Coneyancer completed Remortgage early

Gezmc1

Hello,
I was looking for guidance and opinions on firstly who was at fault and secondly what my options are moving forward. Mortgage all sorted and went to offer. Completed the documents Enact conveyancing (lenders solicitor) asked us to. But then received an email end of August to say that my Remortgage has completed, 2 weeks before it was supposed to. Meaning we incurred an early repayment charge of just shy of 2 grand. We only realised this was an issue becuase our broker rang us to ask why we completed early.
any help guidance appreciated

K_S

Gezmc1 said:

Hello,
I was looking for guidance and opinions on firstly who was at fault and secondly what my options are moving forward. Mortgage all sorted and went to offer. Completed the documents Enact conveyancing (lenders solicitor) asked us to. But then received an email end of August to say that my Remortgage has completed, 2 weeks before it was supposed to. Meaning we incurred an early repayment charge of just shy of 2 grand. We only realised this was an issue becuase our broker rang us to ask why we completed early.
any help guidance appreciated

@gezmc1 I always opt for cashback (and instruct own fixed-price conveyancer using the cashback) over free-legals for myself and advise the same to my clients so don't know exactly how the Enact free-legals process works.

But ordinarily, for remortgage conveyancing, any half-decent solicitor *should* have at least a couple of checkpoints before setting a completion date to ensure that ERC isn't isn't triggered without the client's explicit permission and sign-off on the amount that they will be worse-off by completion during the ERC period.

So unless you gave your explicit permission for completing on/after a specific date with the awareness that an ERC of £x would be due, I would class this as likely to be down to the solicitor messing up.

Once the offer is issued, the broker has no say in or sight of setting the completion date. Some lenders may drop the broker an email notifying them that funds have been requested but that's erratic and doesn't always indicate the actual completion date. 

Gezmc1

Thank you for your reply. You've said the same as what my Broker said which is reassuring. They gave me no notice and i didn't see a completion statement either. They just took the Early Repayment Charge out of my already modest home improvements monies. The issue is it's almost impossible to speak to anyone over the phone.

Does anyone know what the liklihood would be of me getting this money back off Enact? Or would it be a case of tough luck..

K_S

Gezmc1 said:

Thank you for your reply. You've said the same as what my Broker said which is reassuring. They gave me no notice and i didn't see a completion statement either. They just took the Early Repayment Charge out of my already modest home improvements monies. The issue is it's almost impossible to speak to anyone over the phone.

Does anyone know what the liklihood would be of me getting this money back off Enact? Or would it be a case of tough luck..

@gezmc1 If you're not able to get in touch with anyone, put in a formal complaint, both with Enact and with the lender. That's what has worked for my clients in a similar position (usually to do with delays leaving them on the SVR for an unnecessarily long time) in the past.

Given the limited info in your post, you should be put back in the position that you would have if they hadn't messed up. Definitely follow it through. 

Gezmc1

Thanks very much for the guidance

ACG

Solicitors ask when you want to complete on the paperwork. It also usually has a box for ASAP... Have you ticked the asap box by mistake? 

penners324

If you added the date on the form that ACG mentioned then lodge a formal complaint with the conveyancer and the mortgage company.

If upheld you should get the ERC value back from the conveyancer

csgohan4

As Above, have a look at your paperwork, did you agree to completing on X date or did you specify that will be key. 

Gezmc1

Thanks for your replies. I don't recall clicking the asap box or selecting a date. So I will have to take a look into this. 

If i have clicked asap would that mean tough luck? I still thought they'd have confirmed with me the early repayment charge or at least let me know prior to completing. But I don't know how this usually works.

ACG

If you have ticked asap, they have done what you asked - that will be their argument. 

Depending on the details - eg if you said the mortgage you are redeeming is £100k but it came back at £102k, arguably they should have checked. But its not a great argument and I cant really see them admitting fault. 

If that is the situation, then I would say it is 90% your fault and 10% theirs. In which case, why would/should they pay for what is predominantly your mistake? 

Its difficult as you are the layman so to speak, but you are also an adult and sometimes that means taking responsibility. 

But hopefully you did not tick asap and they have made the mistake. Its not unheard of especially with free legals. You should be able to see your paperwork on the customer portal. 

tasticz

I remember putting in date of when I wanted the remortgage to happen when we did ours. So you may have ticked asap, if not put a complaint in and tell them to reimburse you. May be the case worker is new and didn’t get it correct.