1 week from completion - ideminty policy question..pls help!

[winternights]

We are selling a house which belonged to a family member and is now empty.

The buyers solicitor discovered there was no completion certificate on a small downstairs toilet, I contacted the council, got a surveryor out, all work was fine and he issued me a certificate - great, this was a few weeks ago.

We are due to exchange contracts this week and the buyer's solicitor has now asked for us to pay for ideminity insurance. I am confused as we have the completion certificate and he is a cash buyer so doesn't need it for the mortgage.

My solicitor says really he should get his own but this could delay completion by a couple of weeks as it would be letters back and forth.

Should I just swallow the cost of the ideminity certificate for speed and ease of completion (the whole process has been very stressful) or challenge him on it.

Can anyone give me advice?

Thanks!

You def don't need indemnity with a completion certificate! That is the point of the indemnity to guarantee and uncertified change in a property is allowed to stand It says nothing about the condition of the work etc so a completion certificate which does it much better. Your buyers solicitor would know this!

That is what I thought and my solicitor agrees but it is £35 and if we challenge him it could delay things another week or so. Already things have been delayed and everything has been sooooo complicated I feel exhausted and just ready to swallow the cost - am going to speak to my solicitor again tomorrow about it......sigh

£35 worth of solicitor's time, perhaps?

Are you sure the indemnity policy they're requesting relates to the building works? If you have a building reg certificate to say the work has been approved, you don't need an insurance policy. Just check you're not confusing two issues - it may be that there is something else which might need an indemnity policy.

I just learned today that indemnity is needed if there is a church nearby as they can claim refurb costs from parish residents! so it could be all sorts.

If the freehold title has a tithe in it (related to church repairs or contributions too), the potential bill could be endless and yes any solicitor would advise their purchaser that the vendors would need an indemnity policy. Doesn't matter whether the buyer is cash or mortgage.

Indemnity policies can relate to all sorts. It can be a tithe, it can be property accessed via an ancient highway (looks like a normal street but hasn't been adapted by highways agency), it can be because part of the supporting or documents referred to in the title are missing and land registry cannot locate them now but at a later stage some one would turn up and exercise potential rights over your title.

You will have to fork out and get the policy. If your buyer was getting a mortgage the bank would not lend without it and you would be expected to pay.

Fwiw. These policies tend to be a small cost (less than £1000).

Do check if it is the Chancel liability (ie. tithing to a church) that the indemnity policy refers to. Our solicitor mentioned this regarding the house we're buying but on closer inspection our parish doesn't even fall under the category of those liable (super-sleuth DH wittering on about the Reformation when telling me about it - have to say I switched off at that point). Also IIRC none of this is applicable from 2013. It all seemed to be a bit of a scam by opportunistic insurance companies who have realised that one test case (where a property was liable and had to pay something like £500k out!) is enough to terrify a large number of house buyers to take out the insurance.

Also, our solicitor advised that taking out the insurance was completely optional and at no point was it tied in to our mortgage offer.

Is it really worth haggling over £35?????

OP here - it turns out it is about some other work that was carried out before our time - we have just swallowed the cost as it is not worth the bother - fingers crossed for completion by next week - thanks for all the answers and advice lovely MNeters.