Agreed fee (in contract) on replacement boiler not paid after sale

endplate

Hi All

We brought a house just over 4 weeks ago, before the sale was completed the boiler was condemed and we agreed with the seller to go 50/50 on a replacement, this came to around £1500 each, this was written in the contract. The quick part is we over 4 weeks and still have not had this money, the seller soclistor is talking with the clients about it but thats all i get out of them. 

Come moving day we had various issues with the issue which the survey didnt pick up and happened inbetween the survey and completion. We took these on the chin and have fixed most, probably costing to about £2k (the house was unlivable for the first few days, various leaks through out house, things not working, smells that shouldnt be there etc... etc..) I havent persued any of these as reading up seems like just stuck with it. Hence i am not letting the boiler go. 

It took 2 weeks for my soclistor to send us a final bill and the money from previous sale, on that i noticed the £1500 was missing, i questioned this with my soclistor who took it away to look into. They came back to say this wasnt paid to them and they will chase the sellers soclistor. It then came back a week later the soclistor knew nothing about it, i had to dig out evidence from the contract itself and a letter for the soclistor where it was first mentioned (so absolute rubbish). 

I have been chasing my soclistor whose basic repsonce is always, "its with the seller soclistor who is talking to the clients" . i keep pressing to ask what time frames we give them, what actions we have to take and never get answers. 

From what i have found out of the sellers, I fully expect them to dodge payment. 

So does anyone have any experience of this type of thing? As far as im concerned they have breached their contract with us and thus they have no leg to stand on. I am very unpleased with my socistor as they should not have compelted without the funds so they failed as much as the sellers soclistor in my head. Let alone their lack of effort in resolving. 

Any advise is much appreciated. 

greensalad

Inform them you will be taking the matter to small claims court if you don't get a response in a week. 

Then follow through. https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

lincroft1710

Has the boiler been replaced and if so, by whom? You or vendor?

user1977

Why wasn't the money just accounted for at completion? What exactly did the contract say about it?

Snookie12cat

I was going to say the same as above. Why didnt they take this from them at completion and send it to you?

endplate

thanks for the answers, the boiler has been replaced and paid for fully by myself 2 weeks ago. 

As to why my solicitors didn't take the money away from the fees at completion, I don't now but the only answer can be they forgot? 

The clause reads - "The sellers agree that on completion they will make an allowance of xxxx towards the cost of a replacement boiler"

user1977

endplate said:

As to why my solicitors didn't take the money away from the fees at completion, I don't now but the only answer can be they forgot? 

In which case you ought to be directing your complaint to your solicitors. You don't trust the sellers to pay up after they've run off into the sunset.

lincroft1710

endplate said:

The clause reads - "The sellers agree that on completion they will make an allowance of xxxx towards the cost of a replacement boiler"

Allowance? That is slightly ambiguous.


It could imply that the agreed price should be reduced by £xxxx, rather than the vendor pay £xxxx.

user1977

lincroft1710 said:

endplate said:

The clause reads - "The sellers agree that on completion they will make an allowance of xxxx towards the cost of a replacement boiler"

Allowance? That is slightly ambiguous.

It could imply that the agreed price should be reduced by £xxxx, rather than the vendor pay £xxxx.

Call it what you want, it ought to have been taken account of in the completion statement.

lincroft1710

user1977 said:

lincroft1710 said:

endplate said:

The clause reads - "The sellers agree that on completion they will make an allowance of xxxx towards the cost of a replacement boiler"

Allowance? That is slightly ambiguous.

It could imply that the agreed price should be reduced by £xxxx, rather than the vendor pay £xxxx.

Call it what you want, it ought to have been taken account of in the completion statement.

Agreed, but the wording is not what I'd expect a solicitor to use. OP's solicitor does not seem to be the best and I tend to agree with your previous post that this is where the fault lies.

TheJP

lincroft1710 said:

user1977 said:

lincroft1710 said:

endplate said:

The clause reads - "The sellers agree that on completion they will make an allowance of xxxx towards the cost of a replacement boiler"

Allowance? That is slightly ambiguous.

It could imply that the agreed price should be reduced by £xxxx, rather than the vendor pay £xxxx.

Call it what you want, it ought to have been taken account of in the completion statement.

Agreed, but the wording is not what I'd expect a solicitor to use. OP's solicitor does not seem to be the best and I tend to agree with your previous post that this is where the fault lies.

An allowance is a way in which the price of the house doesn't reduce thus meaning the lender needs to be notified, the buyers solicitor or the sellers solicitor should have held back the £1500 when monies were being paid/received.