Interest - solicitor holding counter cheque pending completion

acresbrook

House purchase recently completed. However, prior to completion there was a delay of 5 weeks. A counter cheque was provided to solicitor 5 weeks prior to completion ie. before the delay occured. Therefore, the money came out of my building society account. I have chased both solicitor and building society for the interest i have lost.

Independant solictor said - solicitor should have banked cheque within 2 working days. as per code of practice, and if no joy go to law society.

Following this Solicitor - has offered £30 as a good will gesture and said they didn't have the money go back to the BS.

BS - the money is with the solicitor.

Can anyone offer any help. I want my interest.

silvercar

The law society rules state that the solicitor should account to you for the interest received. So if the solicitor banked the cheque in his client account, you should get the interest.

SquatNow

Sounds like the solicitor is about to do a runner with you money... claiming they haven't got it?

Paphos_Gooner

I'm in a similar boat - £24,000 bankers draft handed over on exchange date with a completion date set 7 days later.

Problems with the leaseplan have led to a 3 weeks delay with no end in sight.

So my solicitor has to tell me how much intrest has been earned?

At, what 3 or 4%?

Alan_M_2

SquatNow wrote: »

Sounds like the solicitor is about to do a runner with you money... claiming they haven't got it?

Do you get off on posting this scaremonger nonsense? I'm starting to see it in thread after thread....

The OP is wondering how much interest they're owed and you've deduced from this that the solicitor is about to abscond with the posters money.

I deduce from having read a few of your post that you were dropped on your head as a child.......

SquatNow

acresbrook wrote: »

Following this Solicitor - has offered £30 as a good will gesture and said they didn't have the money go back to the BS.

BS - the money is with the solicitor.

If I gave a large bank cheque to a solicitor and a few weeks later they said they DIDN'T HAVE IT I would probably be calling the police.

As I understand it, bank cheques can't be replaced or cancelled.

Alan_M_2

Where in the OP does it say it's lost? I states the cheque isn't banked.

Show me where the OP states the Solicitor DIDN'T HAVE IT.

I stand by my original assessment....

IveSeenTheLight

Paphos_Gooner wrote: »

I'm in a similar boat - £24,000 bankers draft handed over on exchange date with a completion date set 7 days later.

Problems with the leaseplan have led to a 3 weeks delay with no end in sight.

So my solicitor has to tell me how much intrest has been earned?

At, what 3 or 4%?

£24,000 in a 3% nett (3.75% gross) interest account would earn you £1.97 per day
£24,000 in a 4% nett (5.00% gross) interest account would earn you £2.63 per day
£24,000 in a 4.8% nett (6.00% gross) interest account would earn you £3.16 per day

So just multiply the daily interest by the number of days between the solicitor banking the money and it being used in your exchange.

Remember though that everyday you do'nt release any exisiting mortgage you have is also accruing interest

kunekune

The cheque wasn't lost, so far as I can tell. The dispute is about what has happened to the interest. OP should receive the interest, as the money was still his/hers during those 5 weeks.

There two possibilities that occur to me. First, the cheque was cashed but the solicitor can't identify or separate the interest on that money: this suggests the trust account isn't being operated properly. It would not be a bad idea to go to the Law Society - if the trust account is in a muddle, this could be the sign that other things are going wrong.

A second possibility is that the solicitor received the cheque but did not cash it. The problem here would be that the solicitor is holding that cheque as your trustee and a trustee has obligations to act in your interests. That would mean cashing the cheque and making sure that you were receiving interest on the money.

You definitely should have received the interest on YOUR money.

acresbrook

Thank you for those of you responded to the issue in hand.

The solicitor must of held the cheque. As part of the explaination for the delay was due to the solicitor being on holiday. So I suspect the secretary has placed cheque in their in tray and that is where it stayed.

therefore this delay was unfair in the first place and then to loose this money, is trerrible.I have had the interest calculated for me so I already know the amount.

The solicitors latest response was to the effect that "these were not normal circumstances as completion was delayed and we would be allowed to retain a cheque". Or like you say above they should have acted in MY interest and put it their account, then it wouldn't have mattered I would not be out of pocket.

I just want to know from anyone should I still refer this to the Law Society. Can they have a cheque held in the office for 5 weeks?

Does anyone think there is any mileage in chasing the BS?

Thanks

Richard_Webster

If it was a building society "counter cheque" then the BS would have debited OP's account when it was issued regardless of whether or not is was presented for payment so I suspect BS will say OP can't have interest.

Assuming the solicitor did eventually bank the cheque then I think it his fault for not doing so earlier. If someone complained to me about that kind of thing I would feel very embarrassed. Basically i think the solicitor should pay the interest. If they have offered £30 as a goodwill gesture it is very much a matter of what the difference is between that and the actual interest at 3-4%. If it is a significant amount then you are right to complain. Write to the Complaints Partner at the firm of solicitors asking him to deal with it.