Solicitors and Exchange/Completion

sbrinn

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...

We are in the position that things are going down to the wire on our dates... We are in a small chain (3 persons) which was all started at the end of November. My buyer is in rented accommodation and my seller has no mortgage and is seeking to buy an empty property. All initially was going well.... searches came back in January, mortgages agreed in principle etc and all parties state they want to work to the 11th March for completion - THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming. Unfortunately he has gone with a firm affiliated to Purple Bricks who are not local and are less than responsive to chasers....

We then find out that the buyers solicitor have not yet obtained deposit monies from the buyer - estate agent speaks to the buyer and the solicitor had not asked for them at that point (19th Feb). That gets sorted only for the buyers solicitor (or should I say trainee Legal Executive) employed by Sills and Betteridge asks for a Covid rider to be attached to the contracts AFTER all parties have signed and returned the original copies. This was on the 24th Feb - over three weeks since they were told to move to an exchange of contracts!!! Bearing in mind that the buyer is in rented accommodation and therefore isolation etc has no bearing on a chain.

We then discover on the 26th Feb that Sills and Betteridge haven't obtained confirmation from the buyers lender that they will release funds on the 11th and then on the 2nd March that the mortgage company had "misplaced " the email sent to them so the confirmation request had to be re-sent.

So it is now the 5th March and we were hoping to move on the 11th. I know that I will get the comments around not booking anything until things are confirmed, but both me and my seller have had to book removal companies as there is literally no time to be chasing at the last minute.

What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

Also Sills and Betteridge - what a complete shower they are. It looks like due to their incompetence the move will be delayed....

Sigh

Mani_London

In regards to lender confirmation, it will take just one phone call and they can confirm this over the phone and email confirmation will follow in a day or so. But again you solicitor need a strong email from you

AdrianC

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...
...
THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming.
...
What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

This is where the root cause of the delay lies, I rather suspect.

There simply doesn't seem to be any documentation saying that the vendor has any right to sell the house in question.

The buyer's solicitor has done his job here - determining that the paperwork simply isn't available. With that in mind, the transaction's unlikely to be going ahead in the near future, so there's no point chasing other legs of the chain around.

Should the gov't do something about it? Well, yes, they did. Over a course of steps, setting up the land registry and eventually requiring registration of all properties whenever major transactions happened... That's been the case for three to four decades now, so the number of properties unregistered is now low. And most of those have the deeds available, so registration is straightforward. But, of course, there are properties that haven't changed hands for decades because they've been owned by elderly people who have now died, perhaps leaving their paperwork in less-than-perfect order, with the deeds unlocatable by their executors or beneficiaries.

It's not insoluble, but it's not quick. Should the vendors have done something about it before putting the property on the market? Well, it would have helped...

sbrinn

AdrianC said:

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...
...
THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming.
...
What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

This is where the root cause of the delay lies, I rather suspect.

There simply doesn't seem to be any documentation saying that the vendor has any right to sell the house in question.

The buyer's solicitor has done his job here - determining that the paperwork simply isn't available. With that in mind, the transaction's unlikely to be going ahead in the near future, so there's no point chasing other legs of the chain around.

Should the gov't do something about it? Well, yes, they did. Over a course of steps, setting up the land registry and eventually requiring registration of all properties whenever major transactions happened... That's been the case for three to four decades now, so the number of properties unregistered is now low. And most of those have the deeds available, so registration is straightforward. But, of course, there are properties that haven't changed hands for decades because they've been owned by elderly people who have now died, perhaps leaving their paperwork in less-than-perfect order, with the deeds unlocatable by their executors or beneficiaries.

It's not insoluble, but it's not quick. Should the vendors have done something about it before putting the property on the market? Well, it would have helped...

Actually that side of it all got sorted at the beginning of feb - it was part of the stress for January. All the pieces were lined up in a row by the 2nd Feb - searches, enquiries, deeds etc... the intervening time has been us chasing for an exchange and excuses and lies from the solicitors

ohdarn

I said it on another thread, but the entire system needs dismantling and then rebuilding from scratch.
We don't tolerate this level of faffing around in any other industry, as far as I can tell.
Some people will tell you it's because some firms stack cases high and charge low prices, which is fine, but normally businesses that do that streamline their systems so everything runs perfectly.
With property it seems like there's a large proportion of uninterested and overworked conveyancers only giving a small amount of attention to each case every week, coupled to an archaic system that doesn't appear to realise it's in the 21st century.
I'm sure if it were done properly there shouldn't really be any reason why the process should take longer than a couple of weeks.

greatcrested

If you object to the system, posting on here won't change it.

Your MP?

The Law Society?

Contact someone who just might be able to instigate change. We certainly can't!

Tiglet2

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...

We are in the position that things are going down to the wire on our dates... We are in a small chain (3 persons) which was all started at the end of November. My buyer is in rented accommodation and my seller has no mortgage and is seeking to buy an empty property. All initially was going well.... searches came back in January, mortgages agreed in principle etc and all parties state they want to work to the 11th March for completion - THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming. Unfortunately he has gone with a firm affiliated to Purple Bricks who are not local and are less than responsive to chasers....

We then find out that the buyers solicitor have not yet obtained deposit monies from the buyer - estate agent speaks to the buyer and the solicitor had not asked for them at that point (19th Feb). That gets sorted only for the buyers solicitor (or should I say trainee Legal Executive) employed by Sills and Betteridge asks for a Covid rider to be attached to the contracts AFTER all parties have signed and returned the original copies. This was on the 24th Feb - over three weeks since they were told to move to an exchange of contracts!!! Bearing in mind that the buyer is in rented accommodation and therefore isolation etc has no bearing on a chain.

We then discover on the 26th Feb that Sills and Betteridge haven't obtained confirmation from the buyers lender that they will release funds on the 11th and then on the 2nd March that the mortgage company had "misplaced " the email sent to them so the confirmation request had to be re-sent.

So it is now the 5th March and we were hoping to move on the 11th. I know that I will get the comments around not booking anything until things are confirmed, but both me and my seller have had to book removal companies as there is literally no time to be chasing at the last minute.

What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

Also Sills and Betteridge - what a complete shower they are. It looks like due to their incompetence the move will be delayed....

Sigh

End of November (i.e. December) to 5th March is 3 months, not at all unrealistic at the moment.  The solicitor acting for you cannot start work on the purchase until they have the draft contracts from the seller's solicitor, so it is not 3 months for that part of your transaction.  There has been the pandemic, the stamp duty holiday, lender delays and delays at the Land Registry to factor in, and you have the added complexity of an unregistered property at the top of the chain.  I cannot see how they could have done this any quicker, to be honest.  Conveyancing always takes longer than you think it will.

When you say "all parties state they want to work to 11th March for completion", are you referring to yourself, your buyer, and your seller?  I doubt the solicitors would agree this, only that they would  "endeavour" to work towards your preferred date.  Solicitors will not be bound by dates/deadlines when they are instructed, because they don't know what issues they might face when they start work.

Sorry, I don't think it is incompetence by the solicitors, but merely that the legal work is not yet finalised and there are still minor issues to sort out before they can proceed to exchange and completion.

davidmcn

Tiglet2 said:

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...

We are in the position that things are going down to the wire on our dates... We are in a small chain (3 persons) which was all started at the end of November. My buyer is in rented accommodation and my seller has no mortgage and is seeking to buy an empty property. All initially was going well.... searches came back in January, mortgages agreed in principle etc and all parties state they want to work to the 11th March for completion - THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming. Unfortunately he has gone with a firm affiliated to Purple Bricks who are not local and are less than responsive to chasers....

We then find out that the buyers solicitor have not yet obtained deposit monies from the buyer - estate agent speaks to the buyer and the solicitor had not asked for them at that point (19th Feb). That gets sorted only for the buyers solicitor (or should I say trainee Legal Executive) employed by Sills and Betteridge asks for a Covid rider to be attached to the contracts AFTER all parties have signed and returned the original copies. This was on the 24th Feb - over three weeks since they were told to move to an exchange of contracts!!! Bearing in mind that the buyer is in rented accommodation and therefore isolation etc has no bearing on a chain.

We then discover on the 26th Feb that Sills and Betteridge haven't obtained confirmation from the buyers lender that they will release funds on the 11th and then on the 2nd March that the mortgage company had "misplaced " the email sent to them so the confirmation request had to be re-sent.

So it is now the 5th March and we were hoping to move on the 11th. I know that I will get the comments around not booking anything until things are confirmed, but both me and my seller have had to book removal companies as there is literally no time to be chasing at the last minute.

What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

Also Sills and Betteridge - what a complete shower they are. It looks like due to their incompetence the move will be delayed....

Sigh

The solicitor acting for you cannot start work on the purchase until they have the draft contracts from the seller's solicitor

They could start work earlier than that, it's just common practice for them not to bother.

The process as a whole can only be as swift as the slowest link in the chain - you could do the conveyancing in two weeks, but is there much point if the mortgage lender takes four weeks to issue their offer, and the local searches take eight weeks? And then it's a race to the bottom, as the solicitors aren't likely to bust a gut to do their bit swiftly if they're then just going to be twiddling their thumbs waiting for the mortgage offer (which might never arrive).

Tiglet2

davidmcn said:

Tiglet2 said:

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...

We are in the position that things are going down to the wire on our dates... We are in a small chain (3 persons) which was all started at the end of November. My buyer is in rented accommodation and my seller has no mortgage and is seeking to buy an empty property. All initially was going well.... searches came back in January, mortgages agreed in principle etc and all parties state they want to work to the 11th March for completion - THEN - seller says that the property he is buying is not registered with the Land Registry dept and the deeds are not forthcoming. Unfortunately he has gone with a firm affiliated to Purple Bricks who are not local and are less than responsive to chasers....

We then find out that the buyers solicitor have not yet obtained deposit monies from the buyer - estate agent speaks to the buyer and the solicitor had not asked for them at that point (19th Feb). That gets sorted only for the buyers solicitor (or should I say trainee Legal Executive) employed by Sills and Betteridge asks for a Covid rider to be attached to the contracts AFTER all parties have signed and returned the original copies. This was on the 24th Feb - over three weeks since they were told to move to an exchange of contracts!!! Bearing in mind that the buyer is in rented accommodation and therefore isolation etc has no bearing on a chain.

We then discover on the 26th Feb that Sills and Betteridge haven't obtained confirmation from the buyers lender that they will release funds on the 11th and then on the 2nd March that the mortgage company had "misplaced " the email sent to them so the confirmation request had to be re-sent.

So it is now the 5th March and we were hoping to move on the 11th. I know that I will get the comments around not booking anything until things are confirmed, but both me and my seller have had to book removal companies as there is literally no time to be chasing at the last minute.

What on earth are we as a first world country doing mucking around with such a stressful and antiquated system to move house.

Also Sills and Betteridge - what a complete shower they are. It looks like due to their incompetence the move will be delayed....

Sigh

The solicitor acting for you cannot start work on the purchase until they have the draft contracts from the seller's solicitor

They could start work earlier than that, it's just common practice for them not to bother.

Thank you david.  Yes, as david says, they could start work on the purchase, but will mostly likely initially work on your sale gathering all the paperwork they need in order to send out draft papers to your buyer's solicitor.  They will also do the ID and AML checks.

martindow

What would improve the system in the OP's case is making a seller register a house if it currently unregistered before marketing it.  Agents who don't spend £3 to check that the house is on the LR site could be made liable for any expenses of potential buyers.

iampetesmith

sbrinn said:

There must be a better way of buying and selling houses than we currently have in the UK...

I said this exact line so many times when we were buying ours. We had it slightly easier as well because we were FTB and not selling, but with the amount of times I thought we were going to lose the house we really wanted and start again it was torture.

It sounds like you're over the worst though and just waiting for some last bits of paperwork, but it's frustrating waiting for that when you're so close to the end. When you've exchanged contracts you'll feel a lot better.