Move conveyancer our only choice?

kungfucharlie

We're in process of buying and selling. Sale has been very straight forward. Purchase started fine, but got complicated by new house having an extension with a party wall astride the boundary. 

At first, our solicitors were worried that the extension had been built wrongly and encroached on the neighbour's land. The sellers then provided tonnes of paperwork showing that the permissions were given by the neighbour, a party wall agreement was in place, and the works were all signed off. The solicitor we were dealing with seemed ok with it, but said it would be flagged to our lender as "non-standard" paperwork. Exchange could go ahead as soon as the bank said yes. 

Fast forward to this week. Our solicitor has taken a leave of absence (we don't know for how long), so we've been handed over to someone else. The bank have replied saying to the conveyancer: What is your advice? The new lawyer says he thinks the extension is illegal, and so his advice is not to proceed. 

We were a bit dumbfounded, having been led to believe that exchange was imminent. So we asked to be directed to the evidence/information that had led to this conclusion. 

The response: find yourselves new lawyers. 

We've spent weeks on this, and thousands of pounds. But are we now faced with no other option? Will we be starting again from scratch? And do we also need to move our sale over?

tacpot12

I would suggest you think carefully about the legal advice you have been given by the second solictor. I think they are saying that the extension has no right to be where it is, and a future owner of the neighbouring property could force the extension to be removed from their land.

If you want to buy with this risk, and the firm won't act for you, you will need to change solicitors, but I don't see why this should mean you are starting from scratch. The surveys will still be valid, but I would expect that a new solicitor will want proof of identidy and source of funds, and they will want to produce or review the contract for the sale rather than inherit a contract prepared or reviewed by your current solicitor.

I doubt you  have spent  thousands of pounds on the legal fees to date. You can ask the current solicitors what you bill would be if you settled with them now. I would expect it to be a few hundred pounds less than their quote. 

You don't need to move your sale over, but it would not be unheard of for there to be issues when the two solicitors have to communicate. There is no reason to fall out with your current solicitors although I do think they are being over cautious in refusing to act for you. You might ask if a partner in the firm would give you a second opinion on the risk of moving forward with the purchase, and also whether they would reconsider their decsion not to act for you if you go ahead with the purchase.