Conveyancing Complaint

davilown

Have you have you actually exchanged? If not, then you’ve got no hope.

Irishpearce26

goneracing said:

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.

Unless you stipulated in your offer that the sale had to complete before the SDLT holiday then I don't see you having any chance of getting a reduction. If its a deal breaker then pull out but obviously you will be back in the same position and may have incurred costs already.

GoogleMeNow

Irishpearce26 said:

goneracing said:

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.

Unless you stipulated in your offer that the sale had to complete before the SDLT holiday then I don't see you having any chance of getting a reduction. If its a deal breaker then pull out but obviously you will be back in the same position and may have incurred costs already.

The problem is that a 'stipulation regarding completion by a certain date' cannot be binding, since solicitors will not guarantee or promise a deadline.  They have their own priorities and timescales, are reliant on many third parties for whom they cannot dictate a deadline, therefore the most they can do is to 'do all they can to meet your preferred date', but cannot be held responsible if it is not met.  As for applying for adverse possession, they may have been slow to make the application, but have to assume that there were other clients with more priority than this, specifically noting that Land Registry also have considerable delays in responding.  There will always be some people who will complete on their transactions by the deadline and others who will not.

Best chance would be to reduce your offer by the amount of extra stamp duty you have to pay.