Conveyancing Complaint

goneracing

Can an official complaint / claim for compensation be made against the other parties solicitor on a house purchase?

Basically they informed the Estate agents and our solicitor that a claim for adverse Possession, which needed completing prior to purchase, was made in April (our Sols sent me a completed copy of the sellers ST1), but it appears that it has only just been submitted.

Obviously the first Stamp duty holiday was missed and now we will miss it in its entirety at the end of September at a cost of thousands to both ourselves and the sellers.

Waunakee

No as you are not their client.

Slithery

goneracing said:

Can an official complaint / claim for compensation be made against the other parties solicitor on a house purchase?

No. The only party that can complain is their client.

user1977

Surely you could have checked whether/when the application was made, rather than just take their word for it 

goneracing

We have tried via both the estate agents and our Solicitors, but the sellers Sols take an inordinate amount of time to respond to any requests and when they do the info is either absent or incomplete. We have been asking for the application reference for months so that we could monitor it but as of yesterday we still haven’t received it.

In June the sellers sols informed the EA who in turn informed us, that they were awaiting the final Certificate from the Land Registry. It is only this week that the sellers received a letter informing them that a surveyor will be visiting in the coming days to confirm the area in question, which is the first action after acceptance of the Adverse Possession claim.

 I suspect the sellers sols did not submit the application until very recently despite the sellers showing me evidence that payment was made for this service in December 20 and my receiving via my solicitor a copy of the ST1 in April. The whole thing strikes me as incompetence bordering on negligence by their Sols.

GDB2222

user1977 said:

Surely you could have checked whether/when the application was made, rather than just take their word for it 

If a solicitor says that they have done something, it's reasonable, to rely on that. And, that raises the question of whether they owed the OP a duty of care. It might be worth having a look here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_tort_law

user1977

GDB2222 said:

user1977 said:

Surely you could have checked whether/when the application was made, rather than just take their word for it 

If a solicitor says that they have done something, it's reasonable, to rely on that. And, that raises the question of whether they owed the OP a duty of care.

I can't see there being a relevant duty of care in this sort of pre-contract due diligence, any more than in all the other information and vague intentions stated by the parties. And no chance of proving that none of the 101 other possible reasons for delaying a transaction might have cropped up - the other side being generally slow, for example (which they're allowed to be, frustrating though it may be!).

SpiderLegs

If you believe the delays have cost you thousands then reduce your offer. 

Thrugelmir

goneracing said:

Basically they informed the Estate agents and our solicitor that a claim for adverse Possession, which needed completing prior to purchase, was made in April (our Sols sent me a completed copy of the sellers ST1), but it appears that it has only just been submitted.

Perhaps the submitted form has been sitting in someones in tray.  I can see no justification for the application to be monitored by another party. 

NameUnavailable

Short answer is no. You can of course reduce your offer to compensate.

I'm in the process of buying at the moment, fully expected to have completed by now but the vendors solicitors still haven't responded to some queries by my solicitors so if I still decide to proceed (having 2nd thoughts) I will be asking for a reduction to compensate me for the stamp duty that I will now have to pay due to their delays.

eddddy

As others say, your solution would be to reduce your offer.

Then, if the sellers believe they had to accept your reduced offer because their solicitor failed to meet professional standards, or was negligent, or whatever - it would be for the sellers to take it up with their solicitor.