Completion day tomorrow - seller now can't complete!

Tracytop81

Any advice please, I had a phone call from my solicitor this morning (Tuesday) confirming he had all my funds in place and ready to go, we are due to complete tomorrow, but he would get hold of the sellers solicitor and if he was ready perhaps we could complete this afternoon and I could get the keys early, Excellent or so I thought. My solicitor has now phoned to say that the sellers solicitor has just informed him that he is in negative equity with his mortgage on this property and the bank won't let him sell it, apparently he was going to raise funds for the gap but has not managed to do so, and now cannot complete. I'm furious. My solicitor says that he will issue a 10 day completion demand if we are still in this position tomorrow. I currently rent and have to be out of this property by Thrs, I have a removal company booked for Thrs morning and very scared I'm now going to be homeless. The new tenants for where I live are moving in at the weekend. How can he do this to me, any advice please

Guest101

Have you exchanged contracts???

G_M

Re the Completion - nothing you can do escept as your solicitor has adised. Issue a Demand notice and hope for the best.
Meanwhile keep track of ALL your expenses (remoavls, hotels, whatever) as you can claim these back off the seller.

Re the tenancy - provide more details:
* is it a fixed term that expires on Thursday?
* is it periodic? If so what are the period dates and when did you give notice? Or did the LL serve a S21Notice on you?

You may not have to leave, though the next tenant won't be best pleased....

glentoran99

I find it strange the sellers solicitor has allowed it to get this far if funds aren't in place to complete

seashore22

Do you mean exchange or complete or are you doing both on the same day.

I always thought the completion date was set in stone at the time of exchanging contracts, so it would not be possible to bring the date forward unless both were happening on the same day.

If you haven't exchanged yet then it looks like a lost cause unless the seller can sort out his finances.

Edit - just seen that you have mentioned a completion demand, so you have exchanged? Someone has well and truly messed up to let it go this far without the finances in place.

Tracytop81

Hi, thanks for the quick replies, yes we have exchanged contracts. As for where I am now, it's a periodic tenancy, we exchanged contracts 6 weeks ago and that's when I gave my notice, in line with being up at the end of the month, which was when we agreed completion for. My solicitor couldn't believe it either!

moneyistooshorttomention

glentoran99 wrote: »

I find it strange the sellers solicitor has allowed it to get this far if funds aren't in place to complete

Well - I guess a solicitor isn't likely to check out whether their client is grossly irresponsible by nature (as obviously this seller is).

Fingers crossed for OP that it gets resolved okay. I'd be going ballistic in their position - so do hope it works out for them.

glentoran99

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Well - I guess a solicitor isn't likely to check out whether their client is grossly irresponsible by nature (as obviously this seller is).

Fingers crossed for OP that it gets resolved okay. I'd be going ballistic in their position - so do hope it works out for them.

But the solicitor would have got the deeds from bank etc, Surely the funds issue would have come to light then? If contracts have been exchanged the solicitor has been negligent surely?

Surrey_EA

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Well - I guess a solicitor isn't likely to check out whether their client is grossly irresponsible by nature (as obviously this seller is).

Wouldn't the seller's solicitor have requested a redemption statement from the mortgage lender? At that stage surely it would have become evident there wasn't going to be enough money in the pot from the sale to cover the outstanding mortgage balance.

Tracytop81

I am furious, I really don't have the words to describe how I feel, but also very nervous about where I'm going to be living Thrs evening, I really hope that he can get the funds sorted this evening, but I'm guessing my solicitor wouldn't have told me about this issue if he thought it would be resolved by tomorrow

seashore22

Did you mean 6 weeks ago op because I thought you only got a mortgage agreement a couple of weeks ago?

If you did exchange 6 weeks ago then both you and your seller exchanged without the finances in place. How did that happen?