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Solicitor didn't pay our H2B bonus on completion - is this all legit?

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YogiTeaClassic
YogiTeaClassic Posts: 3 Newbie
in House buying, renting & selling
Hello everyone!
My partner and I bought our first home two months ago. We both had a Help to Buy ISA, and notified our solicitor in good time to say we wanted to claim the bonus. They quoted a 2x £50 fee to process the two accounts.

We closed the accounts, sent our closing statements to the solicitors, and paid the invoice for the solicitor's fees - what I didn't notice at the time was that they hadn't charged for the H2B ISA processing...

In the chaos of moving I only realised last week that we hadn't received the bonus!

I emailed the solicitor and they found that the bonus was "approved and available for transfer". What they are proposing is to send the bonus directly to our current account (not our mortgage), minus 2x £60 charges for processing (which I assume covers £50+VAT).

I feel slightly confused about the situation and just hope someone can offer an objective view on the situation. In my mind...
  • It's strange that they can pay us the bonus directly, since I thought it had to be added to the deposit on completion - right?
  • It's odd that it's been two months without communication, and suddenly when I query it, they discover the missing bonus.
  • Trying my luck, perhaps, but is it reasonable to ask for the fees to be waived given the delay and inconvenience? It appears they've already done the work to process it, and if I hadn't queried it, I wouldn't have an extra fee to pay (although my bonus would have disappeared into their accounts). Or is this sort of thing normal for Help to Buy?

Just something about it all sounds a bit off to me. Thanks!

Comments

  • rtho782
    rtho782 Posts: 1,189 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post
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    They can pay you directly. In theory you usually hand over the 10% deposit at exchange, not completion, so had this happened and you had planned a 90% mortgage, there would have been nowhere else to send the money other than back to you when it paid out on completion.

    It sounds like something that just got missed.

    You could try asking not to pay the fee, but I don't think you will get far.
  • YogiTeaClassic
    YogiTeaClassic Posts: 3 Newbie
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    Thanks for clearing that up - makes perfect sense when you put it that way.

    Luckily they've agreed to waive the fee as a goodwill measure so I'm quite happy with how it's all turned out.
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