Buyers reluctant to pay deposit

Slips36

I'm finally near to an exhausting sale and purchase. My buyer was going to transfer deposit money yesterday but unfortunately didn’t and also failed today. According to the EA he wants to complete on 5 th March, we prefer 12th March. I have agreed to go for the 5 th March so we can get to exchange.
The EA reckons he wants to transfer the deposit in ready for exchange tomorrow. I have put lot of effort to get this far, his he just messing about?

greatcrested

If both solicitors are ready to Exchange, a Completion date has been agreed, and the buyer is delaying the deposit transfer to his solicitor, then yes, he's messing about.

But there must be a reason.......

Thrugelmir

When he transfers the deposit. The solicitor may yet have to perform checks on it's source. Matters always get fraught close to exchange. 

Slips36

greatcrested said:

If both solicitors are ready to Exchange, a Completion date has been agreed, and the buyer is delaying the deposit transfer to his solicitor, then yes, he's messing about.

But there must be a reason.......

The EA has said the buyer wants 5th March completion, I wanted 12th March but have agreed to complete on 5th March. The buyers solicitor has not contacted my solicitor regarding the exchange or completion. The buyers solicitor is waiting for the 10% deposit before he contacts my solicitor regarding the completion date. According to the EA he was going to transfer deposit yesterday but unfortunately he didn’t and was going to deposit today but didn’t. The EA emailed that he wants to transfer and exchange same day.
i think he is messing about it.

MaryNB

My friend nearly missed her exchange date because she didn't set up a CHAPS payment in time (she fully admits how stupid she was not to prepare) and only just got the money through at the very last minute. Could be as simple as that. Although the fact he missed the transfer two days in a row is poor form. I'd be getting worried he wasn't be honest about something.

Thrugelmir said:

When he transfers the deposit. The solicitor may yet have to perform checks on it's source. Matters always get fraught close to exchange. 

I'd be very worried if a solicitor waited until exchange was close to do these checks. These checks can take a fair amount of time, depending on the source. 

davidmcn

MaryNB said:

Thrugelmir said:

When he transfers the deposit. The solicitor may yet have to perform checks on it's source. Matters always get fraught close to exchange. 

I'd be very worried if a solicitor waited until exchange was close to do these checks. These checks can take a fair amount of time, depending on the source. 

Well, they can't check everything until the money has actually come in.

saajan_12

Sometimes buyers are reluctant to let the money go out of their hands and to the solicitors, thinking that they're somewhat committed at that point. They don't seem to understand the difference between paying to their solicitor and paying to "the other side" whereby they would have to claw back if something went wrong. Given all formality around solicitor client accounts, solicitor undertakings and the distinct step of <exchanging> contracts, this is unnecessary worry and they should be comfortable with transferring money to the solicitor ahead of time to avoid delays, but alas. 

That, or they're messing around cos they think they might pull out / don't have the money ready / are stalling..

moneysavinghero

Sounds like he's blown the deposit on something else.

youth_leader

Could he be having trouble transferring his money?  I had a right faff early yesterday morning, but I've started early and have lots of time.  I had rung the solicitor to double check the account details, told them was going to send a tester amount, then tried to set it up. The the bank came back with 'name doesn't match' and I had to decide what to delete from the requested payment reference because it was too long.  I had to log off and ring the solicitor to check and tried again, went through this time,half an hour later the solicitor confirmed test amount had arrived, so I sent the first large amount.  I thought it would be through in two hours and felt pleased with myself as I'd felt nervous about doing  it.

About 2.30 pm I was out at the beach and I got a call from an unknown number asking to 'verify' - I was worried to call back without checking the number as it wasn't the usual one.  Came home and rang my bank, held on for 30 minutes and eventually was put through to security with the fraud department.  The money I'd transferred at 10am hadn't been released and only went through about 3.30 pm after they'd 'verified' it was me. It's good they check but I was surprised it took them four hours to contact me.

Tsj90s

youth_leader said:

Could he be having trouble transferring his money?  I had a right faff early yesterday morning, but I've started early and have lots of time.  I had rung the solicitor to double check the account details, told them was going to send a tester amount, then tried to set it up. The the bank came back with 'name doesn't match' and I had to decide what to delete from the requested payment reference because it was too long.  I had to log off and ring the solicitor to check and tried again, went through this time,half an hour later the solicitor confirmed test amount had arrived, so I sent the first large amount.  I thought it would be through in two hours and felt pleased with myself as I'd felt nervous about doing  it.

About 2.30 pm I was out at the beach and I got a call from an unknown number asking to 'verify' - I was worried to call back without checking the number as it wasn't the usual one.  Came home and rang my bank, held on for 30 minutes and eventually was put through to security with the fraud department.  The money I'd transferred at 10am hadn't been released and only went through about 3.30 pm after they'd 'verified' it was me. It's good they check but I was surprised it took them four hours to contact me.

I had a similar faff earlier, went to send the payment next thing all my accounts are frozen, trying to get through to the bank, cut off, got through again, full interrogation as to what I was doing, whether i was doing it under instruction from someone else, took ages to sort! By the time I got it sorted the solicitors had closed and I cant verify whether it's been recieved till tomorrow 🤦‍♀️🙄

Thrugelmir

Plenty of time yet if completion isn't until the 5th March at the earliest. Little point trying to second guess events over which there's no visibility.