Repossessed home

Exrho

My home was recently repossessed and sold.  Completion date was 23rd March 2022, and on that date all claims against the funds were settled but the surplus was not paid to me.Only now, three months later and after repeated nagging from me, have the solicitors dealing with the sale said they will send the funds to me. No transactions involving the funds or the property have taken place between the completion date and now. It it permissible for the solicitors to hold onto my funds for that period of time?  The solicitors have asked me to appoint a solicitor to act on my behalf to receive the funds then pay them to me - yet, according to section 3.3 of the SRA Accounting Rules, solicitors may not act as a bank simply to receive and pass on funds. Any comment on this please.

Schwarzwald

Assuming you get the funds now, what else are you aiming for? Compensation in interest since completion? An apology?

not sure the reasons, but their request for another sol appointment might be AML and kyc checks which they didnt carry out on you as you dont seem to be their client and they might not be v comfortable sending the money without these checks by some law firm. 

theartfullodger

Why the repo? Sole borrower or a joint mortgage?

The lender's cost etc etc will need to be paid and mortgage paid off plus charges for court etc etc, solicitors.

A lender who needs to repossess is likely to be unhappy with you.

 In many repossessions the former owner/borrower ends up still owing lender money 

Roughly how much were you expecting?

Where are you living now?

eddddy

Exrho said:

The solicitors have asked me to appoint a solicitor to act on my behalf to receive the funds then pay them to me - yet, according to section 3.3 of the SRA Accounting Rules, solicitors may not act as a bank simply to receive and pass on funds. Any comment on this please.

It might be best to just ask a few solicitors if they'll do it, and ask for quotes. I guess a solicitor will probably have a better grasp of the SRA rules than you have.


(And your argument will have more weight, if you say "three solicitors have confirmed that they are not allowed to do this" as opposed to "a bunch of anonymous people on an internet forum agreed with my interpretation of the SRA rules".)

user1977

As above, likely to be AML concerns, but you're entitled to the surplus - I doubt the lender can insist that you appoint a solicitor even if that eases the admin for their solicitor. They ought to be able to carry out the necessary ID checks themselves (though I expect they're entitled to charge for it). Or I suppose they could send the money to the lender to send on to you, if the lender is satisfied that you are the borrower (often the problem is that the borrower has reappeared after a long period of no contact, and nobody is entirely sure that they're not some sort of imposter, given they'll have a new address, no current login for the bank, etc).

As for the delay, could be they were just waiting for final invoices to appear. At most what would you be claiming for - three months interest at a minuscule percentage?

canaldumidi

I suspect the delay was to ensure there were no other debts or creditors that needed paying out of the sale funds before they could be released to you.

If they had sent the money toyou immediately, and then received a claim on the money from a 3rd party, they might have had to pay from their own funds....

The interest you've lost is minimal so any claim is not worth the time.

I can't comment on the need for a solicitor. Ask a few?