balance after completion

badaz52

Hi all,

We completed on a combined sale and purchase yesterday and I believe there will be some money being returned to me.

I just wondered how long I should expect to wait for this balance to be returned before contacting my solicitor.

Many thanks.

G_M

What did your solicior say? If nothing, why not ask?

He should have prepared a Completion Statement before completion which should specify all the income & costs he'll be responsible for, so on Completion it's usually simply a matter of

* how quickly the solicitor's admin is to process the repaymet to you and
* whether he sends a cheque, uses CHAPS, or whatever

badaz52

During the Christmas break my solicitor sent me a sale invoice, purchase invoice and combined invoice. On the surface everything looked ok and there was a balance to pay on my part which based on my calculations seemed about right.

However the day before completion my solicitor called to query who was paying the estate agent fees as they had taken it out of my sale money and not put down that it was an incentive from the builder.

I have also noticed that the £500 res fee has not been taken into account and the stamp duty appears to have been worked out incorrectly again not showing consideration that the builder had made a contribution.

The solicitor was going to recalculate and let me know but that phone call never happened and we have now completed.

I think I'm going to have to call tomorrow to check.

G_M

Did the solicitor know the builder was paying the EA fee? Had you informed him in writing?

"the £500 res fee has not been taken into account " in what way? I assume you'd already paid this? Was it to be deducted from the sale price? Had the solicitor been informed?

Your original question was about the timing for return of money owed, but it now appears that your issue is that the amount due is still to be clarified - a different question entirely!

Write to your solicitor with your own explanation and calculation of what you believe is due and ask for a revised final acount.

Only then can you start asking about how and when it will be paid!

badaz52

The solicitor was aware in writing of the incentives being offered from the builder and in writing since day one. The res fee was also to be deducted from the purchase price and once again they would have had this in writing when requesting the sales contract from the builder.

As I said things seemed to be in order until that phone call the day before completion, I have since revisited the invoices and have spotter these discrepancies.