House moving problems

[Lenovo]

I was supposed to move house at the end of this week, however my solicitor just called and said my buyer's buyer had failed to submit their loan papers in time for the Scottish Government's help to buy scheme so have missed the current slot. She said the move will now be in about three weeks time. I asked her for the root cause of this and she said back in the start of October our buyer's buyer's solicitor would have known she had missed the slot but failed to tell anyone up the chain.

I'm currently sitting in a partially packed house, I've booked a moving van and time off work (including today). I've cancelled my broadband and started a new contract at my new address. I've done similar things with the rest of my house hold bills and accounts.

Do I have any recourse, my solicitor has said I don't as I don't have any contract with the buyer's buyer's solicitor, however their negligence will result in me being out of pocket.

Edited by Lenovo on Monday 26th October 15:08

[TheDrownedApe]

Nope, and yes it sucks.

I've only moved 3 times (with conveyancers) and they have mucked up 3 times (different ones). Added to that the amount of "my solicitor (conveyancer) missed blah blah" and I'm beginning to think there is a reason they never made it higher up the legal food chain.

On the 3rd move i didn't cancel/change anything until completion day as i had been bitten similarly to you.

[anonymous-user]

1. The subject of liability for negligently caused economic loss is complex.
2. Scots law is not always the same as English law.
3. Change solicitor (from conveyancer to litigator) and/or obtain an opinion from an Advocate in Edinburgh.


IAAL but IANASL

[Lenovo]

A further development with this, I had asked my solicitor on a couple occasions whilst we were waiting to confirm that the buyer's buyer definitely did have a mortgage and we were just waiting on the paperwork. She said yes they had a mortgage, I asked if the buyer's buyer's solicitor could be lying and was told they couldn't lie about something like this.

Well yesterday I found out they were in fact lying and my buyer's buyer doesn't actually have a mortgage only a decision in principle. I'm not looking for anything like damages from this, I'm just curious that a solicitor has lied to another one about quite an important point that is affecting everyone in this chain of five properties. Have they broken or breached any laws by doing this? Or is it just unprofessional practice from the first solicitor in the chain? I'm not sure about the rest of the chain but I know myself and my seller are about £400 each out of pocket from storage and removal firm cancellation charges due to this lie.

[RichardDastardly]

Assuming that on the facts you can’t prove that the conveyancer intentionally deceived (rather than making a ‘mistake’), from the info available it doesn’t sound like you have any legal recourse at all. I wouldn’t waste money on consulting a litigator for the amounts involved.

That doesn’t mean you can’t make plenty of noise, gamble your buyer is not actually having second thoughts (which might lead to them responding by pulling out) and try it on by asking your buyer for an increase in purchase price to cover your extra costs caused by the delay.

[Defcon5]

I’m fairly sure my conveyancer is now a missing person, it’s that long since I spoke to her.

[stitched]

The only time a house purchase went completely perfectly my legal firm turned out to be unqualified chancers who couldn't afford a complaint.
I would actually use them again, they were great.

[Lenovo]

Although I’d love my costs reimbursed, I doubt it would be worth the fight to get them. I’m mostly interested in the fact it appears they deliberately mislead the solicitors further up the chain. Especially after mine told me they couldn’t lie about this. I think I’m going to wait until the final outcome either way. Then ask my solicitor for a full breakdown of what happened. It’s hard enough getting hold of her right now for the ‘normal’ moving stuff hence why I’ll wait till the end.

I totally agree about the concluding missives. I was always pushing for this but the solicitor at the bottom kept saying, we’re just waiting on the loans papers it will be fine.

Edited by Lenovo on Thursday 12th November 21:38

[sospan]

We sold and moved 3 years ago. During the sale the buyer’s solicitor asked for an electrical certificate for work done. We had not done any on the dates queried. It was an error by our Buildings Regs department putting the wrong address into their database. Easily sorted and corrected.( I did the leg work to sort it and copied our solicitor in, to save fees). An annoying glitch.
The buyer of our house initially ( via the estate agent) claimed cash purchase but towards the end this changed to waiting for a mortgage! Luckily no delays but it did get us worrying about the deal falling through. We were not in a chain just moving to an inherited property. It is the chain effect that always makes me wonder about the process. I believe the Scottish system has “better” rules re commitment to offers/purchasing.
My daughter works in the Land Registry. She has many stories about less than perfect dealings with solicitors! Usually poorly filled in paperwork or mystifying late presentation with cheeky requests to prioritise due to looming deadlines.

[TVR1]

fesuvious said:

Never arrange a completion date until you are ready to exchange contracts.

Say upfront minimum of 14 days between the two.

If anybody tries to discuss completion dates tell them to shut-up unless ready to exchange.

Make exchanging contracts the sole target.

Then, on exchange with two weeks to completion sort yourselves out, get ready, prepare and have a nice move.

Completion dates being arranged before parties are able to plan to exchange is bonkers.

OP, you have no comeback because your completion date was nothing but a guess. A finger in the air.

Not your fault, not the fault of 80,000 others every month who suffer this idiocy. They know no better and presume the 'professionals' will look after them.

Hang on? For a moment I thought you’d made a mistake with your first sentence?

I thought you’d got it back to front?

You don’t make a completion date before exchange, you idiot!

But then, I re-read it...


Is this the thing, nowadays?

I’m assuming exchange and completion on the same day?

fk me, that was only the remit of cash purchasers/investors/flippers on no chain properties. (Ive done many things, years ago)

Property law hasn’t changed. Until exchange, it’s but an ‘yeah no problem’ pub chat.

Is this how it’s done now?

Sudden death?

OP has a problem. Unless something has changed in Law or OP is in Scotland, he’s no recourse.

Unless exchanged,
he can rely on nothing.

Thank Henry VIII

[donkmeister]

Damn, after getting gazumped on a house (in England) I had no end of people telling me that Scotland was the gold standard for buying and selling houses without getting mucked about. This gold standard being due to potential buyers submitting sealed tenders to a deadline, with legally-binding offers and stiff penalties for any dicking about once an offer is accepted.

Obviously that's not how it's done now, but was it ever like that or is it an urban legend?

[donkmeister]

fesuvious said:

Completion dates frequently flung around like confetti at a wedding.

I've often thought it might help if they changed the terms to something more descriptive. "Exchange" should be "legally obligated to hand over the money or you get a red hot poker in the hogseye" and "Complete" should be called "get your crap out of the old house and into the new house day".

I don't know if this is typical but the solicitor I've always used writes some pretty onerous terms into the contract... Obviously only binding after the contract is effective but it helped me on a purchase where my buyer "forgot" to get a mortgage (!!!) and I had already moved into the new house a few days before completion (what a good idea!) with the permission of the sellers. My buyer ended up in a position where a bridging loan was cheaper than pulling out, so we had it sorted about 5 minutes before I was going to start ringing removal companies.

[BertBert]

I exchanged and completed in one day on a sale recently (England). It was ok for me as it was a property where my mother used to live and had to be cleared whatever happened. But I wouldn't have agreed to it otherwise.
Bert

[Neddy Sea Goon]

Back in 2005, exchanged, completed and moved all in one day.

We were top of the chain into a vacant possession .

The removal men were laughing at us as they loaded up in the morning, then their boss rang me and told me not to worry, as he'd arranged storage for us, and they were happy to revisit at no extra cost if we paid for the storage.

However, all in done, removals men all unloaded and done by one o'clock

Not sure I'd do that again though

[Sheepshanks]

donkmeister said:

.... and I had already moved into the new house a few days before completion (what a good idea!) with the permission of the sellers.

On the face of it, that's completely mental on the part of the sellers.

Mind you, I recall one of the house related TV programmes had a woman who had builders in doing work before completion. She was compeltey unconcerned and it went through fine.

[dxg]

The implication is that the OP's in Scotland, so exchange (signing the misssives) will have been done ages ago...