Selling a house in Scotland problems with my solicitor URGENT ADVICE NEEDED

oliel

beecher2 wrote: »

that advice refers to concluding missives on your purchase, rather than your sale though.

How long ago did you accept the offer and what entry date did you accept at that time? Has your solicitor been told that your buyers will withdraw if missives aren't concluded now?

we accepted the offer on 20/2. with an entry date of 11/4. We were on holiday last week. No our solicitor has not been told that the buyers will pull out if the missives aren't concluded now he just keeps speculating that they may withdraw. Our main concern is that we CAN pull out with if we do not get our mortgage. Our offer for the new house is conditional on the sale of our property. So we are thinking if our property sells then we are tied into our purchase and if our mortgage is declined we would have sold our house and not have a mortgage to pay for the new one. We keep saying to our solicitor that we cannot conclude the missives on the sale of our property until we get our mortgage but he just keeps coming back and saying we could loose the sale. We feel he is more interested in getting his estate agents commission than protecting us. We really are worried sick, we keep repeating not to conclude the missives, our buyer solicitor has requested title deeds and had a refresh homebuyer report done, we have not accepted the fixures and fittings bit of their offer yet. Thanks for any further advice you can give.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

You really should have got your mortgage finalised before putting your house on the market, let alone accepting an offer.

The beauty of the Scottish system is that it discourages all this faffing about like the English have....

beecher2

I feel for your buyers. Do they have any idea you plan to withdraw if finances dont work out? in Scotland you assume the deal is done once the offer is accepted. arent there consequences if you withdraw at this late stage? your ability to get a mortgage shouldnt affect your purchasers, when you accepted an offer you should have been 100% sure you were committed to a sale. cant you make alternative plans re housing if the mortgage falls through?

jennifernil

You don't say when you offered on the house you intend to purchase, but I would agree that your solicitor should not have allowed you to offer if there was no preliminary mortgage offer in place. Is there any real reason that your new mortgage might not go through?

I would also say that having waited 2 years to get a sale, it would be foolish in the current financial climate to risk losing your purchaser. However, the time between accepting the offer and the date of entry is quite short, 2-3 months is possibly more usual, and now is barely a month away, which does not allow a lot of time for organising the move.

However, you are where you are, and if I was in your position I would be concluding the missives on the sale and be prepared to store my furniture rent somewhere if the purchase falls through. Have you any family who could offer you some space?

jennifernil

beecher2 wrote: »

I feel for your buyers. Do they have any idea you plan to withdraw if finances dont work out? in Scotland you assume the deal is done once the offer is accepted. arent there consequences if you withdraw at this late stage?

This does tend to be the assumption, but, until the missives are concluded, either party can actually withdraw without penalty.

oliel

jennifernil wrote: »

This does tend to be the assumption, but, until the missives are concluded, either party can actually withdraw without penalty.

That is what i thought. The scottish law society website states they tried to get missives concluded much earlier but due to the recession the market is now sale driven so people are waiting to sell before finding a house, We couldnt offer on a house until we had an offer on ours, We cant get a mortgage on a house until we know where we are planning to buy hence these days there are what the scottish law websire calls missive chains. It also says that due to recession its taking longer to get mortgages as lenders are more picky. Hope this makes sense. As I understand you can only get an agreement in principle on a mortgage if you dont know where your moving and these dont count for much. I only know this due to online research. Surely my solictor should have advised us on this?

oliel

jennifernil wrote: »

This does tend to be the assumption, but, until the missives are concluded, either party can actually withdraw without penalty.

To update
We emailed our solicitor at the weekend stating that if he felt it necessary to let our purchasers know that we are waiting for our mortgage then please do. He has been telling us for weeks this could sabotage our sale. This morning our broker phoned to say our mortgage had been agreed the lender just needs an update home report for valuation purposes.

We phoned our solicitor immediately to say that we were in a position to go ahead with both sale and purchase. The answer we got was well you cant have your mortgage offer if you havn't had a refresh home report done yet. We stated our broker would be in touch regarding that and right enough a refreshed home report on the house we are planning to buy came through very quickly. Then we get home tonight to find an email from our solicitor sent at 5:04pm this evening (i suspect so we couldnt answer it) with an enclosed letter to our purchaser stating we are still waiting on our mortgage and have instructed him to not send the qualified acceptance until we get it. I just cannot believe this its like hes trying to sabbotage the sale. Help!

theartfullodger

As before

theartfullodger wrote: »

Never use a solicitor who is also the EA(**): They have divided loyalties.

Sack current solicitor, start with a different one: (Ask a couple of other local agents who they'd recommend.

....;

Yours is a right numpty: Sorry!

oliel

theartfullodger wrote: »

As before



Yours is a right numpty: Sorry!

Yes we know!!! Lets hope he hasn't lost the sale for us! Trying to get mortgage offer in writing so can get the qualified acceptance to our purchaser asap. Our broker said weve got the mortgage the lender just needs valuation. We are paying £215 refreshed home report done in record time today says £235. I just cant believe that he sent that after we told him about mortgage today. Suspect hes miffed with us.

jennifernil

oliel wrote: »

...... We cant get a mortgage on a house until we know where we are planning to buy hence these days there are what the scottish law websire calls missive chains.
It also says that due to recession its taking longer to get mortgages as lenders are more picky. Hope this makes sense.
As I understand you can only get an agreement in principle on a mortgage if you dont know where your moving and these dont count for much. .......

Glad to hear you have pretty much got things sorted now, but regarding the above.......

I thought the idea of getting an agreement in principle was to get things like creditworthiness and income requirements established to ascertain whether and how much you can borrow?
Then, if nothing changes, the only variable is the house. And with home reports, you have a reasonable idea of the valuation.
If everything adds up, why would you be refused?

Our daughter purchased a new house just over a year ago and this is what she did. She researched the mortgages available and approached her preferred lender (HSBC), and had no problems with getting the mortgage agreed.