Solicitor mistake- failed to complete

saajan_12

Bit early for the in depth thinking about how to complain, whether it goes it insurance or not.. 

For now, just focus on gathering evidence about your additional costs (eg how much were you delayed by the mistake, how much did the removals people charge for that delay specifically..). You may get claims from your seller at a later date with damages from their move and from further up the chain. You'd pass these on to your solicitor too, so don't agree that anything is in 'full settlement' with the solicitor as you may get more costs later. 

Jumblebumble

eddddy said:

user1977 said:

Titus_Wadd said:

I assume OP's solicitor knows whose account the money went to, and can easily draw it back?

Not "draw it back", I would expect it needs the recipient to send it back - but that shouldn't be an issue if it's another law firm's client account - they're not allowed to keep random amounts accidentally credited to them anyway.

FWIW, I was helping out somebody who "accidentally" sent money to a solicitor's client account.  (It was a friend of the solicitor's client, who thought they were helping.)

The solicitor said they wouldn't return the money to the account it came from, without first doing id checks to find out who they were sending it back to (certified copy of passport etc). I don't know if the solicitor was being over cautious.

But anyway, I'm sure solicitors have ways of validating that another solicitors' firm is legit - so probably much less hassle.

One wonders why the solicitor who received the money simply did not instruct the sender to ask their bank  to reverse the transaction and avoid returning anything 


This happened to a business I know  where 14K of clear funds arrived by mistake 
The business owner on the advice of their bank told the sender to request the money back which they did
( this did not stop the sender who came from a certain country that are fond of such things attempting a bit of money laundering  by phoning up and asking for the funds to be sent to a different bank account. The business owner told them he was ignorant and so had asked his bank if he should do so and that they had told him under no circumstances to do so.)

deano2099

In any other industry, a screw-up of this magnitude would probably result in a full refund, at least of all the solicitor costs if not the disbursements. But it's not any other industry, it's conveyancing.

As others have said, legally it's hard to demonstrate loss so you don't have much basis to claim for anything that way. But in terms of the actually service you got, one approach I find sometimes works is to ask the company how they would rate their performance on your transaction, with a 10 being the level of service they aim for. If they come back with a 7, ask for 30% off the bill.

Writing a review detailing what happened on Google / Trustpilot whatever might make you feel better - but obviously stick to just the facts and what is on record!

HanspanCsEw89

Thank you for all of your responses. 

We finally got completed at 2pm yesterday afternoon. 

I’ve asked for confirmation in writing that they will be covering all additional costs that our vendor will claim for. 

They have also refunded our conveyancing fees for our purchase (they dealt with our sale too). 

Obviously will not be recommending them to anyone else either. 

Very glad that it is over and never want to move house again! 

Thanks for all of your input

Skiddaw1

YAAAAYYY!!! So glad you're finally done @HanspanCsEw89 . What a nightmare! Wishing you all the best in your new (and hopefully permanent) home.