Solicitor Delays - Advice Please

mandgreen

Hi

I am buying my first property, It is in a small chain which is complete and I have been told by my agent that the top of the chain want to complete by mid march.

I had my offer accepted mid December and paid the solicitor £350 upfront to begin their work. So far I have filled in an i.d questionaire, money laundering form and mortgage form then last week the solicitor told me they are still waiting on the 'contract pack' from my sellers solicitor, I chased this up through my agent and was told that the sellers solicitor were doing the final draft & it should be with my solicitor any day. I have emailed my solicitor today to get an update and also asked if they have begun their searches yet and below is my response:-

'Contracts have still not been received

Please note that we do not searches until we have received the contract pack '

I feel like this is not very pro-active of them & I feel like replying asking why I paid them £350 4 weeks ago when they clearly have not done anything other than get a few forms filled out!

Is this normal practice or am I right to be annoyed?!!

arbrighton

this is standard, and it's not really that long when you consider the fact that most solicitor firms shut down for the best part of a fortnight

rosie383

Something should be happening in 4 weeks but as a seller who hasn't got even a vague idea of possible completion date from the vendors who we are buying from, I haven't been rushing to get paperwork sent back as I figure there is no hurry. I am sending it, just perhaps 3 or 4 days after I get it rather than the same day.
Perhaps as your vendor has a completion date of two months away they are just not feeling any urgency. But their solicitor should be chasing them. I am not paying money for survey or searches until I know that the chain is complete and that the purchase is definitely going to happen . Once bitten etc...

kingstreet

There is nothing the purchaser's solicitor can do without the draft contract which contains a plan of the property needed to do a local search.

It is also not the purchaser's solicitor's responsibility to chase the vendor's solicitor for the contract. The reason for the delay could be anything from the vendor not giving the necessary information for their solicitor to obtain the title deeds through to them not going too quickly to avoid wasted expenditure if they can't find somewhere to move to.

OP - did you only spend money when the chain was fully formed and everyone in the chain progressing?

Richard_Webster

Most local authorities require a plan to do a search so buyer's solicitor has to wait for contract pack which will include a plan.

Even if they will do a search just on the address there is a danger that the Council will make assumptions about the extent of the property and not show something that is registered against an adjoining piece of land that the seller bought some years ago and is now being passed on to you. So safer always do a search on the precise area being purchased.

I had this sort of thing happen to me recently - another context - but illustrates dangers of people making assumptions about extent of land. Neighbour at back applied for planning permission for an extension. The far end of our garden backs on to theirs. This bit of garden was bought by my predecessor from the builder in 1955, yet the local 1:1250 Ordnance Plan still shows a fence line between the extra bit and the rest of my property. The fence has been down for nearly 60 years! I didn't get consulted by the planners over the application because they thought this was a random piece of spare land and not part of anyone's garden and therefore my property wasn't adjoining the property where the application had been made! Easy for a Council to make a similar mistake when dealing with a local search.

So let your solicitor do search when the plans come in and not before. You might also want to check the plan he gets sent is what you are expecting to buy.

fed_up_and_stressed

mandgreen wrote: »

Hi

I am buying my first property, It is in a small chain which is complete and I have been told by my agent that the top of the chain want to complete by mid march.

I had my offer accepted mid December and paid the solicitor £350 upfront to begin their work. So far I have filled in an i.d questionaire, money laundering form and mortgage form then last week the solicitor told me they are still waiting on the 'contract pack' from my sellers solicitor, I chased this up through my agent and was told that the sellers solicitor were doing the final draft & it should be with my solicitor any day. I have emailed my solicitor today to get an update and also asked if they have begun their searches yet and below is my response:-

'Contracts have still not been received

Please note that we do not searches until we have received the contract pack '

I feel like this is not very pro-active of them & I feel like replying asking why I paid them £350 4 weeks ago when they clearly have not done anything other than get a few forms filled out!

Is this normal practice or am I right to be annoyed?!!

So you want to potentially antagonise your conveyancer who you need to rely on and who has done nothing wrong for delays due to someone else who neither you or they have any contractual relationship with...... Hmmmm not really appropriate in my opinion.

amii1989

This is a very similar situation to mine, although in a much smaller time frame. The sellers solicitor has not passed on the contracts to my solicitor despite the instruction coming two weeks ago.

I know my solicitor is doing all that they can to get them, and have only mentioned it once to them. I think it's just a waiting game unfortunately.