Solicitor holding up my house purchase

MM64

Hi, I am new to this site but have had read some great advice from the members.
My problem is as follows-

I am 10 weeks into what I thought was a simple house chain. 1st time buyer buying my property and myself buying a 3 year old old property with no upward chain.

The problem lies with my solicitor constantly pestering my vendor with endless petty questions. The vendor answers the questions, my solicitor says that the answer is not satisfactory.

My question is simply - can I instruct the solicitor to drop the additional enquires and just get on with exchanging the contracts. I am happy with everything with the property and just want to proceed. I will happily send him this in writing and sign any disclaimers.

Surely I am the client and if I am happy he should just drop his enquires and proceed with the transaction.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks.

alchemist.1

Are you a cash buyer?

If not, no you cant because the solicitor will owe a duty of care to the lender (if they are dealing with that part)

Why do think the questions are petty? How do you know the answers are satisfactory?

MM64

No I have a mortgage which they are also dealing with. The questions relate to the management company and I fail to see what relevance they have to my mortgage lender.

Can I contact the lender to see if they are happy to proceed.
Thanks.

bouicca21

You are paying your solicitor to look after your interests, and that is what is being done. If you don't get the answers now, how do you know that there aren't any lurking nasties that would hamper selling the property in the future?

Why don't you simply ask your solicitor why these apparently petty questions are important?

alchemist.1

Unable to consider whether there is any relevance without knowing the question.

Contact the solicitor inform them you are happy to proceed without the further enquiries and happy to provide written instructions confirming that you are proceeding against their advice and note implications of the same (usually a form).

You or the solicitors contact the lender confirming that they are happy to do the same for the solicitors (if the question has any relevance).

MM64

Yes, the service road which is not adopted. - the question was " who is responsible for the service road and is it adopted by the highways agency? Answer- The management company and no not now or in the foreseeable future. I fail to see how that is not a satisfactory answer. The other question relates to there accounts year ending 2014.

csgohan4

I was in a similar position with a freehold property with management company involvement.

A lot of petty inquiries but at the end of the day if they can't get them answered now, your going to have a problem come selling it or if problems develop over the deeds/ registry they will will liable.

We had an inquiry of the deeds of covenant and a lot of ping pong emails with the vendors solicitors. Only until the management company were happy to put in writing that they were happy for my solicitors to draft their own could we exchange. Took 3 weeks longer than expected.

Sometimes you have to have patience and appreciate they have to do their job. Maybe it's a good thing they are asking lots of questions, they are doing what you instructed them to.

DaftyDuck

That's definitely something a mortgage lender would want a clear answer to, and the solicitor represents their interests just as much (if not more) than yours.

stator

If ownership of the land isn't clear, are access rights over the land clear? If the owner shows up and puts up a barried to cut off access, what would happen?
Although unlikely the lender's solicitor has to think of all possibilities that might cause them to lose lots of money.

agrinnall

My vendors complained about the number of questions my solicitor was asking (although the delay they moaned about was in large part caused by their refusal to give clear answers) and I was happy that she was asking most of them. One or two I wasn't sure why they were asked but she explained to me and they did make sense. For instance, one was "are there any overhead power cables entering the property?", I didn't know why she asked that but it turned out to be in case she needed to investigate possible wayleaves. Rather than the vendor putting their head out of the door to have a look and say "no, there aren't any" their solicitor messed about looking at satellite images before giving an equivocal response.

paddy's_mum

If your solicitor fails to guide you properly, fairly and with knowledge not guesswork, he could end up being struck off.

Would you throw away your career because Joe Bloggs is in a hurry and doesn't understand the rules?

Why would you risk throwing away many thousands of pounds when a future sale hits a brick wall because you are in a hurry and didn't understand the rules?

Would you like your surgeon to accept your disclaimer and just disregard good, honest, ethical practice?