My conveyancer asked for my mortgage funds and held them for more than a week!

miriam93

I am currently in the process of buying my first home, I have had continuous problems with my conveyancing solicitor and last friday they had mortgage funds released of £92700 and we were told that we were due to exchange and complete on tuesday. However come tuesday when i rang the estate agent she told me a completion date had not yet been agreed with the sellers solicitor. I asked my solicitor about it who told me he was still waiting for an enqury with the mortgage. I dont think that they should have asked for the mortgage funds as I am the one who has to pay for it from the date that funds were released? The have now been holding them for 7 days and with the easter weekend coming up if its not done today that will be 12 days mortgage at least that i have to pay for without any keys. Is this right? Can i somhow get them to pay for those 12 days? HELP?
Thanks in advance.
Miriam

kingstreet

Phone your lender and ask them how long conveyancers are allowed to hold mortgage monies in the event of delayed completion.

It's usually no more than three days.

ExpertAdvice

Go through their T&Cs. It should mention somewhere that if client's money is held unnecessarily or due to their mistake, they would be liable to pay interest on it. Though it would be hardly anything but worth a try.

The solicitor I always use has this clause in the T&Cs and I've only had 1 instance where the client's money was held unnecessarily for a couple of weeks and he paid the interest calculated based on the interest rate mentioned in the T&Cs.