House in chain when completed

warby68

Delighted to hear your solicitors have picked up the dropped ball.
Obviously you may want more by way of explanation once your purchase is complete. Its not as important as getting your house but the failings do appear quite significant.

SMR710

I would be seeking compensation of some sort. You have 'lost' 4 months of mortgage payments against your new property. 

newsgroupmonkey_

warby68 said:

Delighted to hear your solicitors have picked up the dropped ball.
Obviously you may want more by way of explanation once your purchase is complete. Its not as important as getting your house but the failings do appear quite significant.

I don't think the "N" word (negligence) would be unreasonable. I have a feeling the Senior Solicitor picked this up knowing this. Using the excuse "It's Covid, we don't know what to do". That's poppycock. We've all had to work around restrictions.

md258

My guess is that when Covid hit and the advice was to "not move unless you had to", that the 2 solicitors agreed to vary the contract with an open end date. You should have agreed to this but it's possible that it wasn't explained properly (or even you weren't asked). As the "new" contact has an open ended date, it has fallen down the priority list and been forgotten. Once you've moved in it could be worth asking the solicitor what happened.

Anyway, it's great news that things are moving again and I hope you enjoy your new home.

pinkteapot

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

warby68 said:

Delighted to hear your solicitors have picked up the dropped ball.
Obviously you may want more by way of explanation once your purchase is complete. Its not as important as getting your house but the failings do appear quite significant.

I don't think the "N" word (negligence) would be unreasonable. I have a feeling the Senior Solicitor picked this up knowing this. Using the excuse "It's Covid, we don't know what to do". That's poppycock. We've all had to work around restrictions.

Agree. I would definitely make a complaint through the solicitor's complaints process. As md258 said, it may be that the contract was varied to become completion on notice, but your permission should certainly have been sought for this (if that's what happened). 

You might get a bit of a refund on your solicitor fees if you kick up a fuss and every penny helps when you move.  

Flugelhorn

Agree suspect the contract was varied at the time as per the law society advice (was discussed with us when we were between exchange an completion) - should really have been discussed fully with you including the implications of not completing at the original time. The ball was much in your court to decide if you wanted to delay the completion, not the vendors

SharkMoney

You can still claim the contract rate from the vendors - I would go for it

saajan_12

You had a contract to complete on x June, so if the vendors fail to do that they have to 'make you whole'.

• If they never complete, then you have significant expenses eg change in house price, new solicitors / mortgage application costs, rent, extra moving costs etc. 
• If they do complete tomorrow, lots of those are resolved but you could still have additional rent, solicitors costs. 
• If the solicitor varied the contract to make it an open ended completion without your consent, they can cover the above. 

mrschaucer

SharkMoney said:

You can still claim the contract rate from the vendors - I would go for it

And if you're not sure what SharkMoney means, here's the relevant bit from the (standard conditions of sale) contract, just so your solicitors know that you're on the ball:

7.2 Late completion
7.2.1 If there is default by either or both of the parties in performing their obligations under the contract and completion is delayed, the party whose total period of default is the greater is to pay compensation to the other party.
7.2.2 Compensation is calculated at the contract rate on an amount equal to the purchase price, less (where the buyer is the paying party) any deposit paid, for the period by which the paying party's default exceeds that of the receiving party, or, if shorter, the period between completion date and actual completion.
7.2.3 Any claim for loss resulting from delayed completion is to be reduced by any compensation paid under this contract. 

For information, the Law Society Contract rate is currently 4% over Barclays base rate.  https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/en/topics/property/law-society-interest-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20Law%20Society%20interest,(since%2019%20March%202020).

ciderboy2009

Good luck for today OP - hope it all goes well.