• Delayed Completion On Purchase

    By Guest on 04th Aug 2014

    Our completion date for sale and purchase of a house was supposed to be last Friday 1 Aug. The sale went through ok and we handed in the keys to the estate agent at 1.30 pm, but the purchase completion never happened because there was a delay in transferring funds to vendor's solicitors bank on Fri PM. Thus, we were rendered homeless for the w/end. Our solicitor says it was because their bank had a query on the source of funds and they did not make this known until too late in the afternoon to complete on Friday. I suspect that our solicitor was a bit lax in following up with the bank in a timely fashion to expedite completion. Either way, it is us who have been made homeless and incurred extra expenses through the delay of purchase and inconvenience as well. While our solicitor has said forward receipts from expenses incurred, I do not believe their service has been at the level expected both now and at earlier points in the conveyancing process and feel let down. Who is likely to be liable in this case and what is my best course of action, as I still await news on Monday morning of completion?
    Thanks for your suggestions.

  • 1 Answers

    By Guest on 21/09/2014

    Once the funds are placed in the banking system by your solicitors there is nothing further that can be done by them to control how quickly they reach their destination. If the bank held on to the money while carrying out checks it is unlikely they would have told the solicitors anything - if they suspect money laundering the law prevents them from disclosing those suspicions to anyone other than the appropriate authorities (such as SOCA). The best you can do is to check that the solicitors did put the funds in the banking system promptly after receipt. If so then they are probably not liable. As for the bank, they may compensate as a gesture of goodwill but since a CHAPS transfer is only guaranteed to arrive by close of business they are not strictly liable either.

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