Solicitor Holding Money from Property Sale For 24 hours because they are closed on Completion Date

usejean

saajan_12 said:

No, the buyer is only obligated to get the money to "your side" ie your solicitor for completion to occur, making you obligated to hand over the keys on the same date. If you don't then the buyer could claim reasonable costs from you if they can't move in on the day, eg hotel, storage, etc. 

Usually, the steps are
- buyer (/buyer's solicitor) pays seller's solicitor
- seller's solicitor confirms to the seller that completion has occurred
- seller releases keys to the buyer or agent
- Later, seller's solicitor settles any other bills and transfers the net to seller

The question to your solicitor is how they plan to do the bit in bold if they are closed. 

Sorted now but not impressed with late communication!

usejean

Thanks all. Sorted now although not to my satisfaction as I had made arrangements to transfer funds to beneficiaries which I now have to change. Plus very late notice to be told they are not working on the day of completion! Well one person is but only to confirm the transaction, not send me the funds which they have no good reason to delay!

anselld

One day hardly counts as delay.  Have you paid extra for the funds to be sent via CHAPS.   If not they may not arrive same day anyway.  Even if CHAPS were used banks have a cut-off for same-day transfer approx 3pm depending on which bank.  So same day receipt of funds is optimistic at the best of times.

Albermarle

usejean said:

Thanks all. Sorted now although not to my satisfaction as I had made arrangements to transfer funds to beneficiaries which I now have to change. Plus very late notice to be told they are not working on the day of completion! Well one person is but only to confirm the transaction, not send me the funds which they have no good reason to delay!

Probably they need to be in the office to instruct the bank to send the money. Could be as simple as that.

saajan_12

usejean said:

Thanks all. Sorted now although not to my satisfaction as I had made arrangements to transfer funds to beneficiaries which I now have to change. Plus very late notice to be told they are not working on the day of completion! Well one person is but only to confirm the transaction, not send me the funds which they have no good reason to delay!

That was an ambitious plan even if they were fully open. The final calculations to tot up sale proceeds, mortgage redemptions, solicitor fees, agent fees, etc are often confirmed after completion and then money is sent to you. Unless they had explicitly confirmed this would be same day, the norm is its a couple of days later. 

MyRealNameToo

usejean said:

Due to complete tomorrow and just found out solicitor is closed tomorrow! They didn’t point this out when we agreed the completion date …..

Is my money protected in any way?

Can I delay handing over keys until money is received by me?

The money will be held in a client account; this is a particular type of bank account for those that hold money for others and not something they have just called a client account.  All records will show that the money isnt theirs and so in the unlikely event that they went insolvent over that day it'll be clear that the administrators cannot use the money in the client account to settle the businesses debts. 

You wouldnt be able to withhold the keys, paying your appointed legal representatives is the same as paying you unless contracts have explicitly stated that there will be a delay from payment to key hand over or such.