been told but...

When did you exchange contracts?
Who was the driving force behind setting those particular exchange and completion dates?

If you have been putting pressure on the solicitor to achieve a particular timeframe and he honestly thought it was possible, it doesn't excuse his failure because he is there to protect you from this sort of problem but it does perhaps explain how he got himself into this mess.

Emma18

Hi Sonastin

We exchanged on 21 October - 2 weeks before completion and we didn't put any pressure on at all - we were the most flexible in the chain and just told our solicitor we were happy to go with the majority. Other people in the chain set the date for 4th Nov and our solicitor did not give us any indication that this date was unachievable due to paperwork.

The bank have on their records that our solicitor applied for our funds on 21st October - 2 weeks before completion date, but as mentioned before, failed to send them the title documents until 1st November! We guess she just forgot to do it......?

Emma18

....and I know this is now just a gripe.....but I didn't say in original post that we have 4 young children aged from 18months to 10 years who obviously were affected by all this stress and nowhere to live for 3 days! I know we shouldn't even bother trying to claim for any compensation for emotional stuff etc - but it really hacks me off that we seem to just have to put up with it!

Do people think we have a claim to get our fee refunded in any way for this (as well as them paying ours and our sellers extra costs) or will we just be very lucky if we manage to get the extra's reimbursed....?

billybear1

WOW! Please come back and keep us updated on this I would love to see how it unfolds.

The main thing for you is to keep calm, from what everyone else is saying, it's not your fault and you will not be liable. Which can only be a good thing!