Conveyancer not registered to claim Help to Buy ISAs

phoebass

I'm new here- sorry if this has been asked before, but I've not been able to find anything that gives an answer for our scenario.
We are supposed to exchange on Friday. Our Solicitor has been rejected when trying to register for the help to by ISA bonus scheme. Apparently he is too small a firm (1 man band). He said that we could ask another Solicitor who is registered with the scheme to claim our bonuses for us. We have not yet had any luck in getting another solicitor to take on just the help to buy bonus without conveyancing the rest of our house purchase. Obviously we are now too far down the line to change solicitors.
Does anyone have any advice on what we can do? The ISA bonuses will be worth approx £2000 and it is so frustrating that this all goes to waste because our solicitor can't be on the registered list.
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Alexland

My view is that it's very poor of your solicitor to take the job on without checking if you were planning to use a HTB ISA. Then for them to get as far as applying for the bonus without knowing there would be a problem shows a worrying lack of market awareness. I would be asking your solicitor how they propose to remedy the situation. At the very least I would expect them to offer a reduction in fees.

No other solicitor is likely to take the HTB ISA claim on its own. If you haven't yet exchanged you still have options.

phoebass

Thanks for your reply Alexland, what would our options be?
Thanks

Alexland

phoebass wrote: »

Thanks for your reply Alexland, what would our options be?

Well the main options are to accept no bonus (and try and get a fee reduction) or change solicitor (and have further delay, and still have to pay the last one most of their cost).

Alternatively if you can afford to complete without using the HTB ISA you could transfer it to a S&S LISA and use the money and bonus to invest for retirement at 60.

Alex.

bowlhead99

Alexland wrote: »

My view is that it's very poor of your solicitor to take the job on without checking if you were planning to use a HTB ISA. Then for them to get as far as applying for the bonus without knowing there would be a problem shows a worrying lack of market awareness. I would be asking your solicitor how they propose to remedy the situation. At the very least I would expect them to offer a reduction in fees.

It's fashionable to blame the lawyers (because nobody has any love for lawyers) and also to request money off the price for something that is not exclusively the service provider's fault (compensation culture).

However, it is only the solicitor's fault that you are out of time to claim the bonus if you had previously told him with a good deal of notice that you were expecting to claim the bonus in order to be able to get the property and he assured you it would be fine. The OP is the one who decided to use a product that comes with terms and conditions and can only be claimed on their behalf by certain pre-registered firms. So in the absence of a solicitor confirmation some time ago that he could definitely get you the bonus, the OP should shoulder some of the blame for their situation. It is a savings product which they bought, not something the solicitor bought for them, so the 'worrying lack of awareness' is theirs as much as anyone elses.

Finding out if the solicitor is able to enable them to use the product that they want to use and experienced in doing so (to ensure it goes off without a hitch), is part of selecting a solicitor, even if that is little comfort at this stage and the OP perhaps didn't think he needed to worry about using someone registered with the scheme. The solicitor does not have to be aware of every financial product that exists. Though HTB has been available for a while, it's not uncommon for a conveyancer to have never used one, especially if they are a small firm. FWIW, even small firms are able to register for the scheme (otherwise that would be quite anti-competitive of the govt), but there would be no chance of completing the registration on short notice and if the solicitor is not already registered he will have little appetite to register just to be able to charge you the nominal fee he can charge for processing your claim.

Forgive me if I'm doing OP a disservice and the solicitor was made fully aware that the buyers wanted to use a help to buy bonus as part of the completion. But usually the solicitors demand up front for the buyers to confirm their source of funds for the purchase. If the purchasers say they are using a mortgage and their savings it will be presumed that they have a decision in principle for the mortgage and have all those savings available. If they actually mean they are using a mortgage, and their savings, and a government bonus on their savings which has yet to be applied for, the solicitor needs to be told that is the plan and then he can put that on the critical path of things to check off.

If he's told late (as we have sometimes heard on this forum) that is not an automatic upheld complaint and compensation.

No other solicitor is likely to take the HTB ISA claim on its own. If you haven't yet exchanged you still have options.

If you can stomach a delay, sounds like you have a £1999 budget to find someone who will do the whole conveyancing or just the HTB bit of it and still be in 'profit' from the free government money.

For example, perhaps you could offer your current solicitor £500 to work with someone he's friendly with in the industry to do a rapid conveyancing for £1000 using alll the information and searches he has already obtained, and claim the £2000 bonus in time for completion and still be up £500 compared to doing nothing and letting the bonus lapse.

Alexland

bowlhead99 wrote: »

It's fashionable to blame the lawyers (because nobody has any love for lawyers) and also to request money off the price for something that is not exclusively the service provider's fault (compensation culture).

It's fashionable to claim things are fashionable

Yes I agree the OP should have read the full terms of the account however the solicitor is a professional and has a responsibility to be up to date with the types of transactions that are likely to normally occur in the market. I am not suggesting compensation, or free conveyancing but a reduction in fees.

I like my solicitors and have dropped by with several small gifts over the years following property transactions. I really don't think it's likely my solicitors would have allowed this situation to occur.

Alex.

phoebass

Alexland wrote: »

No other solicitor is likely to take the HTB ISA claim on its own. If you haven't yet exchanged you still have options.

Is it a legal reason that the solicitors couldn't take on the HTB ISA on its own, or purely because its not worth the time? If its the latter could I offer to pay extra fees that would offset the cost of their extra time?
Thanks

AirlieBird

phoebass wrote: »

Is it a legal reason that the solicitors couldn't take on the HTB ISA on its own, or purely because its not worth the time? If its the latter could I offer to pay extra fees that would offset the cost of their extra time?
Thanks

A solicitor cannot charge more than £50+VAT to process a HTB ISA claim.

Alexland

AirlieBird wrote: »

A solicitor cannot charge more than £50+VAT to process a HTB ISA claim.

In addition the solicitor is unlikely to want the potential liability of getting involved in a transaction in which they have not done their own checks. I once had a lot of problems finding an electrician to agree to complete a job that another electrician walked out of. They smell a rat and don't want to get involved.

margaretx9

Its a terrible consequence of how the scheme was designed. Every one focuses on the best rate for your help to buy isa funds for a few extra quid - but no one highlights you need to make sure your solicitor is registered for the scheme otherwise you cannot claim the bonus which could cost you up to £3,000.

As is the case here - the poor first time buyer doesn't realise until its too late.

Why it couldn't simply have been left with mortgage lenders - you complete on the mortgage and they claim it for you and pay it into your mortgage account rather than relying on one man band solicitors.

Still - you can get the stamp duty relief!

Thrugelmir

margaretx9 wrote: »

but no one highlights you need to make sure your solicitor is registered for the scheme otherwise you cannot claim the bonus which could cost you up to £3,000.

Up to the client to brief their solicitor fully at the outset. The solicitor then has the option of declining the work. Personally I'd never leave conveyancing in the hands of just one person. For obvious reasons. Better to use a firm with a conveyancing department.

You can however make a complaint.

If your conveyancer is not a registered solicitor you should make a complaint to the Council of Licensed Conveyancers. Details on how to do this can be found by contacting them by email at clc@clc-uk.org, or by telephone 0207 250 8465. If your complaint is about the processing of a bonus application, you should contact the scheme administrator here.

https://www.helptobuyportal.org.uk/CreateServiceRequestAnonymous/?flag=Consumer