Buyer's solicitor holding up Exchange and no response - anything we can do?

beevee77

Hello,
I'm hoping somebody might have experienced a similar situation and can give some advice.
We are currently the middle of a 3 part chain. On Monday we were told our vendor was ready to Exchange and assumed there would be no problem with our buyer's (first time buyers) doing the same, as no issues were previously raised. Prior to this we had all aimed for the 26th (today) to Complete and were repeatedly reassured this shouldn't be an issue. There is a separate issue to do with our vendor as to why we couldn't Exchange sooner as we would have liked, which is another story entirely, but we were repeatedly told for weeks that even before the Exchange was done that everyone was happy with and prepared for Completion on the 26th. 
When our solicitor contacted the buyer's solicitor on Monday they dropped the bomb that they weren't ready to Exchange due to an issue with the lender and were trying to establish if a Deed of Variation was needed for the lease on my property. It isn't. It's a very reasonable lease with a ground rent doubling every 25 years from the current amount of £150. The most the lender would need to be satisfied is an indemnity policy (which our solicitor double checked against the lenders criteria). 
Since Monday, the buyer's solicitors have gone completely silent and are not responding to anyone - not our solicitor, the estate agent or our buyer's, their own client. Our solicitor has drafted up an indemnity policy for them and emailed this on and we have offered to pay for this - still heard nothing. They are not answering the phone or emails. 
We have had a nightmare rearranging things and half our house is packed up in boxes, so we are pretty stressed and just want to know how they want to proceed. We have already had lots of previous issues getting to this point so it's taking a toll. We just can't understand why the buyer's solicitors raised this issue at the last minute and then have gone silent and done nothing to resolve it, when an indemnity could be put in place very quickly to get the chain back on track. 
We have our solicitor and estate agent chasing and we know from the EA that our buyer's are also chasing but is there anything else we can possibly do to try and resolve this and get some response from the buyer's solicitor? We're really appalled that they have gone completely quiet and are not engaging with anyone and feel very helpless.  
Any advice people can provide would be much appreciated. 

naomibm

hi..im so so sorry...it sounds really stressful.  in two previous purchases when solcitors have been really unresponsive, i have literally turned up at the door and asked what on earth is going on! BOTH times, we have then exchanged the next day! im aware it takes a but of guts...but it works!! 

beevee77

naomibm said:

hi..im so so sorry...it sounds really stressful.  in two previous purchases when solcitors have been really unresponsive, i have literally turned up at the door and asked what on earth is going on! BOTH times, we have then exchanged the next day! im aware it takes a but of guts...but it works!! 

Thanks for this. I am itching to try and contact the buyer's solicitor myself and kick up a fuss but know that this is generally frowned upon and our solicitor and EA might not like it. Might have to consider getting more pushy though if this rumbles on. 

Tiglet2

beevee77 said:

naomibm said:

hi..im so so sorry...it sounds really stressful.  in two previous purchases when solcitors have been really unresponsive, i have literally turned up at the door and asked what on earth is going on! BOTH times, we have then exchanged the next day! im aware it takes a but of guts...but it works!! 

Thanks for this. I am itching to try and contact the buyer's solicitor myself and kick up a fuss but know that this is generally frowned upon and our solicitor and EA might not like it. Might have to consider getting more pushy though if this rumbles on. 

It's not just frowned upon, it's not allowed or acceptable because you are not their client and they have no contract with you.  EA couldn't care less, apart from wanting their commission.

I am sorry to say that this issue has probably been going on a lot longer than you think.  Your solicitor had hoped that they would be satisfied with an indemnity policy but it is for the buyer's solicitor to decide what they will accept.  Be aware that if a Deed of Variation is needed, you will likely be charged a fee for the work involved and possibly the buyer's solicitors fees in approving it.

AdrianC

Sounds to me like the solicitor's probably waiting on the lender.

It's only this week that the lender decided they were not willing to lend, with the potential requirement for a DoV.
An indemnity was suggested by the vendor's solicitor, with no inkling as to whether the lender would be happy with that or not...

Insomniac101

I could’ve written the exact same thing! We are waiting for a deed of variation for our buyers lender also! Our exchange was agreed for mid Feb, then moved to 12th March, and now 3 weeks later nothing.

Our solicitors have told us they can only take out the indemnity if the freeholder refuses the DOV, so we await.... so it’s waiting on the freeholder response.  But frustrating that they didn’t ask for this till 2 days before exchange. 

Nothing we can do now, only relief is that the stamp duty holiday has been extended as we will definitely not make it. 

Thrugelmir

Insomniac101 said:

Nothing we can do now, only relief is that the stamp duty holiday has been extended as we will definitely not make it. 

Deadlines and property transactions aren't compatible unfortunately. 

beevee77

Thanks to all for responses. Apologies I have tried to quote reply to people individually but it blocked this for some reason so I'll just try to address a couple of points here:

- We know what a DoV entails as we have got one before on my partners previous property. We will go through this again if needed but the buyer's solicitor have not said either way if one is required. Their last communication on Monday was that they didn't know if it was necessary or not - then silence. 

- We know who the lender are and their requirements state that an indemnity would cover this issue. Again, however if a DoV is required in this case for some reason then so be it, but we just need to know so we can get our solicitor on this as soon as possible.

- Nobody else knew this was an issue until Monday. When the buyer's solicitors spoke with our buyer's, EA and solicitor on Friday they pretty much said they were resolving an issue with the lender but didn't indicate that this might not be resolved or cause any delays. It was very much conveyed to all parties that all was in hand and they would be ready to go. I assume they hoped they could resolve this quickly but that wasn't the case. 

The main frustration is that the buyer's solicitor are just not responding to anyone. Not even our buyer who has tried to chase them all week, as the delay has put them in a difficult position too. So nobody in the chain knows what's going on or how / when this might get resolved. We do appreciate there's probably nothing that can be done about that besides wait until they do respond and explain what they want to do. 

naomibm

when I've turned up, it's been to my own solictor! i meant ask your buyer to go to their solictor. although i did once ring a buyers solictor! did the job! 😆

Insomniac101

beevee77 said:

Thanks to all for responses. Apologies I have tried to quote reply to people individually but it blocked this for some reason so I'll just try to address a couple of points here:

- We know what a DoV entails as we have got one before on my partners previous property. We will go through this again if needed but the buyer's solicitor have not said either way if one is required. Their last communication on Monday was that they didn't know if it was necessary or not - then silence. 

- We know who the lender are and their requirements state that an indemnity would cover this issue. Again, however if a DoV is required in this case for some reason then so be it, but we just need to know so we can get our solicitor on this as soon as possible.

- Nobody else knew this was an issue until Monday. When the buyer's solicitors spoke with our buyer's, EA and solicitor on Friday they pretty much said they were resolving an issue with the lender but didn't indicate that this might not be resolved or cause any delays. It was very much conveyed to all parties that all was in hand and they would be ready to go. I assume they hoped they could resolve this quickly but that wasn't the case. 

The main frustration is that the buyer's solicitor are just not responding to anyone. Not even our buyer who has tried to chase them all week, as the delay has put them in a difficult position too. So nobody in the chain knows what's going on or how / when this might get resolved. We do appreciate there's probably nothing that can be done about that besides wait until they do respond and explain what they want to do. 

Our buyers Solicitor took a week off without letting anyone know, no out of office or anything .... I’ve lost the will to keep chasing 

Thrugelmir

Insomniac101 said:

beevee77 said:

Thanks to all for responses. Apologies I have tried to quote reply to people individually but it blocked this for some reason so I'll just try to address a couple of points here:

- We know what a DoV entails as we have got one before on my partners previous property. We will go through this again if needed but the buyer's solicitor have not said either way if one is required. Their last communication on Monday was that they didn't know if it was necessary or not - then silence. 

- We know who the lender are and their requirements state that an indemnity would cover this issue. Again, however if a DoV is required in this case for some reason then so be it, but we just need to know so we can get our solicitor on this as soon as possible.

- Nobody else knew this was an issue until Monday. When the buyer's solicitors spoke with our buyer's, EA and solicitor on Friday they pretty much said they were resolving an issue with the lender but didn't indicate that this might not be resolved or cause any delays. It was very much conveyed to all parties that all was in hand and they would be ready to go. I assume they hoped they could resolve this quickly but that wasn't the case. 

The main frustration is that the buyer's solicitor are just not responding to anyone. Not even our buyer who has tried to chase them all week, as the delay has put them in a difficult position too. So nobody in the chain knows what's going on or how / when this might get resolved. We do appreciate there's probably nothing that can be done about that besides wait until they do respond and explain what they want to do. 

Our buyers Solicitor took a week off without letting anyone know, no out of office or anything .... I’ve lost the will to keep chasing 

Even solicitors have their personal own lives as well to deal with. No different to any of us.  A few days in the greater scheme of things is neither here nor there.  I'd say that a solicitor is far less likely to skive off work that many people do on in this country.