Solicitors can't find indemnity

lizziesmum

When we bought our house the sellers took out an indemnity policy because they didn't have planning permission etc. for the conservatory. Now we are selling, our buyers naturally want this. I have contacted our original conveyancer who says it's held by the seller's solicitor but the seller's solicitor says it was sent to our conveyancer.

Short of buying a new indemnity - which the original was specifically meant to preclude - what can I do? This is the only thing holding up exchange.

davidmcn

I expect the insurers can produce a copy - the sellers' solicitors should be able to confirm who that was.

In any event, it shouldn't have been "held" by the sellers' solicitors - your solicitors should have made sure that they received it at completion. So I would suggest you encourage them to sort it out.

lizziesmum

Thank you, David. It all seemed a bit odd to me; you've confirmed my suspicions!

meg00

My solicitor charged by £20.00 for a new policy.......
Good luck1

lizziesmum

The solicitors have finally admitted that they have lost the policy - it's only 6 years old so pretty unbelievable. They have offered to commission a new one by the end of today - we'll see...!

nidO

lizziesmum wrote: »

it's only 6 years old so pretty unbelievable.

Not really, that's pretty much exactly the right believable amount of time.
Data Protection requirements mean firms like solicitors have to have a good reason to keep personal information over 6 years old, what this means in practice is that a lot of firms will shred/destroy files once they're 6 years old if the work in them is one-off and not likely to contain anything needed in the future.
Obviously people shredding paper stuff is never going to be infallible, someone probably shredded your file without noticing it contained a policy certificate you/they might need in future.

Richard_Webster

Was it plannning permission or building regs? The distinction is important.

If the work was done more than 4 years ago in most cases it will be immune from planning enforcement so an indemnity polcy for planning will not be needed.

If it is building regs that's a different matter altogether.

TBagpuss

I'm surprised the solicitors had it at all - normal practice in my experience would be for it to be sent to you.

Although the solicitors may well have decided that it would be easier and cheaper to buy a new policy that to try to find it or to find proof that they sent it to you when they closed their old file.

lizziesmum

We never had it. I am very good at filing! No-one has ever suggested we did have it or that we should have had it. It's definitely the solicitor's fault. Anyway, they're sorting it out so that's all I really care about.