How to find out who's liable for our losses

TeaCosy

Tahlullah wrote: »

Are you sure it was a solicitor dealing with the sale? People use the word liberally. In many cases, it isn't a solicitor undertaking the conveyance, it is a Paralegal under the supervision of a Supervising Solicitor. The detail would be in the original Confirmation of Advice letter you received.

If this is correct, then you may have a case because it is possible you were 'told' it would be ok, but the Supervising Solicitor may not have reviewed the case file at that point.

Check to see if it was a solicitor. Check to see who was supervising the file. And write to the firm with your complaint.

Thanks for the info Tallulah

I just checked and our 'solicitor' is in fact a trainee legal executive so will be looking further into this.

Most of our discussions in the last few days of the transaction took place over the phone so I don't have much evidence that I was 'told' that this is what we would be doing. I did email asking whether it would definitely be okay to confirm my removals for the 4th July and the reply from her was 'yes your are safe to book removals for the 4th' but I'm aware that this probably is weak.

Our buyer had, about a week before exchange, changed her solicitor from another local firm and employed a different solicitor from the same firm as ours as apparently her original solicitor hadn't been working effectively. As our 'solicitor' was aware that our buyer was eager to move on with things everything was tied up very quickly within the last few days and we were told that it would now be much more simple as both solicitors were able to communicate more quickly. I wonder whether with the last minute rush to get everything in place our solicitor simply failed to check everything was okay from our vendors side. I must also add that initially we were going to exchange the day before completion and I don't know why the solicitors involved changed that (I know I know, we should have asked!)

I'm not trying to absolve myself from any blame here just trying to give an overview of the background in which things happened.

TeaCosy

stator wrote: »

The only hope you would have of a claim is if your solicitor acted negligently. ie if they told YOU you were exchanging and completing on the same day, but they told the other party they were just exchanging on that day, or didn't make it clear about completion. In order to make a claim on your solicitor you would have to prove this was the case. So you would need a copy of all the communication between the two solicitors.
However I think this is pretty unlikely to be the case.
If you wish your sale to go ahead smoothly with the rearranged dates, I wouldn't annoy your solicitor at this stage.

I can confirm that we are now in the new house so don't need to worry about annoying our solicitor. I don't know how to gain copies of communication between the solicitors but wish I did as there has been a miscommunication somewhere I'm just not sure by who.

davidmcn

TeaCosy wrote: »

I did email asking whether it would definitely be okay to confirm my removals for the 4th July and the reply from her was 'yes your are safe to book removals for the 4th' but I'm aware that this probably is weak.

The point is that with simultaneous exchange and completion, there's never a point at which it is "definitely ok" to confirm your removals because it could all fall apart on the morning when your van turns up. The chances are that either you would have had to accept that (fairly small) risk anyway, or pull out of the transaction altogether - and I presume you wouldn't have wanted to jeopardise your sale? So would you really have done anything different even if your solicitors had given you a detailed list of everything which could possibly have gone wrong?

TeaCosy

eddddy wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that a solicitor would advise you to exchange and complete on the same day - unless there is a very significant factor that you have not mentioned.

Conveyancing solicitors don't generally advise people how to live their lives.

Your solicitor might have advised that they could exchange and complete on the same day, if that's what you want to do.

What were the exact words that the solicitor used?

There are no significant factors which I have not mentioned.

I had a telephone conversation with my solicitor about a week before the date of moving. She said that our buyer had now moved from her original solicitor in another firm to a solictor in the same firm that I was using, and that 'we are now going for exchange and completion on the 4th of July'

moneyistooshorttomention

As I understand the risk is very small of failure to Complete once Exchange has happened - though, goodness knows, there have been cases of this on this sub-forum.

....and so I return to the way I believe it's best to have the traditional 4 weeks between Exchange and Completion. Doesnt completely remove the possibility of someone somewhere mucking up - but it does vastly reduce the chances of it (be they the "legals", the removal firm, the utility companies, etc, etc).

Ithaca

I think people are being a little bit tough on OP. Seasoned movers or readers of MSE might know the pitfalls of a same-day exchange and completion but most people only move once or twice a decade so it's not unreasonable to trust the professional you are paying for advice.

Same-day exchange and completion is becoming increasingly common now that banks and mortgage companies can move funds electronically within hours. We exchanged at 5.50pm the day before our planned completion but we were in a very short chain with FTBs living locally with parents at one end and a vacant probate sale at the other (all within 2 miles of each other) so there wasn't the same risk if the sale didn't go through. Our solicitor didn't request funds until 10am on completion day and it was all done by 1pm.

And by way of anecdote, in our town it's now the norm for a very short gap between exchange and completion. We have a huge "bubble" of elderly downsizers (people who bought here in the late 1950s / early 1960s as part of the post-war exodus from Coventry and are now in their 80s and 90s), and several solicitors have had sales wrecked by older vendors dying in the 3-4 weeks between exchange and completion (I wonder if the stress of leaving the family home contributes to this?). It's not happening daily but our estate agents said it had happened enough that most of the local solicitors were wary of leaving too long a gap as once it gets into probate things can get really tricky.

TeaCosy

davidmcn wrote: »

The point is that with simultaneous exchange and completion, there's never a point at which it is "definitely ok" to confirm your removals because it could all fall apart on the morning when your van turns up. The chances are that either you would have had to accept that (fairly small) risk anyway, or pull out of the transaction altogether - and I presume you wouldn't have wanted to jeopardise your sale? So would you really have done anything different even if your solicitors had given you a detailed list of everything which could possibly have gone wrong?

You are right, we would probably have gone ahead anyway and I would have accepted it if the fault had been caused by our vendor. Our solicitor never told us that there was a risk of them getting things wrong though! What irks me is that the people representing us have missed something somewhere and we are out of pocket as a result.

I realise we have been naive but I expect better from somebody who we pay to know what they are doing.

TeaCosy

Ithaca wrote: »

I think people are being a little bit tough on OP. Seasoned movers or readers of MSE might know the pitfalls of a same-day exchange and completion but most people only move once or twice a decade so it's not unreasonable to trust the professional you are paying for advice.

Same-day exchange and completion is becoming increasingly common now that banks and mortgage companies can move funds electronically within hours. We exchanged at 5.50pm the day before our planned completion but we were in a very short chain with FTBs living locally with parents at one end and a vacant probate sale at the other (all within 2 miles of each other) so there wasn't the same risk if the sale didn't go through. Our solicitor didn't request funds until 10am on completion day and it was all done by 1pm.

And by way of anecdote, in our town it's now the norm for a very short gap between exchange and completion. We have a huge "bubble" of elderly downsizers (people who bought here in the late 1950s / early 1960s as part of the post-war exodus from Coventry and are now in their 80s and 90s), and several solicitors have had sales wrecked by older vendors dying in the 3-4 weeks between exchange and completion (I wonder if the stress of leaving the family home contributes to this?). It's not happening daily but our estate agents said it had happened enough that most of the local solicitors were wary of leaving too long a gap as once it gets into probate things can get really tricky.

Thanks for your reply

We were in the same situation as you, cash buyers and vendor moving in with parents so were led to believe it would be a straightforward transaction, which it would have been if it weren't for someone not telling the vendor what day we were expecting to complete.

TeaCosy

Tahlullah wrote: »

As Stator correctly said, you will need a copy of the communication between the two parties.

Very easy to do. Send a letter for a Subject Access Request (SAR). Enclose a postal order for £10 and ensure you tell them that you expect a response within the legislated 40 day time frame.

By doing this, it also lets the firm know that you are serious and that you have already started looking into this beyond just your anger speaking.

Ensure that the complaint letter also 'requests a copy of the organisations Complaints Procedure so that you can ensure this has been extensively exhausted before you take the case further'.

Hopefully, this will ensure they know you are serious and they may just make the payment to avoid any further drama.

Ensure that your complaint letter sets out exactly how the money you wish to claim from them has arisen. You are not asking for compensation, you are asking for your out of pocket expenses due to poor advice (which will hopefully be apparent in the file you have requested in the SAR.)

Thank you so much for this constructive advice Tallulah. We will make a start on this today.

Even if we get nowhere with this, hopefully somebody from the legal firms involved will learn from their mistake and we have certainly learned from ours (and hopefully from this forum will help others not to make the same c@ck up).

We are not stupid people and are usually pretty savvy, this situation just caught us totally off guard!

TeaCosy

Tahlullah wrote: »

You have a further arrow to your bow with the above.

Did your solicitor write to you informing you of this? Did they mention that this could in a worst case scenario be a conflict of interest? Perhaps because of the desire to push everything through, the two solicitors conversed and your 'solicitor' took shortcuts based on the advice of the buyers needs.

The SAR is now more important that ever, because the SAR stretches to all communication in relation to you, implied, written, discussed etc.

It could be that the mistake really was the Trainee Paralegal's because they wanted to move this quickly and were not working in your best interest at this point, but in the firms or the buyers.

Thank you

We had no written communication re possible conflict of interest, nor verbal. I truly believe that things were rushed at the last hurdle due to our buyers demands which could well have influenced the outcome.