Slow completion day, extra charges!

Collieco

Looking for some advice… we recently completed on a house sale. We were in a chain and although everything seemed to move quickly and efficiently, I feel like we were severely let down in the run up to and on completion day. This resulted in us completing very late in the day and having an extortionate bill from the home removal company.

We were ready to agree completion dates for a couple of weeks, but our solicitors were struggling to contact those at the bottom of the chain. When we all agreed a date, it seemed to take an uncomfortable amount of time to exchange contracts with our agreed completion date nearing. It was a Friday and I was told exchange was going to take place. I heard nothing else and the home removal company were booked for the Monday as that was our agreed completion date. Monday came, I email first thing to check exchange had taken place to then find out we had not managed to exchange and this was because they were waiting to receive a document. But they had now received what was required and were trying to contact everyone to confirm exchange. 

Of course I was panicking, home removal company were already hard at work. But they confirmed completion was going to happen that day. Thankfully it did… but not until 4:30pm! This meant our home removal company charged us for 12 hours as that’s how long they were with us. 

Our solicitors told me that they had a nightmare chasing further down the chain all day. We are a substantial amount of money out of pocket due to no fault of our own. I contacted our solicitor for advice on how I could go about claiming some of this loss back and from who, however they informed me that there technically was no breach in contract because we hadn’t exchanged until much later that day of completion! 

With that being said, I somewhat feel now that responsibly lies with our solicitor. Had they got in touch with me Friday to inform me they hadn’t exchanged, I could have decided to not risk going ahead with completion and lost £100 for changing removal dates then waited to rebook when I knew exchange took place,  but we lost much much more due to us exchanging and completing on the same day. 

Has anyone experienced this or have any advice on what I can do to try claim some of this money back? Or if we would even have a claim? 

This didn’t just affect me but others in the chain too. 

Thank you. 

Green_hopeful

Things like this happen a lot. I would just try to put it behind you and enjoy your new home. Lots of people will have stories about moving disasters. We moved once and the completion was delayed. We sat in the garden of the new house waiting for completion and realised the drains were all full to overflowing with sewage. The seller had obviously chucked loads of babies nappies down the sewer as she left. We had to get the drain clearance people out after 5. 

DullGreyGuy

Collieco said:

Looking for some advice… we recently completed on a house sale. We were in a chain and although everything seemed to move quickly and efficiently, I feel like we were severely let down in the run up to and on completion day. This resulted in us completing very late in the day and having an extortionate bill from the home removal company.

We were ready to agree completion dates for a couple of weeks, but our solicitors were struggling to contact those at the bottom of the chain. When we all agreed a date, it seemed to take an uncomfortable amount of time to exchange contracts with our agreed completion date nearing. It was a Friday and I was told exchange was going to take place. I heard nothing else and the home removal company were booked for the Monday as that was our agreed completion date. Monday came, I email first thing to check exchange had taken place to then find out we had not managed to exchange and this was because they were waiting to receive a document. But they had now received what was required and were trying to contact everyone to confirm exchange. 

Of course I was panicking, home removal company were already hard at work. But they confirmed completion was going to happen that day. Thankfully it did… but not until 4:30pm! This meant our home removal company charged us for 12 hours as that’s how long they were with us. 

Our solicitors told me that they had a nightmare chasing further down the chain all day. We are a substantial amount of money out of pocket due to no fault of our own. I contacted our solicitor for advice on how I could go about claiming some of this loss back and from who, however they informed me that there technically was no breach in contract because we hadn’t exchanged until much later that day of completion! 

With that being said, I somewhat feel now that responsibly lies with our solicitor. Had they got in touch with me Friday to inform me they hadn’t exchanged, I could have decided to not risk going ahead with completion and lost £100 for changing removal dates then waited to rebook when I knew exchange took place,  but we lost much much more due to us exchanging and completing on the same day. 

Has anyone experienced this or have any advice on what I can do to try claim some of this money back? Or if we would even have a claim? 

This didn’t just affect me but others in the chain too. 

Based on threads here it seems to be becoming a trend again to have exchange and completion stupidly close together. 

Ultimately your contract stated you'd complete on "Monday" and you did compete on "Monday" so there is no breach and no monies due. Solicitors dont work at the weekend for all intents and purposes so exchange Friday and complete Monday basically makes it next day which means if you miss them before they close your then potentially completing/exchanging simultaneously. 

You want weeks between exchange and completion to deal with everything in good order. Ultimately however things are driven by whoever has the biggest balls and if that person in the chain says it has to be same/next day few are willing to break the chain rather than agreeing to it. 

Ultimately you agreed to the high risk schedule and it didnt pay off. The cost of 12 hours waiting is going to be tiny compared to the total amount of money you actually spent on Monday so move on and settle into the new home

FlorayG

DullGreyGuy is right, it's the gap between exchange and completion that caused the problem; having said that, if it's your first move then you probably haven't a clue about how this causes problems, I have a friend who didn't realise and agreed to exchange and complete on the same day and her buyer pulled out on that morning, leaving her with a packed up house and nowhere to go
She also had to pay the removals company their full fee and them book them again later when the chain got completed again

saajan_12

Unfortunately this arose because you booked removals before exchange - usually you have a 2-3 week gap so you can book removals after completion. With that choice to book prospectively, while you preserve your original completion date and avoid a further x week delay, you do take this risk if it didn't happen quite as planned. 

Collieco said:

With that being said, I somewhat feel now that responsibly lies with our solicitor. Had they got in touch with me Friday to inform me they hadn’t exchanged, I could have decided to not risk going ahead with completion and lost £100 for changing removal dates then waited to rebook when I knew exchange took place,  but we lost much much more due to us exchanging and completing on the same day. 

Well if exchange happens, you'd know immediately. If you didn't hear back on Friday, that was the cue to cancel / change the removals.