Failure to complete

ellieh01

I'm meant to complete (on both a sale and a simultaneous purchase) on Tuesday, but have just today been told by our solicitors that our previous lender's charge has not yet been removed from the title on the property we're selling. We switched from this lender to a new lender in August (a remortgage). 

The solicitor apparently was unaware that this remortgage had even happened. The remortgage was a quick procedure managed by a conveyancer appointed by our broker. 

I'm now so worried that completion won't happen as a result. The solicitor emailed at 5pm with no discussion of what would happen if the charge was not removed. They have already received verbal confirmation of removal, but not written. They've been waiting for this since we exchanged, apparently. 

Can we complete anyway? If not, whose fault is it, who should we take legal action against for damages?

Help!

user1977

I would expect the conveyancers who did it can provide an undertaking to discharge it. That is after all what normally happens with the mortgage which you're redeeming at completion.

Thrugelmir

ellieh01 said:

The solicitor apparently was unaware that this remortgage had even happened. 

Unless somebody told them how would they. 

ellieh01

Oh really, can the conveyancer who did the remortgage can provide an undertaking? Is that quick?

the current solicitor says they should either expedite or withdraw their application. They didn’t mention the undertaking. 

GDB2222

Am I reading this correctly? You changed your mortgage just the month before exchanging. You used a different conveyancer than the one handling the sale. And you did not mention this at all to the latter?

That can’t be right, surely? Who would do that? 

“Whose fault is it, who should we take legal action against for damages?”

This must be a wind up, surely? 

ellieh01

Anybody else please?

AdrianC

ellieh01 said:

Anybody else please?

I'm not sure what else you want to hear.

At the last minute, you changed lenders.

Yes, it'll take a little while for the LR paperwork to catch up with that.

It would have been a lot easier if you'd kept your sale solicitor informed.

Is there anybody that you can blame? No, not really.

74jax

ellieh01 said:

Anybody else please?

It might help if you confirmed gdb2222 comment?

If you exchanged with a completion date of Tuesday agreed you could be for serious costs. Doors the chain know? 

SameOldRoundabout

Can we complete anyway? If not, whose fault is it, who should we take legal action against for damages?

Help!

The fault lies entirely with you! What a daft thing to do! Risking your whole sale just weeks before completion and not even mentioning it to your solicitors, who are not psychic. 

GDB2222

Ellie, you won’t necessarily lose your deposit, as there’s a Completion Notice procedure which effectively gives you an extra two weeks to complete. Hopefully, this can be sorted out during this period. 

You will be liable for the extra costs of all the other parties in the chain, such as removal costs, and possibly hotel bills.  Hopefully, it’s a short chain.

You are In your solicitor's hands, to try to sort out the mess. It’s possible that it can all be sorted out on Monday, with suitable exchange of undertakings, although this may be up to your buyers whether they accept this. 

If you are looking around for someone to blame, it’s possibly the mortgage broker, but of course you may not have told him about the sale. 

csgohan4

why would you remortgage when your completing the following month on the sale?

Serious ERC's involved will be  one issue. 

Why did you not tell your selling solicitor you had remortgaged? They are not psychic


Is this a wind up? if not, cake and eat situation