Conveyancing incompetancy?

jes1_2

I live in a shared ownership house. In March I began purchasing the remaining 50%. I also needed to transfer equity of 50% in my name alone from my ex partner and remortgage.

Bank wanted me to use their solicitor otherwise they said I would have to pay their solicitor to check what my solicitor had done. So not having loads of extra cash for such expenses I opted for their solicitors.

They began by transferring the equity and then had to draw down the mortgage (the whole 100%) they said to cover the 50% of the property I owned. This was completed in August. The purchase of the remaining 50% should have been completed ASAP as I had been led to believe when I had initially spoken to my solicitor before instructing the banks solicitor.

So here we are in December and I have been paying for a 100% mortgage and I still do not own the remaining 50% as it is not near completion. I am also paying 50% rent to the housing association for the 50% of the property that they still own. So I am paying an extra £300 a month I cannot afford. The solicitors have £65,000 of mine in their bank account!!!

Then today they email to say the valuation has expired and I will have to pay for another which I have refused to do and have instructed the legal ombudsman. If the house has gaining in value since March I cannot afford to purchase it any longer but have a mortgage for it. Crazy!!!

So what are your views? I believe the solicitors have been negligent as they should never have drawn down the money without having prepared the paperwork for completion of the remaining 50%. I initially complained to the solicitors in Sept when I was left in this situation.

Do you think the ombudsman will agree they have been negligent?

ValHaller

Tell the lender that the solicitor has their money and has not secured it on the property?

loubel

I'm a little confused, but it does sound like your solicitor drew down mortgage funds to staircase in August but not yet used them to do so. Is that right? Was there a condition in the mortgage offer that the funds were to be used to staircase/ the mortgage charged against a 100% owned house?

You say you started a complaint in September. How did they respond? If you want to raise as complaint with the legal ombudsman then you have to follow the firm's complaints procedure first (raise it with the solicitor involved, if not satisfied with response then raise it with their complaints manager, if still not satisfied with response take it to ombudsman).

jes1_2

It is quite complicated but...

As I had to have the property in my name alone the transfer of equity had to happen before the purchase of the remaining 50%.

I therefore had to re-mortgage in my own name and had a mortgage offer for 100% as I wanted to buy the remaining 50%.

Therefore when the transfer of equity occurred the mortgage had to be drawn down but I thought the purchase of the 50% was underway which it was not even though they had the info for months.

As the solicitors are such a big company instead of running both processes alongside each other they have processed them separately. Hence I am in this situation!

loubel

You need to clarify what the conditions of your mortgage were. If the remortgage was offered against 100% ownership then it shouldn't have completed until the staircasing was ready to complete and the transfer of equity should've been done at the same time. Was it a shared ownership mortgage?

jes1_2

No not a shared ownership mortgage just a normal 100% mortgage!

TBagpuss

This sounds bizarre to me.Although of course the transfer of equity would have to be completed before the new mortgage and purchase I would have expected them to have been done almost simultaneously - unless there was a good reason for the gap (eg, if you needed to complete the transfer of equity early becauase you were under pressure from your ex) then assuming you instructed the solicitors to deal with both issues at the same time I would expect them to do it as a single file.
What explanation have they given you for the delay? They may not have been negligent but it does appear on the face of that they gave you very poor service.They may also be in breach of their retianer from the mortgage lenders - normally, the mortgage money would not be drawn down until just before completion and would be returned if there was a delay.

WestonDave

Wouldn't be HSBC and part of the Countrywide fiasco by any chance!

I would be willing to bet that at the very least the Ombudsman will be looking for a poor service penalty from the firm. I would also if I were you be pushing them to sort it out as you would have been if there had not been such an excessive delay - UNLESS there is something in the way the housing association have handled their end which has caused the delays.

loubel

It certainly sounds like something has gone seriously wrong with your remortgage and both you and your lender appear to have grounds for complaint against your solicitor. You didn't say how they responded to your initial complaint, but you will need to ensure this is followed up with them before you go to the ombudsman.