Solicitor delay means don't meet stamp duty deadline

Sazzy21

Hi all,
Hope someone can help.
We offered on a house in March and accepted. Our buyers sold to an investor and our sellers buying from a no chain property. So the chain is... Investor, buyer, us, seller and top of chain seller. 
We want to complete by stamp duty deadline end if June to avoid 3k in fees! Everyone in the chain is happy for the date proposed end of june so woohoooo.... However... I've just found out the solicitor at the bottom of the chain isn't ready. Turns out the investor (nothing to sell) paid for the searches in March and the solicitor didn't apply for these until May!!! Meaning they have only just been recieved back and thus need to do equiries etc now. 
So looks like we will now end up paying stamp duty due to this. Surely there's something that can be done due to the fact the solicitor took 2 months before even applying for searches??? 
Absolutely gutted 

Sazzy21

Sorry, just to add that all other solicitors are now ready to complete. 

user1977

They can get a move on with their enquiries. Needn't take weeks. Not sure what else you'd like to be done?

Sazzy21

user1977 said:

They can get a move on with their enquiries. Needn't take weeks. Not sure what else you'd like to be done?

Thank you. I wasn't sure if we had a legal leg to stand on to cover the excess fees. But you're right, I'm not sure either, just so annoyed it took 10 weeks for them to do anything. Doh. Thanks anyway. 

user1977

Sazzy21 said:

user1977 said:

They can get a move on with their enquiries. Needn't take weeks. Not sure what else you'd like to be done?

Thank you. I wasn't sure if we had a legal leg to stand on to cover the excess fees. But you're right, I'm not sure either, just so annoyed it took 10 weeks for them to do anything. Doh. Thanks anyway. 

You're entering into contracts with your buyer and your seller, and you don't even have contracts with either of them yet. You've got even less of a relationship with your buyer's buyer.

Sazzy21

Thank you. The investor is now lodging a formal complaint with the solicitor so at least that's something. Thanks anyway. 

Scotbot

You put in an offer in March and expected to complete by the end of June? That was ambitious. The SDLT holiday was announced July 2020 and supposed to end Mar 31st. It was then extended to give people who were already in the process time to complete, a clear indication that there were delays. Solicitors are overwhelmed and will be prioritising sales from offers pre March. Searches are taking much longer than normal, requesting searches 6 weeks after an offer is made isn't unusual
Not much you can do about it I'm afraid.

Indigo_and_Violet

If the investor is also motivated to avoid paying stamp duty you could suggest that they consider indemnity insurance instead of waiting for searches to come back, but if the investor wants to see searches before proceeding then there's a fair chance you'll miss the deadline as a lot of authorities are backed up and there's no way to pay for priority searches. If it's all in the same area you should have an idea of how long searches are taking. 

teachfast

Standard utterly poor practice from complacent and uncaring solicitors. You've struggled against the great weather, the allure of the golf course and the need to buy and sell their own houses to take advantage of the stamp duty relief period. 

Drawingaline

It can be done. Our buyers searches came back in 18th Dec, didn't raise enquiries until 4th Jan, exchanged 20th Jan, completed 27th. It was our second buyer and our mortgage offer expired on 29th Jan. EA earned their fees, they chased hard for the buyer (she had used their in house broker and solicitors) and we managed it. Very stressful though. 

If the investor is on the ball now it might just make it.

davilown

Sazzy21 said:

Hi all,
Hope someone can help.
We offered on a house in March and accepted. Our buyers sold to an investor and our sellers buying from a no chain property. So the chain is... Investor, buyer, us, seller and top of chain seller. 
We want to complete by stamp duty deadline end if June to avoid 3k in fees! Everyone in the chain is happy for the date proposed end of june so woohoooo.... However... I've just found out the solicitor at the bottom of the chain isn't ready. Turns out the investor (nothing to sell) paid for the searches in March and the solicitor didn't apply for these until May!!! Meaning they have only just been recieved back and thus need to do equiries etc now. 
So looks like we will now end up paying stamp duty due to this. Surely there's something that can be done due to the fact the solicitor took 2 months before even applying for searches??? 
Absolutely gutted 

Yes there is - you can pull out. 

But realistically, nothing you can do. Hopefully you budgeted for this considering that there were already 4 months expected for completion.