Contract amendments post signature

orionmoo

We received the contract on the property we're buying last thursday, but noticed some errors on the contract. Our current address was not printed on, and the vendors current address had its house number printed wrong. The address of the property were buying was correct but still errors in the contract are not a good sign.

Our solicitor has suggested to speed things up we could sign the contract as is, return it and they will make amendments by hand, i.e correct the house number.

Is this normal practice? Surely this is defacing a legal document, they could make any amendments they wished after we signed and we'd never know!

As an aside, why does the contract not need to be witnessed, when every other document needs to be witnessed? What if someone were to intercept the document in the post and sign and return on our behalf without our knowledge?

G_M

Not all documents need to be witnessed. Deeds do. Contracts don't.

Amendments are fine and common. Provided the signed version has the correct info (including amendments) it's fine.

However, if you are concerned, make the amendments ad ask your solicior to re-draft and re-submit to you for signature.

happylucky

Only TR1 transfer form needed to be witnessed and presented in hard copy, based on my recent transaction for UK property.

I was located abroad during the sale and sent witnessed TR1 by recorded delivery, everything else both received and sent via scan/email. No risks of postal interception!

Annoyingly, the only communication hold ups came from buyer and their solicitor who chose to use post even though they were both in UK and even in same town.