House sale and purchse - when to hand over keys?

[TulipsInBloom1]

Probably a daft question!

I know I need to leave the house once funds have cleared from our buyers. Do I take the keys then, or do I wait for confirmation that my purchase has also gone through?

Ive been warned that some solicitors put the money on the market for 24 hours and delay the next step in the chain - please tell me this is nonsense!

I absoloutley do not want to find myself homeless for the night!

Btw usually professional movers pack the day before it takes a long time. Last time we were renting so moved ourselves, took 2 days!

But surely the removals firm will be on another job the day before? They wont be packing - we are doing that. They will load and unload.

Don't forget the removal guys do this every day so they should know how long it'll take to load the van. Often they'll load up then go off for a break/lunch before driving to the new house. You need to factor in time for cleaning after the furniture has gone though.

We dropped our full keys at the estate agent at 12.

The people we bought off of dropped a key at their agents the night before, useless as they hadn't actually got out of the house yet until a few hours past deadline.

I love that I'm the obnoxious one when it must be fairly obvious that I am a residential conveyancer. You are literally telling me you know more about my job than I do! You also obviously have no idea of the process going on behind the scenes. Most firms need final authority from at least one partner before they send large sums out of client account and rightly so. The rules around client account monies are ridiculously numerous and in depth. You are also at the mercy of the legal cashier who, whilst being extremely knowledgeable about all SRA guidelines and regulations, are usually a breed of their own.

@BeautifulPossibilities

Did your solicitor recommend you sue them?

It’s been a while since I did residential conveyancing but I can confirm that it takes time for money to move through CHAPS. First one in a chain used to complete around 10.30/11 and I’ve known us to be running round with hair on fire trying to get the last transaction through the system before 3pm (when it closed. This may have changed in the 10 years since I last worked in this area).
What does not help a chain is your trainee receiving cash in on CHAPS, not sending it back out the purchase, not releasing the keys from the sale and buggering off on her lunch break for an hour. I can confirm, having been said trainee, that your clients will be screaming at you, your training principal will be screaming at you, and your future will not lie in conveyancing.

When I last moved, the estate agents still had a set of keys from doing viewings, so I left all the others on the worktop, locked the front door with the last key and posted it through. We had to be out by 12noon. The van arrived at 8 if I remember rightly. When we got to the new house the van sat outside and we nipped into the pub opposite for some lunch. We were waiting until 3pm. In the end a neighbour had a spare key and let us in while dh was driving up to the estate agents. Luckily I was paying the drivers a set fee and not by the hour!!!

“Do the van team just sit and wait outside the new property til I then arrive with the keys? Gosh they could be hanging around for hours!”

This is what happened to us last time we moved. In fact the last two times we moved we were “homeless” for a couple of hours while waiting for the money to transfer across (granted it was 22 years and 15 years ago). In these days of EDI I don’t understand why there would be a delay.

“If you are a first time buyer 'legal completion' can take place at 10am. If you are 5th up the chain you can wait until 3pm”

That makes sense. We had to wait until 3pm last time we moved.

A friend of mine in the summer literally had to move in as the sellers were still moving out, as distance meant that the removal men would have had to stay overnight due to restrictions on working day if they had delayed further, pandemonium ensued 🤣

Op, good luck today. Your solicitor should explain completion timing for your current property and your new one to you. Just ask. Your removal company should be able to judge how long they need to pack.

As for will they be moving someone else thr day before, it depends what you've hired them for. It sounds doable in a morning though, but I'd guess a few hours. It always takes longer than you think.

Hmm. Our move is 230 miles. Our purchasers are non-resident investors, and our sellers are already out. The idea was that one of us leaves at 0700 to take possession, and the other one stays to help the movers. I thought it would be straightforward. Hmm, again.

Our buyers are ready and waiting to exchange. My sol is still waiting on our mortgage redemption! No idea when she ordered it or how long it takes to come.

Just to comment on the money in the market point.... I think this may come from the fact that client funds are sometimes put on money market overnight deposit as that earns better interest than staying in the 'standard' client account - I can't see any form wanting to hold filings an extra 24hs to do this as interest rates still aren't great and if the amount earned is more than a certain amount it has to go the client anyway.... (may have worked in legal accounts so been involved in the detail of these transactions - and yes woe to the trainee that goes to lunch without sending the paperwork down to send the funds back out!)

@tulipsinbloom it depends on your lender. I got a redemption statement from the Coventry in about an hour today. Pacific need to be done by post and take ages. Natwest with their new fangled online system say allow 5 days but it never takes that long. The also have a different process for urgent requests.

We completed shortly after 12 but the sellers didn't get out until 15.00. These things happen.

Normally removals come early around 8 am , load up and wait for the delivery time. EA has a set of keys to hand over to buyer, you lock door and post through letterbox as you leave. There may be time between one completion and the next, don't expect to be able to move in until after lunch.

Leave the timings to your removal firm! Provided you are using a professional outfit and not one my friend used a few years ago as she wanted to support a local business. They turned up the night before to start loading the van - took all the seating from downstairs until i 'innocently' said "isn't it funny that they aren't leaving you anything to sit on@ and a chair miraculously reappeared! They hadn't judged the size of van correctly and had to do it in 3 loads - friends were only moving about 5 miles away so got the first two done and (it was 4pm by then) they wanted to leave the rest of the stuff in the 'old' garage and pick it up the next morning as they were tired! They were told to go and get the third van - which they begrudgingly did, breaking a couple of garden ornaments in the process .

The interest earned on our money was deducted from our final solicitors bill. We had about two thirds cash, one third mortgage, and we transferred the cash to the solicitor well in advance, as we were overseas at the time (moving back) and could only transfer a certain amount a day, the solicitors escrow account earned interest and our final bill was sent through with total fees and then the interest earned deducted from those fees.

If we hold large amounts of money for anything over a week or two it goes on deposit account and the client gets the interest. I assumed they get the whole amount of the interest earned but haven't really looked into it. At one firm I worked at client account would have probably sat at 9 figures fairly regularly, sometimes more, especially on a Thursday.

Client account monies are totally ring fenced though. Ridiculously so. For example, if we have paid searches out of office account and then received monies into client account to settle the outstanding sum we only have a set number of days to transfer the money over. So the firm is out of pocket not the client but the rules still need to be strictly adhered to.

I think it's like this for all sums of money solicitors handle. I know when I inherited, the money the solicitors held was paid with interest that had accrued also during probate. So I'd guess this is normal practice. The money is held in an escrow account and any interest gained is always paid to the client.

Interest held in a general client account has to be paid to client if amount earned is over a specific amount (I think £50) though a lot of solicitors would pay it over regardless. If it's pit on a separate deposit in any way then every penny earned goes to the client it relates to.

OP - moving is super-stressing, whether you’re doing it for the first time or 500th 😱😱😱

Book professional removers. They know the drill and are usually way calmer and full of advice as they do this day in, day out.

We’ve moved quite a few times and there have often been delays on the day. One time, the ‘old’ owners of our ‘new’ house were still in house two hours after they should have been because they couldn’t find their cat.

Other time was solicitor had gone to lunch and hadn’t confirmed to Estate Agents that they could release the keys (worth bearing that in mind - it’s a MASSIVE day for us movers, but an everyday activity for professionals involved).

Question: we have finally got the purchase contract. Our solicitor requires we insure the building from exchange, not completion. First off, our insurance company wasn't over thrilled, and second, why are we bearing a risk that surely the current owners should be carrying?

I think you need to ask your solicitor that.