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Solicitor - monies on account
NINJEM
Posts: 6 Forumite
Hi, in the process of buying a property. The Solicitor held onto money from a sale, and placed this in a client deposit account in Barclays. He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account. Has anyone heard of this sort of delay before?
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Comments
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Only if it's the sort of account where you do need to give notice. Is it a problem?2
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If you have sold and are in the process of buying you solicitor would normally put it in a client account until it's needed for the purchase, the purchase could be hours/days away so to say it will take weeks to get it out makes me think something smells off1
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Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account0 -
The OP means the firm's client account.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account2 -
But its already in the client money accountuser1977 said:
The OP means the firm's client account.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account0 -
Surely that depends on the time factor between selling and buying. I have been in that situation where completion has happened on one property but is not happening yet on another and my solicitor deposited the funds in a client holding account ready for my purchase. In my instance I had completed and my belongings were in the garage of the new build I was buying but the builder couldn't complete for about a week.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account0 -
It's been moved from the current account to a deposit account. It needs to moved back again before it can be used for the purchase. It is "their" account in the sense that the firm operates it, but these are accounts for clients' money, not the firm's office account. There's nothing odd about this other than the delay involved in uplifting the funds from the deposit account, if that's a surprise to the client or is delaying the transaction unnecessarily.DullGreyGuy said:
But its already in the client money accountuser1977 said:
The OP means the firm's client account.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account3 -
We always specifically refer to “your client account at our bank” when corresponding with customers about money like this. It just underlines the fact that in real terms, it is “their” account, not “our” account.user1977 said:
It's been moved from the current account to a deposit account. It needs to moved back again before it can be used for the purchase. It is "their" account in the sense that the firm operates it, but these are accounts for clients' money, not the firm's office account.DullGreyGuy said:
But its already in the client money accountuser1977 said:
The OP means the firm's client account.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account🎉 MORTGAGE FREE (First time!) 30/09/2016 🎉 And now we go again…New mortgage taken 01/09/23 🏡
Balance as at 01/09/23 = £115,000.00 Balance as at 31/12/23 = £112,000.00
Balance as at 31/08/24 = £105,400.00 Balance as at 31/12/24 = £102,500.00
£100k barrier broken 1/4/25
Balance as at 31/08/25 = £ 95,450.00. Balance as at 31/12/25 = £ 91,100.00
SOA CALCULATOR (for DFW newbies): SOA Calculatorshe/her2 -
Yes - understand the concept of client accounts- it is just the delay. We are unable to exchange because the money is not available, so it is delaying the sale.user1977 said:
It's been moved from the current account to a deposit account. It needs to moved back again before it can be used for the purchase. It is "their" account in the sense that the firm operates it, but these are accounts for clients' money, not the firm's office account. There's nothing odd about this other than the delay involved in uplifting the funds from the deposit account, if that's a surprise to the client or is delaying the transaction unnecessarily.DullGreyGuy said:
But its already in the client money accountuser1977 said:
The OP means the firm's client account.DullGreyGuy said:
Why is it going into their account? You owe them a lot of money?NINJEM said:
He is now saying that it could take 2-3 weeks to get it back into their account.
Your proceeds from sale and/or monies to buy your next property should never touch their account0 -
Purely to facilitate the exchange - Why can your solicitor not agree “deposit held to order” with the other side? this would be perfectly standard and rarely gets refused these days.Having said that, a three week period does sound wrong. Client funds should be in an effective “Easy access” account - in fact this sounds like a breach of the accounting rules to me, from what you have said.I’d be inclined to tell your solicitor that they have your money, they have told you they are ready to exchange, so you want to exchange with completion for “X” date (as agreed) and that as they already have the funds to enable this, how they make that happen is their problem. Do this in writing - by email is fine. You may also want to ask your solicitor if you should escalate to the supervising partner in the firm in your matter (you will have been given this person’s details in your initial letter after instructing), or in fact even copy the supervising partner in to the email. Something doesn’t sound at all right though - get onto it urgently.🎉 MORTGAGE FREE (First time!) 30/09/2016 🎉 And now we go again…New mortgage taken 01/09/23 🏡
Balance as at 01/09/23 = £115,000.00 Balance as at 31/12/23 = £112,000.00
Balance as at 31/08/24 = £105,400.00 Balance as at 31/12/24 = £102,500.00
£100k barrier broken 1/4/25
Balance as at 31/08/25 = £ 95,450.00. Balance as at 31/12/25 = £ 91,100.00
SOA CALCULATOR (for DFW newbies): SOA Calculatorshe/her0
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