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Deposits via solicitors

nettie1xoxo
nettie1xoxo Posts: 538 Forumite
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in House buying, renting & selling
Once we have an offer on a house accepted, having secured a buyer for our house, is it acceptable to agree a small deposit is held by each solicitor/conveyancer to cover some of the cost if either back out and to act as a deterent??

Comments

  • ThePants999
    ThePants999 Posts: 1,748 Forumite
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    It's not entirely unheard of, but it's very much out of the ordinary. Partly due to the difficulty in determining what's fair in terms of whether the buyer gets their deposit back if the transaction falls through for X, Y, Z reasons.
  • Bossypants
    Bossypants Posts: 1,273 Forumite
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    It's technically possible, but a load of unusual administrative hassle which you would all have to pay your solicitors to do, the actual terms of it would probably take as long to agree on, have drafted and signed as the actual transaction, and the fact of you even asking would likely put a lot of people off because it seems like you are being difficult already before you all get started (even though it's actually not an unreasonable idea, just the fact of you wanting something out of the ordinary in an already stressful and time-consuming situation).

    Also what ThePants999 said. So basically yes, you could request this, but I don't think you'd find the benefit outweighs the cost (financial and otherwise).
  • nettie1xoxo
    nettie1xoxo Posts: 538 Forumite
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    Thank you both for your useful and sensible responses.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
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    Deterrent against what precisely? You might be the ones to pull out.
  • Slithery
    Slithery Posts: 6,046 Forumite
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    edited 14 January 2019 at 1:09AM
    Yes.

    What you're describing is called exchanging contracts and it happens as part of every house purchase in the UK.
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 16,405 Forumite
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    nettie1xoxo wrote: »
    Once we have an offer on a house accepted, having secured a buyer for our house, is it acceptable to agree a small deposit is held by each solicitor/conveyancer to cover some of the cost if either back out and to act as a deterent??

    What you describe is called a 'pre-contract deposit'.

    You can google 'pre-contract deposit' for more info.

    But they're hardly ever used because of the problems that other posters mention.

    The buyer and seller can waste weeks 'arguing' about the terms of a pre-contract deposit, and paying the associated solicitors fees.

    It's often quicker, simpler and cheaper to just to get on with the purchase instead.
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