The Ups and Downs ...mainly Downs..of selling a flat.

[HappyHacker]

I have met many dishonest people who did not wear suits. My current solicitor does not wear a suit and he is one of the better ones.

What? A better dishonest person?

Not one of my better attempts at English, I have only been learning for 69 years. Must try better

To clarify: he is one of the better honest and hard working solicitors. I get emails from him at 10:00 at night and he does not take most afternoons off

 

[RogerS]

Seeing where this thread has morphed to I guess I must be thankful that Jacob hasn't stumbled across it !

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Seeing where this thread has morphed to I guess I must be thankful that Jacob hasn't stumbled across it !

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise. If I delete my first post, will it get back to the topic in hand?

However, this was always going to be a critique of professionals, as they are the only way to transfer asset ownership - if it is complicated, inefficient and incompetent, you have to blame the people owning the system. How hard should it be? You own asset X, and want to sell it to the other chap for amount y. How many layers of protection, legislation and parasitic intersessions do you need in order to make the deal? What ever happened to caveat emptor? Everyone has an opinion about how to stop stupid people from doing stupid things, as if stupid people should be protected from their stupidity. This would be fine, except that all this "protection" just adds layers of bureaucracy, complication and fuss, and ensures the employment of lots of people, who may or may not assist in protecting you from yourself, but will certainly have quite high fees. Some of these defenders of the public may even wear suits, but that is an extraneous argument.

Getting back to your initial issue - exchange of contracts without all terms of the contracts being in place, someone has failed in their duty. Much to the suprise of anyone in a suit, it will be the asset owner, or the asset buyer, who pays for this failure. At no point will the professional overseeing and protecting the two parties be held accountable for the failure. And that is why the legal profession will always be held in contempt by anyone who has to take ownership of their actions on a day to day basis. The man who designs the aeroplane can't hide behind legislation and law if he builds a dangerous aeroplane. Interestingly, the corporate chiefs running the company can, and do. They are often lawyers.

You see? It's just devolved into a rant against lawyers specifically now. There must be a good one somewhere. What was Shakespeare's quote about lawyers again?

 

[Blackswanwood]

Seeing where this thread has morphed to I guess I must be thankful that Jacob hasn't stumbled across it !

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise. If I delete my first post, will it get back to the topic in hand?

However, this was always going to be a critique of professionals, as they are the only way to transfer asset ownership - if it is complicated, inefficient and incompetent, you have to blame the people owning the system. How hard should it be? You own asset X, and want to sell it to the other chap for amount y. How many layers of protection, legislation and parasitic intersessions do you need in order to make the deal? What ever happened to caveat emptor? Everyone has an opinion about how to stop stupid people from doing stupid things, as if stupid people should be protected from their stupidity. This would be fine, except that all this "protection" just adds layers of bureaucracy, complication and fuss, and ensures the employment of lots of people, who may or may not assist in protecting you from yourself, but will certainly have quite high fees. Some of these defenders of the public may even wear suits, but that is an extraneous argument.

Getting back to your initial issue - exchange of contracts without all terms of the contracts being in place, someone has failed in their duty. Much to the suprise of anyone in a suit, it will be the asset owner, or the asset buyer, who pays for this failure. At no point will the professional overseeing and protecting the two parties be held accountable for the failure. And that is why the legal profession will always be held in contempt by anyone who has to take ownership of their actions on a day to day basis. The man who designs the aeroplane can't hide behind legislation and law if he builds a dangerous aeroplane. Interestingly, the corporate chiefs running the company can, and do. They are often lawyers.

You see? It's just devolved into a rant against lawyers specifically now. There must be a good one somewhere. What was Shakespeare's quote about lawyers again?

I’d recommend the book S.U.M.O. by Paul McGee ... I’m off to cut some dovetails.

 

[SammyQ]

Austin Mitchell was right. Shame his bill did not get through. Would have simplified things and removed the solicitors altogether.

Sam

 

[Trainee neophyte]

[
I’d recommend the book S.U.M.O. by Paul McGee ... I’m off to cut some dovetails.

I see what you did there: well played. =D>

 

[Jake]

However, this was always going to be a critique of professionals, as they are the only way to transfer asset ownership - if it is complicated, inefficient and incompetent, you have to blame the people owning the system. How hard should it be? You own asset X, and want to sell it to the other chap for amount y. How many layers of protection, legislation and parasitic intersessions do you need in order to make the deal? What ever happened to caveat emptor? Everyone has an opinion about how to stop stupid people from doing stupid things, as if stupid people should be protected from their stupidity. This would be fine, except that all this "protection" just adds layers of bureaucracy, complication and fuss, and ensures the employment of lots of people, who may or may not assist in protecting you from yourself, but will certainly have quite high fees. Some of these defenders of the public may even wear suits, but that is an extraneous argument.

Nothing to stop you doing a property deal without conveyancers (most are not lawyers these days fyi). You'd have to be (a) a cash buyer and (b) exceptionally stupid. I don't know about your wealth position but you sound well up for it - give it a go.

Don't have any view on suits, but am grateful for my firm's dress-down policy.

Getting back to your initial issue - exchange of contracts without all terms of the contracts being in place, someone has failed in their duty. Much to the suprise of anyone in a suit, it will be the asset owner, or the asset buyer, who pays for this failure. At no point will the professional overseeing and protecting the two parties be held accountable for the failure.

My firm and many others have entire departments dedicated to defending claims against lawyers (and other departments dedicated to defending other besuited or non-besuited professionals). They are matched on the other side by numerous firms with specialists in suing them. However, given the solid basis in reality your post is grounded in, I do have to admit that they sit idle all day twiddling their thumbs.

 

[RogerS]

Wonders will never cease. Our solicitor actually has the deposit. :shock:

 

[marcros]

Any sign of completion?

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Nothing to stop you doing a property deal without conveyancers (most are not lawyers these days fyi). You'd have to be (a) a cash buyer and (b) exceptionally stupid. I don't know about your wealth position but you sound well up for it - give it a go.

Don't have any view on suits, but am grateful for my firm's dress-down policy.

...

My firm and many others have entire departments dedicated to defending claims against lawyers (and other departments dedicated to defending other besuited or non-besuited professionals). They are matched on the other side by numerous firms with specialists in suing them. However, given the solid basis in reality your post is grounded in, I do have to admit that they sit idle all day twiddling their thumbs.

Great news! The ambulance-chasing profession has taken to attacking itself! Who knew? I am obviously out of the loop - back in the day a gentleman's word was his bond, etc, and no one would dream of turning on a member of the same tribe. Now it's all about the money. You seem to have taken umbrage at my entirely unwarranted attack on the entire soliciting profession, which is perfectly reasonable. God knows all those solicitors are beavering away in desperate sweatshop conditions, grossly underpaid and vastly overworked, working purely to make the world a better place, one accident claim at a time.

In Greece, there are over a million court judgements made every year, which is impressive given that the population is around 11 million. Every single Greek goes to court once a decade, on average, including the children. Which is a suprise because it is a well know fact that your Greek legal representative is more than willing to sell his services to the other side, providing the fee is high enough. In other words, the best way to win in court in Greece is to pay your opponent's lawyer to lose. Always assume that the opposition will be trying to bribe your solicitor to do the same To be fair, I have never personally seen this in action, but it is a very well known and often discussed tactic when talking about court cases at parties (and everyone has one or two cases on the go, as they last for years.)

 

[RogerS]

Any sign of completion?

Third date set for next Wed 19th. If he messes up again then we pull the plug. He loses £80k and serve the b ugger right.

 

[RogerS]

Well here we are again. Nope ...nothing. After some serious sleuthing I now have details of all the properties he owns, who the lenders are, where he lives and even what he looks like ! Does it help ? Not really but fun to use the old sleuthing skills.

Delighted to hear that our buyer after receiving our Notice to Complete sent her own to him. These don't automatically cascade down...a question I wondered about but didn't..until now..know the answer to.

Just got an email explaining this from my solicitor ...19.45...and so anyone saying that ALL solicitors are lazy sods..take note !

So guillotine all primed and ready to go. Tuesday...last chance saloon.

 

[Richard_C]

I exchanged without deposit once, very special circumstances and it went OK. Happy to explain if anyone asks.

Hopefully yours will go through.

Had it not, the standard conditions of sale assume a 10% deposit even if no money had changed hands so unless the standard conditions have been varied (and surely no sane solicitor would do so for an ordinary domestic purchase) the loss for failing to complete is set at 10% - whether its been paid upfront, or 5% has been paid or whatever. Now that makes it a bit harder - extracting 10% rather than holding on to 10% you already have but that's what courts are for.

On top of the deposit you should get costs and if you reasonably assume that the sale has been set back by 12 weeks (you have to start again after all) costs might include interest you would have got on the money had you got it, or extra moving costs or ....

There was a really interesting and helpful case on a failure to complete when the market was falling - the buyer who failed to complete was held liable for the losses incurred after the event. Hooper and Hooper vs Oates, useful background reading and easy to find on google. One here:

https://www.pla.org.uk/2013/02/hooper-v-oates/

Of course this is of limited practical use if the failed buyer has no money, but unless they are first time buyers or in negative equity there will be something somewhere.

Have you looked up the buyer on companies house - you can search by director name - or on the Government insolvency service
- https://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/eiir/. Sometimes it reveals a lot of information.

 

[RogerS]

Thanks, Richard, for your suggestions.

We do have the 10%. The interest is working out at £44 a day...about £800 so far. And additional costs are also ratcheting up. They are also paying the maintenance charges on the flat. And Council Tax!

That looks an interesting link, thanks.

So far I have found four other properties that he owns. Mortgaged from different lenders. I am pretty confident that one of the reasons after the missed first completion date is his wife's illness. However that doesn't excuse him doing SFA in the three weeks between exchange and completion the first time when his wife was perfectly fine. I even have his photograph ! And I know where he lives. Not bad for a bit of sleuthing.

 

[RogerS]

......
So guillotine all primed and ready to go. Tuesday...last chance saloon.

Which is today. Groundhog Day. And it's not happening. That's four missed completion dates.

Ranking the legal professionals I'd say that:-
ours is pretty good TBH...no gripes there
our buyers conveyancing firm ...not quite as good as ours but, again, not bad.
BUT....
her buyers' solicitor is IMO grossly negligent and did not check availability of funds.

He is also incompetent because at 10am today he said

The mainstream lender is being chased to confirm that the mortgage advance may be released – hoping to hear back soon

But at 9.30 he was forwarded this email from the lender

However I mentioned yesterday over the phone that even though the case is escalated we wouldn’t be able to complete it today unfortunately.

At this stage I wouldn’t be able to advise the timescales either as the case is currently with underwriters for background checks.

Clearly he doesn’t/can’t read

So what are we doing ? We gave the ultimatum and so have to act on it. If we don't then this will drag on for ever. There is a halfway house though and I've instructed our solicitor to say that unless I receive from our buyers' buyer £10k cleared in my bank account by close of play today then we will rescind and he will lose £85k. If he does agree to do that then he has 20 working days to complete.

If he comes back trying to negotiate then the reply will simply be 'No' and that the amount of money required has gone up from £10k to £15k. I've watched how the Mob work.

 

[marcros]

I would keep the deposit and find another buyer. You have been beyond reasonable and followed all of the procedure.

 

[RogerS]

We cut to the chase and rescinded this morning. I just hope she also rescinds her contract.

 

[profchris]

Commiserations. My own buyer is still there (so far).

 

[RogerS]

Her solicitor has come back asking what our terms are to exchange again !
We've asked for a lump sum to cover our unexpected losses due to the completion delay (previously bounced back by her solicitor). Now agree by our buyer. And completion by Fri week. If he doesn't then we will rescind again and around we go.

Meanwhile her buyer has finally cottoned on that he's screwing things up but still, despite owning several Buy-to-Lets (I've uncovered at least four) does not understand how this process works as he was to quote our buyer "hotfooting it round to his solicitor to see if he will release to her enough funds to complete the purchase of our flat ! Not sure this is doable. Well, not easily.

 

[RogerS]

And just as quickly as we end on an upbeat......bang! Back to bloody square one.

His lender has pulled out. I told bloody Foxtons five months ago when this bloke started dicking about trying to get finance that the deal stank. "Oh no" they said...."everything is fine". Well - bloody Foxtons - perhaps if you did your due diligence five months ago when this guy first started effing about trying to get the money together then me and my sister would not have just lost £3000 in wasted maintenance charges on the unoccupied flat. And wasted legal fees.

Guess who's right at the top of my S**T list, Foxtons ?