5 chain house move collapsing due to one solicitor

Brightspark87

Hi all

We sold our house for the second time after first buyers changed their mind in August.

At the time; we explained the urgency of the move and discounting £9k from asking price (3.27%) as our mortgage offer expires on 23rd November.

Cut a long story short we’ve been told For weeks that everyone is ready. Our buyers even asked for £800 For a lot of ‘rising damp issues’ completely untrue but we have them a deadline to exchange and this hasn’t happened.

We’ve got today and maybe tomorrow as the absolute end of the line.

Their solicitor was on holiday last week and no one did a thing whilst she was off. She’s saying

Regarding the enquiries raised by our buyers' solicitors I am still awaiting to hear back from the Land Registry on one of them and I have sent a chasing email. Another requires confirmation from my clients that they will be prepared to pay for two indemnity policies. I am also asking my clients to confirm the dates they would like to complete.

I’m at my wits end; our solicitor, agent and all the others invoked have been chasing so much.

We’ve been told by the solicitor requesting the policies etc that they’ve even sorted these policies for them - she’s just got to approve them.

We basically lost our onwards purchase and no one seems to care? All
She needs to do is just sort These issues.

I understand of course nothing agreed until
It’s agreed but what more can we do?

[Deleted User]

Ohhhh, this has a real dejavu moment for me ……
I can completely empathise with you, and, i'm sorry to say that you can only wait for the solicitor to move at their own speed.


I was in a similar situation a few years ago and it wasn't until the day I completed did I learn that my buyers solicitor had to have all her work signed off by her senior colleague.
If I had known that at the beginning it would have saved me 6 months of anger and frustration :mad:


When I related my experience to friends and acquantancies, aswell as looking at online reviews of JOHN HODGE solicitors in Weston super Mare, I realised that it wasn't a one off case :mad:

Doozergirl

You are always at the mercy of the process. No one has ultimate control of how long these things take as there are so many oarties involved even in one simple sale/purchase, but it is fact that the vendors/purchasers have the least control, but apply the most pressure to themselves. Accepting a lesser offer for a quick move doesn't guarantee that things will go your way even if the buyer is willing to move quickly.

That said, there are three outstanding items there - one of them concerns indemnity policies which you could pay for yourselves and make that go away.

And you could be speaking (have spoken already) to your mortgage advisor/broker about extending the offer. Just because it expires, it doesn't mean that you can never move house. Something needs to be done there. If you had a different or extended offer, the pressure would be off, somewhat.

It isn't your buyer's fault that your last buyers pulled out, or that you created this deadline, imposing pressure on yourselves more than anyone else.

This is close to the end and the timescales completely within the realms of a normal purchase. The solicitor is doing their job. It isn't their fault that the holidays they are legally entitled to don't meet with your expectations. It's reasonable that they go on holiday and normal that others don't pick up their work.

My main advice in the buying/selling process is to ensure that things are moving in the right direction, but ultimately to accept that these things happen when they happen. You are not in control, so insisting on trying to control it is only going to result in emotional turmoil - as you're experiencing.

AdrianC

Brightspark87 wrote: »

At the time; we explained the urgency of the move and discounting £9k from asking price (3.27%) as our mortgage offer expires on 23rd November.

Your urgency is not your buyer's urgency, of course.

Cut a long story short we’ve been told For weeks that everyone is ready. Our buyers even asked for £800 For a lot of ‘rising damp issues’ completely untrue but we have them a deadline to exchange and this hasn’t happened.

So "everyone is ready" is clearly not true.

We’ve got today and maybe tomorrow as the absolute end of the line.

Their solicitor was on holiday last week and no one did a thing whilst she was off. She’s saying

Regarding the enquiries raised by our buyers' solicitors I am still awaiting to hear back from the Land Registry on one of them and I have sent a chasing email. Another requires confirmation from my clients that they will be prepared to pay for two indemnity policies. I am also asking my clients to confirm the dates they would like to complete.

Who is "she"? The solicitor in question? If so, then that text you've quoted suggests that the delay is NOT the solicitor. There's still an outstanding query with the LR for the next link down the chain (so that link isn't ready to exchange, either), and the solicitor is waiting on their client - your buyer - to decide what to do about two indemnities. Oh, yes. And your buyer hasn't decided on a completion date, either.

I’m at my wits end; our solicitor, agent and all the others invoked have been chasing so much.

But, clearly, nobody's actually chased the buyer in question. Or, rather, the chasing hasn't had any effect. The ball is in THEIR court.

We’ve been told by the solicitor requesting the policies etc that they’ve even sorted these policies for them - she’s just got to approve them.

Yet the buyer hasn't done so yet. The person who's actually paying for them. Or maybe not. They haven't decided.

We basically lost our onwards purchase and no one seems to care? All
She needs to do is just sort These issues.

It is not up to the solicitor, if that's who you mean by "she", to sort. It's her client. Oh, yes, and the Land Registry.

I understand of course nothing agreed until
It’s agreed but what more can we do?

Renew your mortgage offer and take a chill pill.

Brightspark87

Thanks for the replies. The difficulty is that the other solicitors are saying what’s quoted isn’t true as are the clients of this solicitor!

Mortgage offer can’t be extended and we have to go through the whole process again. This delays things into the time of year my DH cannot have time off work and I will struggle on my own.

The people we are buying from at the top of the chain are bankrupt and this means strict timelines etc and the issue is that they have said u less
We exchange giving them a weeks Notice they cannot complete.

The issue is that she’s been saying the same thing for 6 weeks!

AdrianC

So why aren't the solicitor's own clients kicking their backside...?

Brightspark87

Oh and the buyers have agreed to all the policies, the other solicitors have sources them and confirmed nothing else is outstanding.

The first time buyers at the bottom are also fretting, the buyers who’s solicitor raised this has been chasing daily.

The point is - if this doesn’t happen we will have to delay completion to 2019 and the rest of the chain don’t want this somit will fall apart.

She doesn’t have any outstanding land registry questions and the buyers have confirmed their completion dates - happy to
Agree to us!

Brightspark87

AdrianC wrote: »

So why aren't the solicitor's own clients kicking their backside...?

I’m being told they are!

Thrugelmir

Brightspark87 wrote: »

I’m being told they are!

Everyone ultimately has their agenda. You'll never to get to the bottom of what the issue really is. As it's none of your business.

kirtondm

Its almost certain the buyers are behind the delay. The solictiors will only act on insturctions.

Consider paying for the idementities? maybe that is what they are angling for.

Otherwise seems their is a real deadline coming up re mortgage offers. Get your estate agent / solictior to lay the absolute final date for exchange as a definite red line

xylophone

as there are so many oarties involved

All paddling their own canoes?:)