Who to complain to/raise further?

[Itsadoglife]

One of my husband‘s friends has recently divorced his wife, their financial settlement was agreed and as part of that he was to receive a lump sum (a figure in excess of £50k). The transfer of equity went through last Friday, and emails were sent from wife’s lawyer saying the matter had completed (he is unrepresented).

He had given account details for the money to go into of an ISA account - the money has not turned up, now a week late. He went to the bank and they said the max amount you can put in an ISA is £20k so it has probably “bounced back” but the bank were surprised and said they would have expected it to go in, but to flag that it was too much, but they can’t see that having happened. The bank are also saying wife’s solicitors should know not to send that much money to an ISA (it did very clearly say it was an ISA on the info he provided).

Wife‘s solicitors are saying “it left our account last Friday” and are not being very helpful at all.

Who can he complain to? I wasn’t sure the SRA would be interested as he is not their client - but they are not being helpful at all. They need to call their bank etc and find out where this money is floating around in the ether?

Id be having kittens with that much money unaccounted for 😬

I have helped him phrase some emails but I think he needs to escalate it now as the terms of his consent order are now “ticking” and he cant implement them as he doesn’t have the money??

Any ideas?

Ok, I’m a solicitor and have seen this happen several times. The money is likely in a suspense account because it couldn’t go into the isa. You man should really have checked the account could accept the funds before handing it over, it isn’t the solicitors job to do that, especially as they aren’t his solicitor ( I usually ask, but I’m a control freak). He needs to ask his bank to do a trace and the firm to do the same- he will need to see the transfer instructions submitted to the firms bank to do that.

If reassuring at all these things usually pop out of the system within 10-30 days, but I appreciate it’s a worry.

@Keepingthingsinteresting Thank you 🙏🏻

@KeepingthingsinterestingI’m not sure the bank can do a trace as they have no record of it at all?

They will say that, but if given the transfer details used by the senders bank they can start a trace from their end. The real problem is neither side want to out in the effort to sort it out - unpalatable but the truth.