Staying on top of my Solicitor for pre 30 June completion

user1977

Dimension_ said:

user1977 said:

Dimension_ said:

Is there a risk that i could exchange, be committed and then find out completion has been delayed until after 30 June and would be on the hook for the increase i stamp duty

A friend has suggested to include in the contract wording a clause that reduces the purchase price by the increase in stamp duty if completion takes place in July - is this possible?

Theoretically possible but very rare for completion not to happen on the day set in stone at completion do you mean exchange? . Yes, you could potentially change the price in that way, but it upsets a bunch of other things e.g. your mortgage lender would need to be happy with the amended price and reissue their offer.

So the date for completion is set in stone at the point of exchange ? I hadn’t appreciated this.

Yes. There wouldn't be much point having a contract without agreement about when the purchase was actually meant to happen.

I am less worried about the potential delay of going back to my lender with a new purchase price, since if this occurred, there wouldn’t be the urgency of a deadline that there currently is. 

Though you would have the risk that the lender decides not to (or delays) issuing a new offer, leaving you in breach of contract with potentially large expenses to pay to the vendor.

Irishpearce26

Dimension_ said:

saajan_12 said:

Dimension_ said:

- As such, the local authority searches were only raised about 2 weeks ago and not expected back for another 3 weeks - did your sol wait for anything eg mortgage before starting? this leaves things quite tight, even if everyone is prompt from here. 
- My mortgage offer has been received and enquiries have been raised but not yet responded to
- Added to this is the complexity of my purchase being a probate sale, and this has not yet been granted. Probate was applied for in February and is imminently due based on what i am being told. - this will be the main unknown then. 

My solicitor has told me i cannot exchange and complete on the same day despite it being a chain free free purchase and sale. He has said it is not possible due to the need for requesting my mortgage funds and dealing with paperwork so at least one week is needed between exchange and completion. - no, exchange has nothing to do with your lender. Your solicitor can request funds 1 week ahead, or whatever the lender needs.  

How can I ensure that i stand the best possible chance of completion before the stamp duty holiday ends, is there anything i can do now to save time further down the line? If i am not mistaken, the next steps include, obtaining satisfactory responses to the enquiries, reviewing the local authority searches, raising further enquiries if needed and agreeing a date for exchange and completion - is this realistic to get done in 2-3 weeks prior to the end of June? - possible but will be tight as theres a few different bits outstanding - your list plus probate being granted, plus anything else that comes up. 

Simulataneous exchange & completion shouldn't be the issue here, as funds can be requested and then sent back by the solicitor if completion doesn't happen. 

However you do have a few other issues which will make this tight. Might be worth thinking what the plan is if you can't complete by 30th June - can you afford to and do you want to buy with the SDLT, or would you pull out? 

Thank you for the response. 

Yes, my solicitor waited for the contract pack before requesting the searches through a third party. They are expected back in 2 weeks or so 

As you say probate is the big unknown and my solicitor has asked for this to be expedited as part of his enquiries, but i am not sure if this is even possible. 

I am going to speak to my solicitor and push back on the 1 week between exchange and completion. I will suggest organising the finances in advance. I still don't understand why they have told me its not possible.

If i cannot complete before the 30th June, i would reduce my offer price by the increase in stamp duty and would be prepared to walk away. I think this would be the only real course of action given the delay on the vendors side that has held things up. 

Why should the vendor pay your stamp duty bill? You bought a house 12 weeks before a deadline on a house going through probate, you surely knew the risks and had accounted for the possibility. Its the probate you should be worried about these things can take months. 

Dimension_

Irishpearce26 said:

Why should the vendor pay your stamp duty bill? You bought a house 12 weeks before a deadline on a house going through probate, you surely knew the risks and had accounted for the possibility. Its the probate you should be worried about these things can take months. 

The vendors do not have to, however I don’t believe it is an unreasonable request given the circumstances. 

Yes, I knew the risks and accepted them. But that’s doesn’t change the way I would react to them materialising. 

It would also have been close to 4 months by the end of June for a chain free sale and what I was told was a straightforward will (Limited assets being split with equal shares, all recipients in the UK). This seams like a reasonable amount of time. 

I will ask the question as in my view, the 4 week delay caused by the vendors returning the contract pack late could have been easily avoided. I was ready to transact with a full mortgage offer within 3 days of the offer being accepted. If it transpires the stamp duty deadline is missed, why would I as a buyer, absorb this additional cost on a property - that has this saving baked into the higher asking price - if it could have been easily avoided? This assumes probate is granted. 

There needs to be some sort of motivation on the sellers behalf for elements of a sale that they are in control of. Dragging your feet for no apparent reason and expecting to admire your cake and to eat it doesn’t work. Money seems to motivate most, and the thought of their ongoing delays costing them £13k would provide ample motivation. 

Just my views. I’m sure if I was selling, I’d have a very different view. But I’m not. I’m buying. 
 

LHW99

We exchanged / completed on the same day (last solicitor working day before Christmas) some 20+ years ago. I can't see its more difficult now.

Mutton_Geoff

Dimension_ said:

So the date for completion is set in stone at the point of exchange ? I hadn’t appreciated this. This reduces the risk significantly of committing to the purchase without knowing how much stamp duty would be.

There aren't two contracts, there is one with a legal copy for each party. This contains the price, what you're buying and what date the sale will go ahead (ie the completion date). The contracts once drawn and approved are signed by vendor and purchaser then "exchanged" between solicitors and are essentially irrevocable (without huge penalties). It isn't a two step process, in exchange then hunt around for a completion date, everything is cast in stone in the contract.

Irishpearce26

Dimension_ said:

Irishpearce26 said:

Why should the vendor pay your stamp duty bill? You bought a house 12 weeks before a deadline on a house going through probate, you surely knew the risks and had accounted for the possibility. Its the probate you should be worried about these things can take months. 

The vendors do not have to, however I don’t believe it is an unreasonable request given the circumstances. 

Yes, I knew the risks and accepted them. But that’s doesn’t change the way I would react to them materialising. 

It would also have been close to 4 months by the end of June for a chain free sale and what I was told was a straightforward will (Limited assets being split with equal shares, all recipients in the UK). This seams like a reasonable amount of time. 

I will ask the question as in my view, the 4 week delay caused by the vendors returning the contract pack late could have been easily avoided. I was ready to transact with a full mortgage offer within 3 days of the offer being accepted. If it transpires the stamp duty deadline is missed, why would I as a buyer, absorb this additional cost on a property - that has this saving baked into the higher asking price - if it could have been easily avoided? This assumes probate is granted. 

There needs to be some sort of motivation on the sellers behalf for elements of a sale that they are in control of. Dragging your feet for no apparent reason and expecting to admire your cake and to eat it doesn’t work. Money seems to motivate most, and the thought of their ongoing delays costing them £13k would provide ample motivation. 

Just my views. I’m sure if I was selling, I’d have a very different view. But I’m not. I’m buying. 
 

Delays happen in normal house buying circumstances. Probate cases are known to take longer than the usual 3-4 months for a normal sale.
You made the offer on what you would pay for the house.
Solicitors are fully stacked at the minute so using normal timescales isn't relevant.
It wont cost your vendors £13k unless they agree to drop the price after June which is pretty unlikely which means you either pay it or pull out if its not going to make it.
You then also have the delay in getting a new mortgage offer if the price does reduce which then may affect your LTV rate etc etc.

Thrugelmir

Dimension_ said:

Irishpearce26 said:

Why should the vendor pay your stamp duty bill? You bought a house 12 weeks before a deadline on a house going through probate, you surely knew the risks and had accounted for the possibility. Its the probate you should be worried about these things can take months. 

I will ask the question as in my view, the 4 week delay caused by the vendors returning the contract pack late could have been easily avoided. 
 

If probate hasn't been granted as yet. Then hasn't made not one iota of difference to the speed of the transaction. The Executors have no control over the probate process, it will take as long as it takes. 

Better to walk now than mess people around. 

GDB2222

There seems to be a lot of very woolly thinking going on. The sale is going through at market price, more or less, as best anyone can establish that figure. An amount was agreed informally but that can change prior to exchange, and it’s perfectly logical that it should do so if circumstances change that affect prices. 

The sdlt deadline is a circumstance that may affect prices significantly. It doesn’t matter that the op has extra costs after the deadline, but equally it does matter if market prices change. I would not expect the op to pay over market value nor the executors to sell for under. 

The real question is whether there will be a change in value after the deadline? I expect that prices will drop considerably, but I’m rubbish at predicting these things. I would not want to be in the OP’s possible position of having agreed a price pre deadline but being asked to stick to it despite the deadline being missed. 

I don’t think that there’s any point trying to allocate blame for missing the deadline, but the sale price should reflect value at the point of exchange.

chalky_white_2

The request for funds is actually a certificate by the solicitor to the lender that they have investigated the title in accordance with the lender’s instructions and certify it is acceptable. If there is outstanding information, then you can not submit the certificate. 

If a certificate was submitted without having received all information the solicitor would have acted not in accordance with their lender CLIENT’s instruction (because the lender is their client too). This would potential risk their position on the lender’s panel which financially is devastating for a firm. 

user1977

chalky_white_2 said:

The request for funds is actually a certificate by the solicitor to the lender that they have investigated the title in accordance with the lender’s instructions and certify it is acceptable. If there is outstanding information, then you can not submit the certificate. 

It's pretty commonplace to anticipate that they'll have everything in place by the time it matters. In practice, what they're certifying is that at completion everything will have been done in accordance with the lender's instructions - obviously some fairly important things (like getting title and vacant possession) can't have happened at the point they submit the certificate, and all the lender really cares about is that their funds won't be used until anything outstanding has been dealt with.