Nightmare situation

Traceyship

We were due to exchange contracts & complete simultaneously on our new house yesterday. We have had lots of various problems along the way from help to buy forms being completed incorrectly to failed environmental searches on our newbuld property. There have been issues with having to have the property revalued to missing documents with the land registry.

We signed the contracts on 20th Feb & were assured we were on track for exchange on 24th Feb - the Solicitor needed to send a form to the company dealing with the help to buy scheme so they would release the funds for completion yesterday (28th) We paid the shortfall & received completion statement on 27th Feb.

We then got a call at 2pm on the 27th to say that the company dealing with the Help To Buy (Plum Life) were refusing to release the funds because of the wording on our mortgage offer which said 'Help to Buy' & they wanted it to say 'Homes & Communities'. They would not budge on this despite both ours & the builder's solicitors intervention & demanded a revised mortgage offer with the correct wording.

The consequences have been that our solicitor has had to return the funds to our lender because they couldnt edit the mortgage offer after the funds have been released. They got the funds back yesterday but cant issue the new offer until Monday.

Everyone is blaming each other. The Solicitor & my Mortgage Broker are blaming Plum Life as they say its ridiculous that the paperwork was not checked over until the day before proposed completion. I am blaming the solicitors we have had a few issues with them, their communication hasnt been the best & I have had to resort to chasing things with the lender myself as they just didnt seem to have any urgency.

But the fact is we are sat in our old house with our whole life packed in boxes just because someone hasnt done their job properly.

Who will I be able to complain to once this is all over? I am well aware they will use the 'nothing is concrete till exchange' get out of jail card.

Well done if you have got to the end of this post!!!!!

lincroft1710

You can complain to whichever of the parties involved in your house buying you consider has delayed the process.

But it will probably be a waste of time.

G_M

Traceyship wrote: »

We were due to exchange contracts & complete simultaneously on our new house yesterday. ....

We signed the contracts on 20th Feb & were assured we were on track for exchange on 24th Feb - the Solicitor needed to send a form to the company dealing with the help to buy scheme so they would release the funds for completion yesterday (28th) We paid the shortfall & received completion statement on 27th Feb.

We then got a call at 2pm on the 27th to say....

So did you Exchange on 24th or not?

Have you Exchanged at all?

It appears not, so what is the problem? Exchange got delayed due to..... misunderstanding? wrongly filled out form? whatever - does not matter.

It is common for Exchange to be delayed beyond the originally hoped-for date.

You and the various other parties (solicitors, lenders etc) will resolve the outstanding issue and then Exchange. Sorted.

Of course, if you have Exchanged, and had to miss the contracted Completion date due to non-release of funds, that is more serious.

Doozergirl

I feel for you, I do.

This is the danger of exchanging and completing on the same day. The likelihood of things going wrong is so much higher because you're sat waiting to go. At least when you have a couple of days, any last minute technical hitches are unlikely to affect the actual move day.

You may have felt pushed, but I think you have to take responsibilty for not allowing yourself any leeway . Be kind to yourselves.

Traceyship

We feel completely helpless. I have been chasing exchange since mid Jan the last thing I wanted was this situation. The builders originally gave us 7th March for completion but changed their mind & pushed for 28th. We were led to believe by everyone that we would complete yesterday. Apparently the solicitors had been chasing the release of funds since monday but they didnt tell them about the problem until Thursday. The solicitors have got our money, but because 1 person wouldnt accept some wording we have been left in this situation. Its easy to be glib when its not happening to you but to say its no problem is a bit heartless. Its caused us massive problems with our buyer. If it was my fault I would take it on the chin, but it isnt and i am really peed off about it

kingstreet

Nationwide mortgage?

Any broker who does HTB - EL applications with any regularity knows that "Homes & Communities Agency" has to be entered in the Equity Shareholder box on the Nationwide application.

So, it's the broker's initial error and the HCA HTB Agent, PlumLife should have picked it up and so should the solicitor, before submitting the Solicitor Form 1 to obtain the issue of the Authority To Exchange.

An all-round mess, but yes, the HTB Agent is correct. When did it get a copy of the offer from your solicitor?