Solicitors Error with completion Statement

stokeingy

ok so what happened was i had a mortgage from TSB for 207k plus the £995 TSB setup fee. the solicitor sent me the first completion statement and it included a search fee i had already paid and stamp duty. I am a first time buyer so i was not paying this so i asked them to correct this and did my own calculations ad sent them a mail explaining it was wrong and showed what i thought it should be £23694 inc my deposit. I then got a second completion statement which seemed to ignore my own calculation for £22699. Not being a mortgage expert and not knowing how these things work i assumed that as the person at the solicitors dealing was the head of the conveyance dept that this muct be right. took it to the bank and i had them transfer the money over. no issue we completed and have been in the house for a month.

I get a mail today asking for an extra £995. which is the difference between my calculation and the second completion statement that i got sent out. So i was right.

Now i know that I probably do owe this but my issue is that when i tranferred over what they asked for in heir second corrected statement we hought that was everything done. so any spare money we had was spent on making our new house a home and we dont have £995 to pay them, especially with christmas coming up.

My issue is that i mailed them telling them there was an error with the first statement and gave the correct breakdown etc but they ignored this and went with their own and now want us to pay the £995 in full.
As mentioned in several responses in all likelihood i will have to pay this or at best a reduced amount due to inconvenience but i would hope that the solicitors would accept a realtively small monthly payment until this is settled (or we get our budget straight in the new house and can pay more as we are just getting used to what we need to pay out etc)

stokeingy

G_M see my post above. i did go through it and corrected hem but they ignored his and went with their own revised figure now they come back and say i am right and want the extra.

Smi1er

So you knew you were £995 short.

Would I have corrected them? Nope

Would I have put the £995 to one side in case they realised? Yes

You didn't. Either pay the £995 or make an offer to pay it in stages if you honestly don't have it, enclosing the first payment. Sensible payment I would say and I would start at £250 per month for 4 months.

stokeingy

why would i have kept the £995 by "just in case" i was buying a house for the first time every penny counted for new things etc moving costs and all that.

As for knowing i was £995 short, not really i made my calculations as a layman they responded with a different figure so reasonably i concluded i was wrong and they were right.

I dont have the £950 and to be quite honest right now i dont hav £250 per month as we are just adjusting to a whole new budget. Before you say you should consider the budget before moving etc we have and we can easily afford to live here bills and all but having £250 per month go out for 4 months with christmas coming is simply not viable.

Hopefully they will accept less but i have left it wih them making sure they are well aware this situation has only come about due to their error.

Jonbvn

OP,

You are lucky. When we purchased our first house, the solicitor forgot to include the 25k deposit we had paid.

We didn't use the same solicitor again

haras_nosirrah

Op how much was your deposit?

I would expect a conveyancing bill to be around 1300 - 1700 for this price of property depending if freehold or leasehold. The solicitors portion of this would be about £600 and the rest disbursements. If your solicitor bill was 1k less than this and this was at odds with the quote you initially received you should have realized and if told them at least put money aside for when they twigged the accounting error which was inevitable. Effectively you are asking them to not only work for free but also pay for your searches and land registry from their pocket - that isn't going to happen. I would ask for £100 off for inconvenience and pay the rest via a repayment plan if you really don't have the money

warby68

It looks glaringly obvious what the error probably was to me - the £995 TSB mortgage fee. Surely if that was missing on the revised statement you would have spotted it.

If it is, its fairly clear you owe it.

I'd use the mistake to negotiate favourable payment terms if you can but really don't see you being due anything else. You knew the bill wasn't right but convinced yourselves it was ok to spend the money anyway.

gcoopermax

I am a bit surprised that your mortgage broker didn't advise you to add the fee on the mortgage? In that case if the purchase hadn't gone through, you wouldn't lose the fee. Moreover, even though this fee increases your loan amount, it is not counted towards calculating LTV, so even if you are on say just under 90% LTV to get a good rate, and if the added fee takes your LTV beyond 90%, your mortgage rate still remains same as 85%-90% bracket.

jimbog

You seem to be muddying the waters a little. The fact that Christmas is coming and you've been out shopping is irrelevant. If you knew there was a £995 discrepancy why didn't you point it out? You don't need to be a 'mortgage expert' to do the maths.

In any event the solicitors statement probably has E&OE stated on it somewhere

LandyAndy

jimbog wrote: »

You seem to be muddying the waters a little. The fact that Christmas is coming and you've been out shopping is irrelevant. If you knew there was a £995 discrepancy why didn't you point it out? You don't need to be a 'mortgage expert' to do the maths.

In any event the solicitors statement probably has E&OE stated on it somewhere

I do wonder what would happen if the OPs boiler packed up.

'We'll have to sit and freeze all winter, Christmas is coming up'.

Priorities.