Completion day nightmare!!

SELondoner77

After 4 months of going through the house-buying process in England we exchanged contracts on 29 Jan. We received confirmation from our solicitors on 4 Feb that the request for mortgage funds had been sent to HSBC on 2 Feb.  Our completion day is today, 10 Feb, so a clear 5 working days. 

I had wrongly assumed we were over the worst of the stress of house buying in the current climate, and had naively believed that all should be OK from this point. My partner started getting twitchy on Fri 5 Feb as we had settled our completion statement with our solictors, but we had no confirmation yet that they had received the mortgage funds from HSBC. Given that banks have been asking for at least 5 working days notice, I thought we'd get an update after the weekend. After no update by yesterday afternoon (the day before completion) we chased our solicitor and got a phone call at 5pm to say they still hadn't received the mortgage funds. Apparently the fault is with HSBC. Our solicitors say they submitted their request through their portal, received confirmation that the funds would be received by the requested date so had no reason not to think they would not get it. But for some reason - does anyone have any thoughts on what that could be - HSBC just hadn't actioned it!! I'm really struggling to understand how a bank could not action the request in time when they had sent confirmation they would. 

Our solicitor seemed confident it would be resolved today as HSBC said they couldn't do anything about it until today, and she would be on the phone again to them in the morning.  But this now leaves us in the unbearable situation of not knowing whether completion will take place as planned today, knowing that we are liable for any costs incurred by our seller. My partner and I are moving out of rented into our sellers house and we still have a couple of weeks before we need to move out of our flat (and our doing the move ourselves). However, our sellers are a family, have a removals company booked in a time of limited availability and no doubt their solicitor will be chasing ours for the funds if they havent received it by midday today. We are a small chain of 3 but as we are at the bottom, not completing today will have consequences upwards for the chain.

Our solicitor explained that if completion doesn't happen today we would be served with a notice of completion and would be liable for costs incurred by daily interest. She said we would have to pay it initially but could claim it back from HSBC. Is this correct? I dont think it's right that we should have to pay out when not completing has been caused by another party. It won't just be daily interest though, will it? If our sellers have to put their stuff into storage, and can't book the removal company again for a while, this could all add up, not to mention 2 lots of removal costs. Is there anything else we might be liable for? Has anyone else been through this, and if so, was it a nightmare claiming the costs back from whoever was responsible for the problem (ie the bank or the solicitors)?

The above has turned out longer than I intended, but we are really distressed by this and would welcome any advice as we just don't know where to turn. This is so disappointing when we have done everything that was required of us throughout this process, in a timely manner, and something still goes so wrong!!

Doozergirl

It's really awful.  I can understand how you feel as it happened to us 10 years ago! 

HSBC will pull their finger out today and
I'm sure it will happen, probably later.  We got our keys at 4.50pm and there was paperwork to be done for us, not only sending money - which is what banks are good at in most circumstances and will be today.  

You can be grateful that you have still somewhere to live and you won't be out of pocket . 

Sit tight. It's still early.  

davidmcn

Doozergirl said:

Sit tight. It's still early.  

This. Nothing has actually gone wrong so far. Perfectly normal for everything to be pulled together at the last minute.

wilfred30

I agree with Doozergirl.  HSBC will pull out all the stops to get the money to your solicitor today in time for completion before close of business.  They will be aware that if they don't, they will be liable for the costs incurred by not only your seller but their seller too.

greatcrested

Not unusual for it all to come together at 4.55 pm. That does not help your anxiety, but it's still early.

I'm afraid that yes, if you fail to Complete the liability towards your seller (ad their seller etc) is between you and them. You would then have a separate claim against HSBC.

In practice, the two claims would probably be made in parallel so that you could simply pass HSBC's compensation to you straight to your sell.

But it is unlikely to come to this.

Soot2006

Super stressful and you have my sympathy. I was tearing my hair out over less, but - as above - HSBC should be working hard to get this done and by tonight you will hopefully be in your new home x

GixerKate

Hang in there, it may well all come together later this afternoon, fingers crossed!!

We didn't get confirmation that it had all gone through until 4ish (we were doing the move ourselves too, when we finally got the call that it had happened my car broke down with a cat and 2 large dogs in it, didn't actually get to the new house until gone 6pm!)

youth_leader

I hope you've had the call now, I thought completion had to happen by a certain time of the day? 

Richard_Webster

 I used to tell clients that I would tell the lender we were completing the working day before actual completion so there wouldn't be these last minute panics.   Obviously I warned clients that would mean an extra day's interest to the lender, but they usually considered it worthwhile to avoid the worry on the day.

UnderOffer

youth_leader said:

I hope you've had the call now, I thought completion had to happen by a certain time of the day? 

You have to vacate the house at a certain time (1pm?) but completion can be up to 5pm or when the money gets passed along the chain. 

SELondoner77

Thanks to all who replied. It was reassuring. I'm happy to say the funds were released around lunchtime and we have now just completed and about to leave to pick up the keys.

Good luck to all of you who are currently going through the house buying/selling process yourselves xx