Failure to complete

davemorton

Hopefully exchanging/completing next week and my solicitor called on Friday to say the same to me (Old mortgage provider had hold on property, not new one), but I paid the £3 to check on the land registry and it showed the new one.  Solicitor must have got the details when they were first instructed. There must be a bit of a backlog updating them at the land registry as I think it was about Feb/March when I changed mortgage. 

p00hsticks

ellieh01 said:

User1977, bear with me for being stupid - so the previous solicitor redeemed my mortgage with HSBC and moved me to Nationwide. The current solicitor is supposed to redeem with Nationwide and move me to my new lender, BUT they thought (until two weeks ago) they were meant to redeem with HSBC. They’re saying HSBC’s charge hasn’t been discharged. If they thought they were supposed to redeem with HSBC, then shouldn’t that have been dealt with already?

As part of the mortage move from HSBC to Nationwide, the previous solicitor will have submitted an application to the Land Registry for the property title to be amended so that the charge to HSBC is removed and the one to Nationwide added. But these changes can take months to work through. So when you (or the current solicitor) look on the Land Registry, from the sounds of it the property title is still showing that there is a charge on the property by HSBC.

AdrianC

ellieh01 said:

I honestly never thought this would happen. The broker did not give me options that were more expensive but administratively simpler. He knew I was expecting to buy a new place. 

ANY last-minute mortgage change would cause this administrative hassle.

The hassle is because there is a change in chargeholder needing to be registered with the LR, not because of who it's changing too.

How much are you saving from this one-month mortgage change, after paying all the fees?

ellieh01

There were no fees. We actually ‘profited’ from the whole transaction as there was a bonus, plus savings from better rate. 

But it wasn’t like we ‘chose’ this over something else. We needed to remortgage and couldn’t afford to stay on the variable with HSBC for the foreseeable, not knowing when or if the sale would go through. 

user1977

ellieh01 said:

But it wasn’t like we ‘chose’ this over something else. We needed to remortgage and couldn’t afford to stay on the variable with HSBC for the foreseeable, not knowing when or if the sale would go through. 

HSBC didn't have any retention products?

ellieh01

HSBC did not. That was my first thought and I called to ask. It’s all so ridiculous as we are now returning to HSBC. 

GDB2222

ellieh01 said:

There were no fees. We actually ‘profited’ from the whole transaction as there was a bonus, plus savings from better rate. 

But it wasn’t like we ‘chose’ this over something else. We needed to remortgage and couldn’t afford to stay on the variable with HSBC for the foreseeable, not knowing when or if the sale would go through. 

That's fine, as far as it goes. However, you should have told both solicitors the whole story. As you didn't, you can't sue them.

You asked whom to sue, and it is possible that an ordinarily competent mortgage broker had an obligation to warn you of the tangle you were creating. You would need to instruct a solicitor to sue the broker, and your case would hinge on expert evidence on the obligations of a mortgage broker in these circumstances.  Since you could have *really* major losses over this, you may end up having to sue the broker.

However, in the meantime, concentrate on helping your two solicitors to untangle this mess. That would include agreeing to whatever additional charges they wish to levy.  

ellieh01

When it first emerged after exchange that my solicitor didn’t know about the remortgage, I asked whether this was something to worry about and what I could do to resolve this. She said there was nothing to worry about, this was very normal. That was two weeks ago. Should she not have advised then that completion was in jeopardy?

GDB2222

ellieh01 said:

When it first emerged after exchange that my solicitor didn’t know about the remortgage, I asked whether this was something to worry about and what I could do to resolve this. She said there was nothing to worry about, this was very normal. That was two weeks ago. Should she not have advised then that completion was in jeopardy?

Yes. Certainly, the idea that this was 'very normal' is bizarre.  Are you sure you heard correctly?

ellieh01

I absolutely heard correctly. I asked should I worry. She said no, not at all. So surely she shouldn’t have said this if it weren’t true.