Failure to complete

GDB2222

ellieh01 said:

Btw - I’ve spoken to HSBC again and they have definitely provided written confirmation to the current solicitor that they discharged of their charge on the property on 11 August. 

You have a solicitor, with priority on the Land Register, who is working to set up a new charge against your property on behalf of your new lenders. That hasn't gone through yet, but it will take priority over everything else that's taking place. Your main solicitor can't discharge it, as it's not on the register yet. But, you have contracted to sell your house free of all charges. 

So, you have contracted to do something that can't possibly happen. 

What you have to hope for is that your buyer is reasonably relaxed and helpful. Given a few months, this will all untangle. Your new charge will get registered, and then it can be unregistered again. So, your house will eventually end up without any charges on it.

However, it would be vastly simpler, as your main solicitor said, if the other solicitor would just withdraw his application.

As things currently stand, your buyers are perfectly entitled not to go ahead with the purchase on Tuesday. 

ellieh01

Thanks GDB - the main solicitor hasn’t mentioned the undertaking approach. Do you know why that might be?

The buyer has been patient and relaxed throughout. We’ve been really helpful to them with house stuff too. The relationship is very good. Are you suggesting we work on them agreeing to complete anyway, or maybe I’ve misunderstood?

ellieh01

I copy below what our current solicitor told me 5pm Friday:

‘I have spoken with my Director about this, who has advised the best course of action would be to instruct [the remortgage solicitors] to either;

- Expedite the application for the discharge of HSBC's charge, and the adding of Nationwide's charge

- Cancel their application - leaving the register without a lender on as we will be redeeming Nationwide's charge upon completion.

Please contact [remortgage solicitor] with these options, as this will determine how we are able to proceed with completion on the 28th.’

user1977

Why aren't they contacting the other solicitors directly? Would be faster and avoid risk of Chinese whispers if you're acting as go-between.

Thrugelmir

user1977 said:

Why aren't they contacting the other solicitors directly? Would be faster and avoid risk of Chinese whispers if you're acting as go-between.

Solicitors will need to be instructed by a client and paid for their time. 

With the 30th September deadline approaching. OP's solicitor isn't going to have the capacity to spend the time. 

wilfred30

The deadline is tomorrow, the 28th!!!!

Gavin83

wilfred30 said:

The deadline is tomorrow, the 28th!!!!

They’re referring to the stamp duty holiday, which’ll be leaving solicitors very busy at the moment.

michael1234

To the OP: I am sure there are many like me reading this post and hoping things turn out well for you. It does seem as though in retrospect you should have delayed the remortgage but as you say it was tricky with timings and you didn't know you were going to move so soon.

My feeling is you've done nothing wrong and the issue boils down to technicalities around how long it take to register charges at the LR and speed of solicitors - this is something they must be in a position to sort out OR they should make it clear that in the UK you are not free to sell your house within X months of a remortgage which would ridiculous.

 I hope you find the time to let us know what happened - it might even provide some comfort to others in months/years to come.

ellieh01

Hello, a little update - and it’s good news.

Solicitor B initially said they just needed HSBC’s written confirmation that they had removed their charge. Then they decided they needed the LR to actually show Nationwide, and not HSBC, on the charge. Then they decided they could go ahead without either of the above, and simply provide an undertaking to the buyer’s solicitor, provided the buyer’s solicitor was happy with that. He was not. He asked for solicitor A to provide an undertaking to respond to all future LR queries on the matter. Solicitor A refused, which solicitor B was very surprised by. Things looked rough. 

Then LR updated the title! So all will go ahead tomorrow as planned. 

Lessons:
- call absolutely everyone (broker, solicitors, LR) repeatedly. LR has a phone number and a forum manned by AdamH, an employee. They are surprisingly helpful and responsive 
- don’t stop chasing until it’s done. Solicitors seem excellent at reassuring you everything will be fine, other parties will do this and that, but they’ll turn on a sixpence. They also don’t have anywhere near the same level of urgency as you
- double check early on that all is ok with your title, if you’ve recently remortgaged. If my solicitor hadn’t told me it was all fine back then, we would’ve contacted the LR straightaway and there wouldn’t have been this last minute stress

Finally, I found 90% of posts on this thread so upsetting and stressful over the weekend. Instead of providing advice, most people piled on and told me it was all my fault, I have my own stupidity and greed to blame, it’s unlikely to go through, etc. I was way more stressed after engaging here than I was before, and I hadn’t even learnt anything new. I don’t know if people were trolling me, or genuinely not very nice? I posted on another forum where people were so much nicer and more helpful. So if you’re worried about your conveyancing process, take things said here with an enormous pinch of salt. Call everyone repeatedly, especially LR, and stay positive.

ellieh01

I remain of the view that I’ve done nothing wrong here. My broker today said others do this and it’s usually fine. It’s a combination of covid and stamp duty deadline, I suspect, that the update to the title took so long. Solicitor B has admitted negligence on their part and apologised.