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Help! House Purchase About to Fall Through!

Our house purchase is about to fall through as our Conveyancer is not satisfied with a question around the risk of fraud from identify theft.

Our Solicitor has said the following to the Sellers solicitor :
With regards to carrying out the necessary due diligence on your clients. As the buyers solicitors, we are reliant on you as the sellers solicitors to carry out the necessary due diligence on the sellers to confirm they are indeed the registered proprietors of the property and that there is no risk of identity fraud in relation to this. Unless we receive a clear confirmation to this we cannot proceed further.

The Vendors Solicitor has then responded to the above with the following :
In relation to identity I cannot tell you that there is no fraud. I can say that we have carried out our AML checks and we have no reason to believe that our clients are not the people who they purport to be and are the registered proprietors of the property. We have met Mr [redacted] (the Vendor) in person at our office. We cannot give you a 100% assurance there is no fraud no one could. All we can say is on the information we have which is the information a prudent solicitor would obtain we have no concerns.

We need to confirm tomorrow, but we feel our Solicitor will advise that this response is not adequate enough....

Does anybody here have any advice? I don't know if the Solicitors are just trying to cover their backs from not specifically confirming there is no fraud. But then again, how do you confirm there is no fraud 100% - you can only do so much!

We are terribly upset about this whole ordeal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

Adam
«13

Comments

  • kinger101
    kinger101 Posts: 6,786 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Tell your conveyancer to stop being an idiot. They wouldn't be able to give any better assurance than that if the boot was on the other foot.

    Is this one of those conveyancing warehouses like Premier Property Lawyers.
    "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" - Confucius
  • caprikid1
    caprikid1 Posts: 2,590 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Sounds like 2 solicitors being as***
  • AdamK
    AdamK Posts: 9 Forumite
    kinger101 wrote: »
    Tell your conveyancer to stop being an idiot. They wouldn't be able to give any better assurance than that if the boot was on the other foot.

    Is this one of those conveyancing warehouses like Premier Property Lawyers.


    My conveyancer is a small local firm - relatively well established.

    But this issue has certainly caught us out - and they seem adamant they will not proceed if they can't get this 'confirmation' of sorts...
  • kinger101
    kinger101 Posts: 6,786 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    caprikid1 wrote: »
    Sounds like 2 solicitors being as***

    Solicitors normally respond to this question that they've done ID checks in accordance with CML. It looks like a proforma question from conveyancing monkey warehouse. I've seen it before.
    "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" - Confucius
  • kinger101
    kinger101 Posts: 6,786 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    AdamK wrote: »
    My conveyancer is a small local firm - relatively well established.

    But this issue has certainly caught us out - and they seem adamant they will not proceed if they can't get this 'confirmation' of sorts...

    Ask to speak to the senior partner. Ask how they'd respond to the question if another firm asked them the very same question.
    "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" - Confucius
  • AdamK
    AdamK Posts: 9 Forumite
    kinger101 wrote: »
    Solicitors normally respond to this question that they've done ID checks in accordance with CML. It looks like a proforma question from conveyancing monkey warehouse. I've seen it before.

    I think I'll confirm with my Solicitors if everything has been done according to the CML then surely we must proceed.
    kinger101 wrote: »
    Ask to speak to the senior partner. Ask how they'd respond to the question if another firm asked them the very same question.

    From speaking with my Solicitor - I think they're looking for a one liner to confirm 'there is no risk of fraud and the owners are who they say they are and are registered proprietors of the property' but the latest response from the solicitors doesn't explicitly say that...
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Why can't they confirm that they are the owners of the property?
  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    AdamK wrote: »
    I think they're looking for a one liner to confirm 'there is no risk of fraud and the owners are who they say they are and are registered proprietors of the property' but the latest response from the solicitors doesn't explicitly say that...

    It's very similar to the response I would have given them! It's not for the solicitor to guarantee that there isn't any fraud going on, all they can do is confirm that they've done the usual checks and aren't aware of anything to cause concern.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    AdamK wrote: »
    But this issue has certainly caught us out - and they seem adamant they will not proceed if they can't get this 'confirmation' of sorts...

    What's the underlying issue? There must be something that has triggered the concerns.

    Solicitor is acting to protect the lender not you.
  • Autumnella
    Autumnella Posts: 605 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Reminds me of something I heard years ago about a tenant who sold the property they were renting.

    Do your solicitors have reason to believe they may be committing fraud?
    Make £10 per day-
    June: £100/£300
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