• Amending A Contract Of Sale After Exchange

    By Guest on 11th Sep 2020

    Everyone in our chain has suceessfully exchanged. However, there is a discepancy in our buyer's financials, meaning that their mortgage is for 535k instead of the agreed 533k. As exchange has happened, are we able to amend the contracts to reflect the higher price before the completion date? Our solicitor is concerned about fraud, although the buyer claims it is not entirely unusual and is all above board.

  • 1 Answers

    By NotaryExpress on 12/09/2020

    Amending the contract by agreement between all parties should be fine, because you are then purchasing at the price stated in the mortgage offer - you must of course pay the full £535,000 on completion and also pay any additional SDLT on said amount. What you could not do (because it would be a breach of the mortgage offer) would be to complete at £533,000 using a mortgage offered based on a purchase at £535,000.

    Ideally the discrepancy should have been reported to the lender prior to exchange to ensure that any revised offer was issued in time before completion. You could still report it now but you run the risk of the new offer not being issued or not arriving on time. Assuming your solicitor acts for the lender as well, they are in fact obliged to report the discrepancy to their lender client. As much as I hate encouraging claims, I suspect your solicitor or mortgage adviser may be liable for negligence due to their human error in not spotting the discrepancy.

    www.notaryexpress.co.uk

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