Funds Released to Solicitor - quick question

talulah25

Morning folks, got a text this morning from MA to say that the funds have been released to our solicitor. Completion is planned for 10th or 12th of January. Does this now mean that as funds have been released we can organise utilities, broadband etc? Was holding off on this in case they did credit checks for new accounts.

Thanks.

davidmcn

If you haven't exchanged contracts (I'm guessing not if you don't have a definite completion date) then I would suggest you wait at least until you have exchanged.

Which of your utilities actually needs advance notice anyway? For bog standard gas/electric/water you can wait until you've got the keys.

talulah25

davidmcn wrote: »

If you haven't exchanged contracts (I'm guessing not if you don't have a definite completion date) then I would suggest you wait at least until you have exchanged.

Which of your utilities actually needs advance notice anyway? For bog standard gas/electric/water you can wait until you've got the keys.

Thanks, David. It was more for broadband/phone etc, I know power can be switched etc after moving in and we're in Scotland so pay water with our council tax.

Lucky_Duck_2

My recollection is that solicitors sometimes requests the funds a day in advance but over a week beforehand doesn't sound right, particularly if you haven't exchanged contracts yet.

Edit - see you are in Scotland, things might be different...

talulah25

I'm not sure Lucky Duck, AFAIK there's been no exchange of contracts. It's my partner's mortgage and he has an appointment with solicitor on 8th at which point the deposit and solicitors fees will be paid. It was the Mortgage Advisor who told me this morning that funds had been released by lender today....confused now!

davidmcn

I suggest you rely on the solicitor to confirm whether they've got the funds rather than someone else - it does seem premature to have the funds a week in advance if you haven't even concluded missives yet. But same advice applies as above in relation to utilities - you can't start telling third parties when you're moving in if you haven't tied it up with the sellers yet!

talulah25

Ok, doing some research myself it would appear that funds from Leeds BS (lender) take 5 working days to clear/transfer...this would make sense if we take our completion date as 12th Jan and it's normal to have funds cleared the day before completion.

Original intended completion date was 15th Dec so majority of the work was done by solicitor at start of last month, it was just a delay due to complications with the mortgage offer that held us up. There's no chain and vendors have been really laid-back so touch wood, no reason to believe that completion will not happen next Friday.

Celepie

If you're in Scotland, the entry date will have been set when your offer is accepted and is confirmed once you have exchanged missives. The missives make the whole thing legally binding, so once missives have been completed (you should have been copied into a series a letters from your solicitor to the seller's solicitor etc confirming this) you should be free to arrange what you want as anyone backing out now is in breach of contract. With a moving date of Jan 10th, I would be very surprised if your missives weren't already completed (although upon re-reading I see there was a delay with the mortgage, so that might explain it) - once missives are completed, there are usually a few weeks of things behind the scene before the moving-in date.

We moved in November and once the missives were completed, we organised broadband and phone line switchover for the day after move-in (we didn't want moving day because the engineer had to come out and we didn't know what our timings would be).