Completion delay - liability for costs

bms1972

mrschaucer wrote: »

Presumably your buyer's funds were not in your (sol's) account in time, so your contract with them could not complete. Consequently this lack of funds meant you could not complete on your onward purchase. Yes, in theory you could have given your buyers a licence to occupy your house until they sorted themselves out but why would this be a duty you "have" to do? It would mean your vendor also "having to" let you into their house under licence and so on up the chain. As you say, it only takes one person to refuse and SOMEONE in the chain gets to sleep on a friend's couch/run up hotel bills etc until the person at the bottom gets his act together. This surely can't be a legal requirement - just doesn't make sense - these new costs would only get passed down the chain again to the bottom? Please come back and tell us what your solicitor says.

Exactly my view and, I think, reflects the legal position.

Two families (mine and our vendors) ended up 'homeless' for a night because of this and were fortunately able to avoid running up hotel bills (our solicitors did just say "book a hotel and have a meal" at the time). So the bills could have been higher than they actually are. On the day of failed completion, the solicitor was adamant that liability for all extra costs would be with the bottom of the chain.

I will post back what the solicitor says :beer:

mrschaucer

Yes please do. It would be interesting for people to see just what the legal requirements are to "mitigate" losses under those circumstances.

bms1972

mrschaucer wrote: »

Yes please do. It would be interesting for people to see just what the legal requirements are to "mitigate" losses under those circumstances.

Indeed. Especially as no contractual provisions are made for any mitigating steps. The only binding contractual clause is to pay by 2pm....ergo, if that didn't happen...well, you'd think it was obvious anyway!

Hoploz

Did you actually incur any costs then, as you've said you didn't stay in a hotel?

bms1972

Hoploz wrote: »

Did you actually incur any costs then, as you've said you didn't stay in a hotel?

Yes, storage and redelivery fees on removals. As did the people we were buying from.

We incurred miscellaneous costs too, which the solicitors said to claim for (e.g. buying emergency clothing, food, other personal items which were taken into storage with no access), but we have not sought to claim these back.

agrinnall

bms1972 wrote: »

Yes. Solicitor advising, but not instructed - as running up further costs make little sense unless there is no alternative.

As these costs are a direct result of the delay surely you could claim them as well?

bms1972

agrinnall wrote: »

As these costs are a direct result of the delay surely you could claim them as well?

Yes, you are right. I'd hoped to convince our buyers to avoid legal costs, as this ultimately just pushes more cost their way, but sadly it may prove necessary to do that.

bms1972

bms1972 wrote: »

I wonder if anyone could give a legal opinion on who is liable for costs in these circumstances.

Buyer A purchases house from Buyer B, who is purchasing from Buyer C.

Exchange of contracts takes place two weeks before completion.

Delays ensue on completion day, due to A's funds not reaching B's solicitors account by the deadline (15.30). Extra costs are incurred (e.g. removals/storage/interest) by the chain.

A final update from the OP!

Confirmation that A was indeed responsible for B's and C's costs. B (us) and C (our vendors) received cheques refunding our costs a few weeks back.

It was a long hard fight with A's solicitors stalling each time, but got there in the end without having to go through the courts.

My suspicion (based on verbal conversation) is that the solicitors have paid rather than their clients, but that is speculative.

Thanks all for the positive advice on this thread, it definitely helped with sticking to our guns.

martindow

Glad it's been sorted - but 5 months wait!

bms1972

martindow wrote: »

Glad it's been sorted - but 5 months wait!

If only! We moved in Feb 2016, the post here was after hitting so many brick walls