Conveyancing solicitors held onto my completion money over christmas

djlrobinson

I have recently brought and sold a property and completed on the 19th December. I was expecting a completion statement to arrive and the balance to sent across to me. This did not happen until I have chased it up with The scarlet pimpernel aka my solicitor who then spent the next 24 hours transferring it to me by BACS which I received 06/01/15.


Is this normal practice not to receive my money straight away either by direct transfer or cheque straight away or do solicitors take there time over everything. Not even receive a statement yet!


I basically had a seemingly bad experience with this solicitor throughout the buying/selling in terms of lack of progress and wondered if I could go back to them with say a loss of interest claim etc to them?


Any advice would be appreciated


PS the value was only £1,200

thesaint

The value of the interest is £1200, or the value of the cheque was £1200?

agrinnall

Alternatively they could have used CHAPS and charged you £25 - £35.

Mallotum_X

How much interest do you think you have lost on £1200 over 2 weeks?

Sloppy by the solicitor to not send it straight away but is it really worth the effort to make much of a fuss?

WestonDave

The interest on that at solicitors client account rates would be about 12p.


No excuse for lack of communication or poor service, however in perspective -


19th being the last Friday before Christmas is always very busy for completions due to lots of people wanting to move just in time to use their Christmas break to get sorted in their new house.


Solicitors staff also want holiday and get winter colds etc so staff levels aren't at their highest.


Chances are on a good busy Friday sending you a cheque etc would have waited until the Monday which is when the squaring up and sorting out after the manic nature of a Friday gets done.


With all the bank holidays and the Christmas post, if they'd sent you a cheque first class on Monday, you'd probably not have got it until Christmas Eve. If you'd slogged out to bank it then it would have cleared for interest purposes on the 30th and for spending on the 2nd of Jan. Any even slight delay in that would quickly put you back to where you are now via the BACS payment. Obviously you could have paid £30 etc to have it transferred immediately but that wouldn't be worth it.


So in summary - should have done better in keeping you informed and maybe quicker in getting the money out, but with many firms closed from the 24th to the 2nd, its perhaps not as bad as it looks on first sight.

G_M

Mallotum_X wrote: »

How much interest do you think you have lost on £1200 over 2 weeks?

Let's be charitable and say djl could get 1.5% (forget the tax for now!).

£1200 x 1.5% = £18 pa.
Divide by 52 weeks x 2 = £0.69p

Of course, the issue may not be the lost interest, but the need for the £1200 to pay for ... whatever....

Hoploz

Perhaps there was a delay because they had omitted to ask how you would like the money paid to you ... So they did nothing ...

djlrobinson

Thanks for replies guys............. I have had nothing but poor communication and lack of anything but excuses since I began the process in late September.... Nearly 3 months to exchange contracts with nothing but unreturned calls.


Just wanted to get something back from them because it has been nothing but stress as it was other a small chain which nearly cracked due to a poor solicitor.


In regards to the CHAPS payment he said he would cover the transfer fee.

Thrugelmir

djlrobinson wrote: »

Is this normal practice not to receive my money straight away either by direct transfer or cheque straight away or do solicitors take there time over everything.

Did you take a break over the Xmas holidays?

djlrobinson

I worked through Christmas as like the solicitor I had clients and deadlines which I was obliged to meet!!!!!! As well as moving home.


In response to it is busy time of year if you can't provide the service you advertise don't take the work on and make excuses and provide an below standard service due to taking too much work on which is the case here.

thesaint

I am sure if you ask for the 50p interest you will be given it.
If they don't I will.