Buyer will not have funds in place by entry date (Scotland)

Dippyduck

I’m looking for any advice please

We are selling a house in Scotland with date of entry agreed for 29th July – missives have been signed

On Friday 15th July our solicitor received an email form the buyers solicitors stating there MAY be a delay as they are having difficulty transferring funds into the UK and can only do this at £12k per day

This was a surprise in itself as we were told by the estate agent they were cash buyers with the funds already in a UK bank account – obviously that is not the case

Despite our solicitor chasing them, they have just come back today to say they will let us know what date the full funds will be available and get the missives amended accordingly – THREE days before we are due to move!!

Am I correct in thinking we do not have to change the date of entry in the missives as this will absolve them of any penalties - although the penalties I believe will only be around £44 per day since they sold their previous property for £300k more I don’t suppose they are worried about that?

Thankfully the owner of the property we are buying is being fantastic as they are pretty flexible within a few weeks

theartfullodger

So you have confirmation the (possible) purchasers (or whoever represented them..) have lied to you..

Wonder what else was untrue.

TripleH

I have no imput, but am curious as to how the Scottish system handles this.

I would advise that your seller may change their mind about being relaxed and you can refund a penalty easier than chasing non-payment.

user1977

TripleH said:

I have no imput, but am curious as to how the Scottish system handles this.

Like the OP says, they'd be entitled to interest on the price for each day of delay (and pull out after (usually) 14 days of delay and remarket at the buyers' cost).

I don't see a need to vary the missives, they can just sit tight and calculate the interest for whatever date the buyers are actually able to settle.

OP, isn't your solicitor giving you any advice?

Dippyduck

theartfullodger said:

So you have confirmation the (possible) purchasers (or whoever represented them..) have lied to you..

Wonder what else was untrue.

Only verbally from the estate agents unfortunately

Dippyduck

OP, isn't your solicitor giving you any advice?

To be honest - not really.  He is only forwarding email chains from the buyers solicitors.  We only had confirmation today that it wont go ahead as planned on 29th and we've asked him to go back and get a definite date which the buyers seem reluctant to do.  I mean, it's not rocket science - cost of property divided by £12,000 equals amount of days!

TripleH

Although there might be bank holidays in the source country and weekends to factor in.

But yes, purchase price (invluding all fees) divided by 12k = no. of working days.

Unless this has been a rush purchase, it shouldn't have been hard to track back to when money should have started to be transferred.

YoungBlueEyes

I know EA's can be .....slippery individuals..... but surely they can't make up something as big as that?!  Cash funds in a UK bank account is easily verifiable, so what happened there? What explanation for their checking did they give?

Dippyduck

YoungBlueEyes said:

I know EA's can be .....slippery individuals..... but surely they can't make up something as big as that?!  Cash funds in a UK bank account is easily verifiable, so what happened there? What explanation for their checking did they give?

I haven't been back to the estate agents yet - I don't really see it would make any difference, I don't thing there is anything I can do about it??

YoungBlueEyes

I can't help I'm afraid, it was just a wondering.  Perhaps a proper person will be along in a minute with an answer.

There's often posts on here about EA said/did this and that and how can it be right.  A lot of times the answer is "well you should've done your due diligence" but I don't see how that's possible here...  

koalakoala

Your solicitor should advise and sort it out