Mortgage cashback withheld by solicitor to pay legal fees

will_purt

We recently completed on a house sale. Our mortgage included an offer of £250 cashback upon completion, to be paid with the mortgage loan as a lump sum to our solicitors on the day of completion. This amount was sent and is present on our statement of completion, however it appears the cashback has been used to pay the balance of legal fees rather than be transferred to us.
Is this standard practise? We were under the impression that this money would be paid to us directly by the solicitors after completion once all funds were settled. As far as I can see from our past correspondence the solicitors never advised us they would use this cashback amount to offset the balance of their fees.

MWT

I'm not sure what benefit there is in doing anything else though?

If you have fees owing to the solicitor wouldn't you want the cashback to be used for that purpose?

ACG

The alternative would be solicitor charges you £30 to transfer the money to you and then you pay them back.
Even without the transfer cost, how does it make sense for them to send you the money and then you send the money back to them? They are now just invoicing you for your bill less the £250 they already have. 

dunstonh

Is this standard practise?

It happens and it makes sense.

We were under the impression that this money would be paid to us directly by the solicitors after completion once all funds were settled. 

Only for you to have to pay it straight back to the solicitor.

As far as I can see from our past correspondence the solicitors never advised us they would use this cashback amount to offset the balance of their fees.

There are things you need to be told and there are things you are expected to have enough brain cells to realise it yourself.

mortgagetakingages

This also reads like.... I didn't want to pay my solicitor but now i have to

davidmcn

will_purt said:

Is this standard practice?

Yes, of course. If you wanted them to send you £250 at completion so you'd have the warm fuzzy feeling of getting "cashback", then you'd first have to send the solicitors an extra £250 to pay the balance of the fees!

kingstreet

Presumably it was included in the draft completion statement so it was taken into account and you paid the solicitor the balance monies to complete the purchase less £250?

D.L

I don't really understand what the issue is. Do you have a strong preference for the solicitor to send you the £250 and then you send it back to them?