Never ending stories from Solicitor

troutman

We have been waiting for what seems about 4months for our vendors solicitor to announce they are ready to exchange.

We have been given endless excuses for delays way after rounds of 'initial enquiries' on our property:

Recent excuses which has delayed exchange are

Discovered an outstanding search hadn't been submitted
Discovered buildings insurance didnt suit lenders requirements
Discovered tpo issues
And now it's been 'discovered' that the house near the bottom of the chain which is listed had roofing repair work on it years ago which wasn't declared or approved by the LPA or whoever approves Listed building approval work.

Apparently we are now waiting for them (this same solicitor with all these other 'oversights') to decide wether or not to refer this issue to the lender.

I have read online repair work to listed property may not necessarily require planning approval. We were more interested in when this information came to the solicitor in question as we can only ascertain this would of been supplied from the vendor via questionnaire or from a structural survey. If so are the Solicitors in question negligent in some way for sitting on it this long or not noticing sooner.
Obviously concerned if this proves to be more than just a few tiles it could be a criminal issue plus costs to rectify which would blow the chain apart im sure.
I am aware indemnity insurance will not help here as there is already an awareness of repair work which wasn't not cleared with LPA first.

Your thoughts/ advice appreciated.

da_rule

What do you mean by 'house beneath'? If your property isn't listed and the matter doesn't concern your property I cannot see why it would matter? I am happy to be corrected, not purporting to be an expert on listed buildings.

In terms of what else you can do depends on how much you want the property. Set a deadline and if it isn't met then walk away? Make sure the sellers are aware of this too.

troutman

Hi thanks for your input re house beneath- house at bottom of chain. If we walk away chain breaks we lose our vendor potentially.

Hoploz

This is how chains go, unfortunately. All you can do is ensure you've provided all info asked for, once done you just have to sit it out.

Alternative is to start throwing toys out of the pram issuing ultimatums .... but if your buyer doesn't have funds to buy without selling, there's diddly squat point getting uppity. Only other choice is dump your buyer, wait for a new one, then find yourself in the exact same position in 6 months time.

troutman

Can we prove negligence on the solicitor for not divulging information that would knowingly prevent sale and the chain to collapse?

davidmcn

troutman wrote: »

Can we prove negligence on the solicitor for not divulging information that would knowingly prevent sale and the chain to collapse?

It's not your transaction. A "chain" isn't something with any legal significance, the other solicitors don't owe you any duties (leaving aside the question of whether what you claim is even true and whether you could prove it!).

-taff

You haven't got a leg to stand on.
Your options are wait, or pull ot, or threaten to pull out.

However, if I were buying a house, I would be leaving all the issues for the solicitor to sort out, since that's what I pay them for, not to override their job, which is essentially what you're asking your vendor to do.

TBagpuss

troutman wrote: »

Can we prove negligence on the solicitor for not divulging information that would knowingly prevent sale and the chain to collapse?

The only solicitor you have a legal relationship with is your own, so no, if your vendor's solicitor has been inefficinet then that is betweenthem, and the vendors. It is nothing to do with you.

also, bear in mind that things can create delays even though no-one is negligent - for instnace, the conveyancer may not review the searches until kthey have all come back,m rather thandoing them piecmeal,. This might mean a delay before they discover an issuie but doesn't make them neligent.
The planning issues may have resulted in the sellers doing some research or digging through old paperwok with a view to working out if / how much of a problem it was before passing onformation on the their buyers, and so on.

Not evey delay or setback is down to negligence or even poor service.

if you think your *own* solicitor has caused delays then you may have ground to make a complaint about them.

martindow

This sounds like a situation where estate agents should be working for their money. They can talk to people up and down the chain to help sort out problems and keep the chain together.

cloo

Sadly, discovering stuff like this is par for the course and some solicitors are very slow at finding all the relevant stuff while others are much better. I agree with martindow that agents (if they're any good) can work here, but a lot of them are better at harrassing and putting people under stress than they are at problem solving. You might be lucky though!