LISA - release of funds close to completion date

joe90mitch

Hi all,

My partner and I are in the process of purchasing a house. Our offer was accepted back in July, so it's safe to say it's taken a while. We've finally got to the point where the chain (of 4 people) is agreeing a completion date - next Friday 11th December. We've actually known for a while that everyone has been working towards this, and been telling our conveyancers for around 3-4 weeks that this is the aim. Today the seller's conveyancers finally confirmed said date.

A large proportion of our deposit comes from Lifetime ISAs we both have with Skipton (we are first time buyers) - the deposit is £43k in total, we have just over £40k in our 2 LISAs.

Our conveyancer has only today sent the forms off to Skipton relating to the release of said funds. I actually queried this with her two weeks ago - Skipton stipulate that you should send the forms at least 30 days prior to completion. She said it doesn't take that long, but we should start the process. Then today I received an email saying we haven't given the Skipton forms to her yet (we did last week) that she then recalled (so presumably she only just saw them in her file), then she immediately followed up saying the request is with Skipton - "hopefully they can release the funds in time".

I'm despairing a bit, I feel like she's misunderstood the process - reading up on this Skipton allow the funds to sit with the conveyancers for 90 days and I believe you can request extensions. So we could have arranged this ages ago and reduced any stress. My understanding is that we can't exchange until all funds are present with the conveyancer, so it just makes next Friday's completion date far more at risk (and we had informed the seller's estate agent that all was ready to go from our side, as from our side it was, so I'm worried about scaring the rest of the chain when it turns out we're now the blocker). I contacted Skipton through a web chat, who said they try to sort last minute cases, but can't guarantee anything. This actually contradicts posts on other forums such as Reddit where people have claimed to have rung up and been allowed to have their case prioritised, but I didn't have such luck. I might try calling up later and just seeing if my luck is in.

So my question is - firstly does anyone know if it's definitely true that Skipton can't prioritise. I'm assuming it is, but hoping for a miracle

Secondly, if the funds aren't present by, say, Wednesday next week - is there anything we can do? E.g. are you allowed to perhaps have a family/friend member transfer over the funds to be sent to the solicitors, these used towards exchange/completion, and then once the Skipton LISA amount hits the solicitors somehow be refunded back the original amount? I am kind of assuming not and that there are very specific rules as to how to use the LISA funds, but interested to know any options (if we could even arrange such a large amount of money from friends/family at short notice...).

In my head I'm thinking we just have to be patient and wait for the funds to arrive and delay exchange and completion if required, but am just interested/hopeful to know if there are any other solutions.

Thanks a lot!

alimckay1

I was in a similar situation. Skipton to try hard to prioritise so you can get your withdrawal in time for exchange, however they cannot guarantee anything and it could take up to 30 days.


My timeline:
Planned exchange/completion date: 4/12
23/11 solicitor sent declaration to Skipton

28/11 text received from Skipton saying the received declaration.
1/12 I messaged skipton on web chat and they said they'd try their best to get funds to solicitor by 4/12
3/12 morning received email from Skipton to authorise the withdrawal.
3/12 afternoon received confirmation funds had been sent to solicitor.

As far as I am aware there's no way round it you need/want the LISA bonus. 

Hope this helps!

joe90mitch

Thanks, it does just help to hear someone else's story.

I'm very frustrated with my solicitor - as far as I'm aware they could have kickstarted this a long time ago and just had the funds ready to go, they can hold them for 90 days. At the same time, I do feel Skipton could be clearer - if you put a completion date of the 11th (in my case) it seems mad that they only guarantee funds will be released on the 10th. We're in a chain of four and understandably the rest of the chain doesn't want to exchange the day before completion, they have removals to arrange. I feel if Skipton instead put on the form "Expected Exchange date" it would make it clearer for the solicitors. 

I rang Skipton up and they said much the similar to you, they were really friendly about it. They even said if we need the date bringing forward my solicitor needs to call up and they can try. Obviously now I'm finding it impossible to get a hold of my solicitor, all the cliches about conveyancers really do seem to be true haha. I just hope if people are in a similar position in future and google this that it helps.

Out of interest, were you in a chain? And how did you/other people in the chain deal with removals if you could only exchange the day before completion? Our sellers are saying they can't book removals until they have exchange done and their agent called yesterday to say they need to exchange today. At the same time, they only confirmed yesterday that they wanted completion for the 11th, then our solicitor submitted the forms at that stage (why oh why!), so acting like exchange HAS to take place today seems a bit unreasonable. Either way though, I'm nervous about Skipton saying they're aiming for the 10th - don't think that will fly with my chain.

Good luck with your move!

joe90mitch

Ah just another quick update of good news (may be useful to anyone who looks up this issue in the future, I dunno haha).
So we got our solicitor to call up, they asked Skipton if they could bring forward the funds to today who agreed to, with the caveat that it might be Monday/Tuesday if they can't get it sorted in time. But the conveyancer said that as they've spoken with Skipton who have guaranteed the funds will be available before completion that she's happy to exchange today! 

So we are very lucky. I guess if anyone reads this in future, my advice would be to set expectations that you would like the Lifetime ISA funds arranging as soon as possible so they're ready for potential quick movement from the rest of the chain and if anyone does go wrong in terms of timelines to just ask them to call up the building society.

alimckay1

We were in the same boat too. I was frustrated that my solicitor didn’t have this all in place earlier as I had sent her the completed declaration form very early on in the process as I knew it could take a while for the funds to be withdrawn. However, she didn’t request the funds until we had a planned completion date and I think this is were the confusion lies. I think my solicitor thought they needed an firm completion date but after speaking to Skipton they can just give an estimated date and then if it doesn’t go ahead they can keep the money for up to 90 days, and even ask for an extension if it goes beyond that. Other than this one point we have been very lucky with our solicitor she has been excellent.

As far as I’m aware exchange and completion is pretty much happening on the same day for everyone at the moment due to Covid and is unrelated to having a LISA. It’s so there aren’t any complications if the chain has exchanged and then someone has to self isolate. I would be surprised if your solicitor didn’t advice against exchanging and completing a week apart.

 We do have a chain but I haven’t really heard how they are dealing with it to be honest. I don’t know how people can plan removals at the moment with the current situation, it must be really hard. We’re lucky as we are moving from a rented house, so we will have some overlap, and only moving 5 mins up the road. 

We were supposed to get the keys today but our mortgage lender (Nationwide) waited until the day before completion to query something so it’s all a bit up in the air at the moment! Hopefully that’ll be sorted this morning and everything will fall into place.

mrtachyon

I'm in the same situation as well except I've hit another road block. I returned my LISA declaration to my solicitor when I initially instructed them several months ago. Now Skipton have rejected my withdrawal request because the LISA declaration documents are dated over 2 months ago.

I'm extremely annoyed and my solicitor doesn't understand this either. No-where on the forms or their website can I find any mention that the form needs to be dated within 2 months.

joe90mitch

mrtachyon said:

I'm in the same situation as well except I've hit another road block. I returned my LISA declaration to my solicitor when I initially instructed them several months ago. Now Skipton have rejected my withdrawal request because the LISA declaration documents are dated over 2 months ago.

I'm extremely annoyed and my solicitor doesn't understand this either. No-where on the forms or their website can I find any mention that the form needs to be dated within 2 months.

Hi there,

So just giving advice from my side - Skipton said emailing the forms is the best approach as they get added to the system much more quickly. Hopefully you and your solicitor can arrange this quickly.

After that, get your solicitor to call up and tell them the date it needs to be done by. Skipton will try to prioritise - they turned mine around in a few hours in the end. Ultimately the exchange didn't happen due to one link in the chain still having outstanding enquiries despite saying they were ready to exchange - madness haha.

But hopefully you can get it sorted in time still 

mrtachyon

joe90mitch said:

mrtachyon said:

I'm in the same situation as well except I've hit another road block. I returned my LISA declaration to my solicitor when I initially instructed them several months ago. Now Skipton have rejected my withdrawal request because the LISA declaration documents are dated over 2 months ago.

I'm extremely annoyed and my solicitor doesn't understand this either. No-where on the forms or their website can I find any mention that the form needs to be dated within 2 months.

Hi there,

So just giving advice from my side - Skipton said emailing the forms is the best approach as they get added to the system much more quickly. Hopefully you and your solicitor can arrange this quickly.

After that, get your solicitor to call up and tell them the date it needs to be done by. Skipton will try to prioritise - they turned mine around in a few hours in the end. Ultimately the exchange didn't happen due to one link in the chain still having outstanding enquiries despite saying they were ready to exchange - madness haha.

But hopefully you can get it sorted in time still 

Thanks. Yeah, to their credit Skipton sorted it out really quick for me as well. Emailed them an updated declaration on the Friday evening and after e-signing the acceptance slip my solicitor had the funds by lunchtime Monday. So despite the blip can't really fault Skipton in terms of a quick response.

Hope it all works out well for you in the end as well!