Help please

cazzyd

Hi All

Sorry for what may appear to be a long and complex message.

My bf and I are currently in the process of purchasing a house. Before Christmas it went through, and came out of probate, and all the paperwork was in the process of being sorted for us during the third week of January, until we came across a stumbling block. The house deeds were in the name of the late husband of the woman whose house we are buying. So we were told on that day that one of two things could happen. 1. That it would be a name change on the deeds, (to that of the will executor) and then subsequently ours...once purchase completed.

or

2. It would return to probate for a second time.

Fast forward to the second week of April and we still don't know what will happen. My bf have contacted our solicitor regularly who has contacted the sellers solicitor and had no reply.

I am getting to the end of my tether, as our mortgage offer runs out in 5 weeks, and we have a bank holiday in the middle of that. And right now I just want to be in our house.

Does anyone have experience of a similar situation who can give advice please? I've instructed my solicitor to ring the sellers solicitor everyday from now on, and I will be returning the favour, but I am getting more upset, and emotional by the day that we still have no answers from the third week in January.

I would be extremely grateful of any advice.

Thankyou, and sorry

dancingfairy

I'm really sorry but it doesn't sound like you're going to get this house if they won't talk to you then obviously you have no idea what's going on or how long it will take to sort.
If they've been ignoring you since Christmas I can't see it all suddenly being sorted to be honest
Df

cazzyd

Hi dancing fairy

we are in contact with the seller, it's the sellers solicitor that is the problem, he's been on holiday at least twice in that time. But I'm not sure why he's not giving any answers xx

mrginge

Look for another house.

cazzyd

umfortunately at the moment looking for another house isn't a possibility. I'm just asking as I personally don't think it's normal for the solicitor not to be in contact for that length of time, and have had two holidays. My solicitor has supposedly been in contact on numerous occasions with the sellers solicitor and all I get told is they still don't know whether it going to probate once again or whether the name change will suffice. I'm at the end of my capability to cope! We have five weeks left on our mortgage offer which was based on our purchase of this house, and I doubt we'll have time to find and complete on another in this length of time!

I'm frustrated as its not for the lack of trying and hassling our solicitor on our part, its just the sellers solicitor....and all I want is some information...I don't think its too much to ask

mildredalien

cazzyd wrote: »

umfortunately at the moment looking for another house isn't a possibility.

Is there any reason for this other than loving the house?

Unfortunately you can't force the solicitor to do things any quicker and they may be held up by all sorts their end. You could sit tight and wait for whatever probate issues there are to be sorted out (and apply for a mortgage offer extension, or reapply once you know what's happening). This could take a couple of weeks or a few months.

Or, you could withdraw and look elsewhere. If you are finding it difficult to cope with the current situation honestly this seems like your best bet.

melstar11

Two things you could do - tell the vendor that his solicitor has not given you any update for x weeks despite repeated requests and ask your solicitor to explain what is going on and get a proper update and timescales. If you do get an update then speak to your mortgage provider, explain the situation and ask them to extend their offer.

If you get no info, then I think you need to accept that this probably isn't going to work out - in which case you threaten to pull out unless things move and move quickly. You do need to be prepared to follow through on that though.

Annisele

cazzyd wrote: »

we are in contact with the seller, it's the sellers solicitor that is the problem, he's been on holiday at least twice in that time. But I'm not sure why he's not giving any answers xx

Depending on what happened with the late husband's estate, it's possible that the person you're calling the "seller" doesn't actually have the right to sell the house. (And it's also possible that they don't know that).

If the late husband had a will leaving everything to his wife, had no debts, and there are no children involved, then it will hopefully be relatively straightforward. But there are huge numbers of possibly complications, especially if the late husband had children with somebody other than your seller.

cazzyd

melstar11 wrote: »

Two things you could do - tell the vendor that his solicitor has not given you any update for x weeks despite repeated requests and ask your solicitor to explain what is going on and get a proper update and timescales. If you do get an update then speak to your mortgage provider, explain the situation and ask them to extend their offer.

If you get no info, then I think you need to accept that this probably isn't going to work out - in which case you threaten to pull out unless things move and move quickly. You do need to be prepared to follow through on that though.

firstly thanks all for your responses, and Its certainly not the easiest of situations at the moment I know.

Firstly this is a house we are buying through family, and its a perfect first time purchase, and personally I feel sorry for the seller as they are just as frustrated as we are, We are all gutted that things havent moved quickly

I should add here that we contacted our mortgage advisor two weeks ago when we had just over six weeks on our mortgage offer and asked if we should contact the mortgage lender to tell them about our situation. Even if the mortgage lender does allow an extension it is only an extra two weeks which takes us to the end of may only.

Do you think our mortgage lender will be more lenient if we explain the seller's solicitor is not staying in contact. I'm fuming about it, as our solicitor has two assistants so even if our solicitor isn't available, we can always speak to one. Surely even if the sellers solicitor is on holiday, there should be someone on the case who is able to liase with our solicitor. Short of contacting the sellers solicitor myself which i'm sure i'm not allowed to do...I'm out of ideas. I instructed our solicitor to bombard the sellers solicitor everyday from now on. The most frustrating thing is that we still don't have answers after all this time since January. I'd like something..even probate wouldn't bother me now...I'm at a loss as to why noone knows anything, after all this time!

alchemist.1

Annisele wrote: »

Depending on what happened with the late husband's estate, it's possible that the person you're calling the "seller" doesn't actually have the right to sell the house. (And it's also possible that they don't know that).

If the late husband had a will leaving everything to his wife, had no debts, and there are no children involved, then it will hopefully be relatively straightforward. But there are huge numbers of possibly complications, especially if the late husband had children with somebody other than your seller.

Pretty much agree with that. I wouldn't be surprised if there is another beneficiary in the background complicating matters.

I would be looking for other properties.

PS taking two holidays this year is not beyond normal.

mrginge

I think you need to understand that the person that's messing you around in all this is the seller.

Either -
A: there is a probate issue that the seller is not telling you about.
B: the solicitor is causing the delay for no good reason and the seller is not dealing with it.

In either case, you need to explain to your vendor that they need to resolve this issue as you are sick of waiting and you are reaching the point where you don't believe they are committed to a deal.