First time buyer - problems with solicitors

Amber_ll

Hi,

Me and my partner are buying our first home, our offer was accepted over 8 weeks ago, we made great progress at the start of things but now we seem to be hitting a brick wall with our solicitors.

The timeline of events is below:
8th June: Offer accepted
15th June: Solicitors instructed - paid for searches
19th June: Mortgage offer obtained subject to valuation
3rd July: Mortgage valuation completed - successful
17th July: Building survey completed

The next stage for us is for our solicitors to complete the searches, but they tell us they are unable to do this without the contract pack from the vendor...

We called the estate agent 3 weeks ago to chase this up, they said they had actually spoken to the vendor's solicitors and the contract pack was to be sent over shortly. I checked our online portal for our solicitors and found that they had received an email from the vendor's side - I assumed this was the contract pack and let them get on with their job.

I called a week or so later for an update, where I found that our solicitor had not received the contract pack, chased with the estate agent again, was assured it would be sent over, and left them to it.

Hearing nothing further, I called on the 16th August to chase this yet again, and the estate agent said they would have the documents re-sent. I then checked on Friday with our solicitors - documents not received. I checked again on Monday (as advised by my solicitors), not received. My solicitors sent an email to the vendor's solicitors, asking for the contract pack, and I far as I understand it, the vendor's solicitors emailed back just saying they don't know where the contract pack is. I checked again with the estate agents today who confirmed the contract pack has been sent over twice?

Our solicitors now seem unwilling to help, just saying they can't do anything until they get these documents, and I'm to chase this up with the estate agents. Granted, I have been calling them a lot the last few days, but that's because I can't understand why this stage of the process could be so difficult?

We really feel that we're going round in circles - does this sound normal to anyone?

If anyone could give me some advice it would be greatly appreciated.

G_M

There are severalpossibilities

* the vendor is delaying deliberately for some reason

* the vendor's solicitor is inefficient

* the vendor's solicitor has the wrong address for your solicitor and the packs are being sent but lost

* your solicitor's firm is losing the pack between reception of post and delivery to conveyancer

Get a message to the vendor, either direct or via agent, explaining and say that unless the pack is received within next 3 working days you'll start house hunting again to find a serious seller

eddddy

Do as G_M, suggests - or if you want to start doing some detective work...

• Ask the seller to ask their solicitor the exact date the pack was sent, whether it was sent by email (if so to what email address), or by DX (if so to what DX number).

• Then you can pass those details to your solicitor, and ask them to check.

You might get to the root of the problem.

Or... it's sometimes easy for people (like vendors) to tell vague 'fibs', like "the contract pack has been sent", but they find it much harder to 'fib' when pushed for details.

folkestonelisa

We have just had this, our pack was lost twice, so in the end it was emailed ( which I was charged £50 for!!!)

Amber_ll

Thanks everyone, some great advice there.


I'll contact the estate agent again in the morning, hopefully fuelled with this advice I will get somewhere this time!

Thrugelmir

Has your vendor found a property themselves yet?

Not going to incur costs themselves until they are ready to.

Amber_ll

They have found a property, we were told they're at around the same stage of their purchase as we are with ours.

PawelK

Something really odd from my own recent experience...
My solicitors asked for a contract pack end of June. Sent by vendor 4th July. My sols reviewed and made further queries abput things missing. They chased twice, the whole July and part of August gone and still nothing. I finally started chasing both, my sols and ea who suggested my sols are in receipt and had no idea whats wrong with them. Then suddenly, vendor sols sent what thought to be the same contract pack over a week ago, including many pages not sent originally. Two very important queries arose as a result and we are now awaiting vendor response.
Original contract sent in July was accessible through the link and docs download. I have no idea if the vendor tried to hide these docs back then or my sols did not download everything correctly...
The moral of the story is, you never really know what the problem can be as it could be something pretty unpredictable.