Retention held on house sale

[IrritaGirl]

Hoping someone can help:-
We sold our house around this time last year and had agreed to a £100 retention - the street has a management company, 'managed' by the residents, for communal areas.
We were up to date, in fact had paid slightly more, on our property's accounts, however, agreed to the retention to speed up the sale.
One year on, however, and we're still waiting to get the money back.
The solicitor who acted on our purchase has been useless: exceptionally poor at communicating with us, sent a somewhat rude email when I complained about the length of time it was taking (apparently it is 'inconvenient' for him to have to chase what he considers to be an insignificant amount of money - paraphrasing here), completely lacking in initiative. The latest is that our purchasers' solicitor is apparently not satisfied with the accounts. I'm still waiting for clarification from our solicitor on what it is exactly that they are looking for - I suspect I'll be waiting for a response in six months' still...
Anyway, sorry, I'm on a rant!

Is there a time limit to how long they can retain the money? Or is there anything we can do to bring the matter to a close?
Thanks in advance.

I would ask your solicitor to send you a copy of the accounts so that you can have a look at them, and for him to advise you of the reason the purchasers solicitor is unhappy with the accounts - give him a timescale to revert to you. Then contact the management company yourself to discuss the accounts - you should have an idea from past accounts if there is anything unusual or irregular in them.
If you still get nowhere and still feel your solicitor is not dealing with the matter properly, contact the senior partner and ask them to intervene. The last thing they want is to spend hours dealing a complaint about what is at the end of the day a small sum of money.
However, it is your money, some or all of which may be due back to you!

I would have thought that within 2 or 3 calls or emails to your solicitor you will quickly have racked up more than £100 in legal fees. To avoid that you need to either act in person to pursue the £100, or write it off.

Your solicitor should have agreed a long stop date by which the money should be released. Complain if he hasn't. Twelve months is more than enough time to resolve this.