Q:Hello
My partner and I are moving from London and buying a flat in Bristol, which has a share in the freehold.
We have our mortgage offer, have supplied all information required of us to our solicitors, and have explicitly stated many times that we need to complete by the end of next week (my partner starts her new job there on 1st August).
We are still awaiting a copy of the sellers' current Share certificate for proof of freehold ownership. They maintain they sent it to their solicitors weeks ago but neither our solicitors nor the estate agents have managed to have any contact with their solicitors since middle of june. This is obviously a bad sign.
We can see two possibilities – 1) the sellers did send the certificate but the solicitors have misplaced it, or 2) the solicitors have the certificate but have been instructed by the sellers not to act until they are ready with their new purchase.
What would you suggest? Should we consider pulling out, perhaps to call their bluff (if there is indeed a bluff to be called)?
I didn't say it wasn't odd that it was taking time, I said that you can't expect things to run to your own timescale because you can't directly control what happens. Unfortunately, I've been there enough times to know. I also advised you to contact your vendor directly to see if they could enlighten you. Things are often clearer with direct communication.
Is your vendor in a chain?
no, haven't exchanged yet. We have rightfully been advised by the solicitors not to exchange until we have the share certificate.
The vendor is in a chain, yes. They are supposedly a few weeks off their completion.
No. I'm afraid this is typical of the level of service offered by solicitors. They are SLOW SLOW SLOW. No other profession or business these days would get away with the snails pace that they move at. They still operate on a 19th century timescale.
I agree that you should contact the vendor. They may be prepared to go round to their solicitors office and hurry things along, or even sack the solicitor and use someone else.
Is your vendor in a chain?
Don't ever threaten to pull out without meaning it. You look exactly like the cry wolf that you are when things don't go your way. Solicitors, EAs and the likes of me see it all the time and my simple reaction with people is to say 'go on then' because it is (I'm sorry) petulant behaviour and it just makes communication harder for everyone.
It's impossible to set your own timeframes on house purchase; you are almost alway disappointed. You can't explicitly state anything unfortunately. It's the solicitors that have to pull information in from many outside agencies and it's always slower when you buy a leasehold property. So, it's hard to even blame a solicitor in most cases. I don't know what to suggest except to be prepared that you will not move in on the day you need to :confused:
It's not a case of crying wolf – we are seriously considering pulling out. And we think that if we raise this point, I would not be surprised if suddenly things started moving again. Who knows, maybe even the share certificate might turn up.
Don't you think its more than a little odd that we have heard nothing from their solicitors for over a month? This is despite several letters and unreturned phone calls from our solicitors and the estate agents. They may as well have disappeared off the face of the planet.
More than anything else, we just need to know what is being done, so that at least we can plan what to do next. It's this state of incommunicado that worries us.
Don't ever threaten to pull out without meaning it. You look exactly like the cry wolf that you are when things don't go your way. Solicitors, EAs and the likes of me see it all the time and my simple reaction with people is to say 'go on then' because it is (I'm sorry) petulant behaviour and it just makes communication harder for everyone.
It's impossible to set your own timeframes on house purchase; you are almost alway disappointed. You can't explicitly state anything unfortunately. It's the solicitors that have to pull information in from many outside agencies and it's always slower when you buy a leasehold property. So, it's hard to even blame a solicitor in most cases. I don't know what to suggest except to be prepared that you will not move in on the day you need to :confused: