Didn't complete on completion day!

Richard_Webster

As has been said it is normal for a lender simply to ask the solicitor to send a certificate of title (COT) in which he says he has checked all the legal stuff and is satisfied it is OK. There is usually a space for the title number but it is not usual for the lender to require a plan or copies of the Land Registry entries (in layman's terms - "the Deeds").

It may be some of the more obscure lenders have this requirement. The question then is how clearly they made that requirement known to the solicitor. Certainly in the past I have know lenders contact us to say they can't send the money for reasons totally beyond our control or knowledge, e.g. "we haven't a copy of a plan from our surveyor". My response to that would be !. "Why did you issue a formal offer then?" and 2. "How am I expected to know that?". However some of the more difficult lenders are completely impervious to a solicitor's comments/reason and all you can do is do what you can to make sure that the requirement is dealt with.

Emma18

The costs the seller are requesting are extra removals costs, extra van hire for the weekend, cattery for 2 nights, petrol for her to travel to stay with her mother (even though she could have stayed in the house as it still belonged to her - albeit she would have to have got her sleeping bag out!) - mobile phone charger because theirs was on the removal van(!)
Unfortunately our solicitor checked our contract and it does appear that we are liable for any extra costs incurred, as well as the 4% interest we have already paid to them for the 2 extra days interest. (As we then completed on the Monday)

Including our extra storage costs, we are going to be approx £2000 down! It just doesn't seem fair that we should have to pay when we did nothing wrong and were not made aware of the problems by our solicitor - as if she had have told us a couple of days before, we would have sorted it all out as we did in the end - even though it was HER job to sort it out - what the heck were we paying her for....!?! I'm so angry about this!

KateLiana27

GDB2222 wrote: »

I am sorry to be blunt, but this is dangerous nonsense. People seem to have a false idea that a solicitor is a sort of fairly godmother, who is responsible if anything at all goes wrong. In fact, the solicitor is only responsible for matters under the solicitor's own control. If the solicitor sent the documents off late or they were not of sufficient quality that is the solicitor's fault (and it sounds like it in this case).

However, you say that even if the bank were to blame, then the solicitor is still liable. That's dangerous nonsense.

GDB, I was referring to the specific circumstances of the OP, not saying solicitors are always responsible for failed completion as a general principle. Of course many things can happen that is outside the control of the solicitor. If the bank failed, the house blew up, the world ended, I wouldn't be suggesting the solicitor is liable. However in this particular case: It was well within the solicitor's control to check that the bank had received, and were happy with, the title plan. That is part of his job to ensure completion. This clearly did not happen. That is negligent.

GDB2222

And what if the bank asked for the standard certificate of title, got that within the timescale required, and then asked for further documents? Is that also the solicitor's fault?

Emma18

Thanks to all who posted on my thread last month - just a quick update as some of you said you would be interested in how it pans out.

It turns out (after some super sleuthing by moi!) that our solicitor sent the title plans from the house we were SELLING instead of the title plans for the house we were BUYING! That is how the bank and surveyor were looking at the wrong the title plans which is what caused the delay in completion!

We now need to write our formal complaint letter (as per legal ombudsman's website) including a copy of our evidence obtained from the bank.

We hope that they will now reimburse us the extra costs/compensation we had to pay our sellers (£2000ish) and we are looking to have them also reimburse our fee to them for purchase, due to their distinctly poor service and resulting compensation claims/inconvenience.

Does this sound reasonable? Any ideas how the ombudsman will view this case should we not get satisfactory reply from the solicitors?

Thanks

Emma

ognum

Emma18 wrote: »

Thanks to all who posted on my thread last month - just a quick update as some of you said you would be interested in how it pans out.

It turns out (after some super sleuthing by moi!) that our solicitor sent the title plans from the house we were SELLING instead of the title plans for the house we were BUYING! That is how the bank and surveyor were looking at the wrong the title plans which is what caused the delay in completion!

We now need to write our formal complaint letter (as per legal ombudsman's website) including a copy of our evidence obtained from the bank.

We hope that they will now reimburse us the extra costs/compensation we had to pay our sellers (£2000ish) and we are looking to have them also reimburse our fee to them for purchase, due to their distinctly poor service and resulting compensation claims/inconvenience.

Does this sound reasonable? Any ideas how the ombudsman will view this case should we not get satisfactory reply from the solicitors?

Thanks

Emma

Thanks for the update, no ideas for you but please will you update again when you have progressed through this.

Bluemeanie_2

It sounds reasonable to me. She made a mistake, HER mistake not yours. She should pay for the mistake, not you. We all make them, but you have to be responsible for your own actions. I would expect the fee back too. And if I didn't get it, I'd be telling everyone I know how useless they are!

Yorkie1

I would expect LeO to award you the extra costs owing to late completion, but you may not get all of your fees back. Certainly not the searches etc disbursements. Anyway, see what the solicitors say first. Make sure you direct the complaint to the person in charge of complaints - their details should be in the initial letter you got from the solicitors when you instructed them.