bit of advice needed about our (ex)solicitor please?

lainey_stardust

hi everyone,
I wonder if anyone can tell me if I'm dealing with this issue the right way?
We bought our house last October ,1st time buyers 95% mortgage. We asked for the mortgage advisers fee (£750) to be added to the mortgage along with a couple of other bits and there was a £250 cashback incentive from the lender. both the KFI and the mortgage documents list the m/a's fee as being added to the mortgage and the cashback as 'to be paid on completion'.
here are the issues:
1) a couple of weeks before completion the solicitor called and asked for the deposit and the m/a's fee . I told him that the m/a's fee was in with the mortgage and that he should ask them for it. Solicitor said it wasn't and we had to pay or completion would not happen. So, fearing we would lose the house, we paid up, thinking that once all the completion monies had been sorted we could ask for the m/a fee back. The m/a actually suggested that we have his fee added to the mortgage though in hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea but we live and learn... anyway,the m/a knew where his fee was coming from and so was prepared to wait until completion to be paid.
2) the day after completion I rang the solicitor and asked about the monies. I was told that if there was any money left after dispersement we would get the cashback.We have never got that money.I waited a few weeks and then wrote to the solicitor asking for the money. Before I contacted the solicitor I rang the lender to make sure I had my facts right. They are adamant ,and have confirmed in writing to me and the solicitor, that the £750 m/a's fee and the £250 cashback were both included in the money released to the solicitor on completion and should have been dealt with accordingly.I enclosed copies of the mortgage and the letter from the lender to prove what I was asking for.
8 months later and despite numerous letters back and forth with the solicitor and a complaint being dealt with by one of the senior partners in the firm, we are no further on with getting these monies back. I asked for a breakdown of how the money was dispersed, they sent me a copy of the firms ledger of my account. it shows how much money was released to him and how he dealt with it. But, to my reckoning, the money released was enough to have included the remainder of the purchase price + higher lending fee and bits and bobs AND the m/a fee and cashback! I have gone over a dozen times and sat with a friend who is better at math than I and she agrees with me.
The way I see it is , at the end of the day, if the lender says that money was sent to the solicitor for the m/a's fee and the cashback on top of the house purchase money and the higher lending charge etc ,then that money should have been used to pay the m/a,we shouldn't have been asked to pay it up front and we should have been given cashback incentive !! it's a £1000 after all,which would have come in handy when we moved in.
The senior partner has agreed with his junior( as if we expected anything else?) and we know feel like we're at a stalemate. I have told him that we will be contacting the Legal Complaints Service. Is this the right way to do this and do you guys think I'm right?
Any advice would be appreciated because I'm not a legal minded person and I feel like we're being bluffed or bullied.
Thanks a lot,sorry it so long-winded!

benood

Have the solicitors not given you a schedule which supports their view(the completion statement)? If they did you could compare yours with theirs and resolve/find the difference more easily. The difference isn't their fee by chance is it?

lainey_stardust

hi,thanks for your reply.
They did send a schedule ,it lists the m/a fees as a separate entity from the amount they received from the lenders.no mention of cashback.
Its not his fees ,we paid them ourselves at the same time as the deposit and the m/a fee. ( is it right to have to pay sol's fee before work completed?)
Ive done the math a dozen times: the 95% of house price + bits and bobs + m/a fee + cashback= the amount released to solicitor for completion.
The higher lending fee was added to the mortgage but obviously retained by the lender.
Why can't/won't the solicitor see it????.
Worst thing is, we paid all this with OH's CC ( no choice at the time) so are repaying + interest on something we feel we needn't have paid out in the first place (m/a fee) AND repaying the lender + interest for money they have lent us but that we haven't had the benefit of (m/a fee and cashback). we're out of pocket twice! We wouldn't object to repaying it if we had felt the benefit of it!
The solicitor has suggested that the lender might have reduced the amount they lent us by deducting the cashback before releasing the money to him. I think they would have told us that? I've got written confirmation that the monies were definitely released to the solicitor so surely they would have mentioned then that they gave us the cashback in this roundabout way?
I'm know that they don't just give money away, we will be repaying it to them in the life of the mortgage.
I suppose that it would be better for us if the lender had made the mistake cos then we could get the mortgage reduced by the £1000 and this would lower the total amount repaid and so on but I can't imagine they would make a mistake like that. They have been asked twice to check my account (by me and the solicitor) so you would expect any mistake to be picked up at some point.
I think the solicitor and we are just going round in circles now.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, bit long winded again!!!

silvercar

Seems that this hinges on the exact amount that the lender passed to the solicitor. The lender must have proof of that (and you will see it as the outstanding amount on your mortgage). The solicitor should also have evidence of the amount that came in from the lender.

When we took out our first mortgage, we expected certain fees to be added to the mortgage as agreed. We then found out that the fees were taken off the total amount and a lower amount passed to the solicitor because we were at the highest amount allowed for our salaries and they wouldn't lend us the amount we had asked for + fees. We only knew this days before completion and it was only when we saw the first mortgage letter with the total amount excluding the fees that we knew that that was what had happened. I wonder if a similar thing has happened here.

benood

Perhaps you could itemise the two lists on here then it would be easier to help with the reconciliation - sounds like the lender may owe you the cashback - IMO the problem is more likely the lender than the solicitor.