Solicitor refusing to exchange contracts before completion - advice please.

[Skinidin]

I am helping my son and his partner buy a house in Leytonstone.

His solicitors, who is part of the Countrywide group, is dragging her feet over exchange. She repeats like a mantra that everything might still go wrong.

All the searches are back, all questions answered, mortgage arranged, the deposit ( from my sale of London house) is sitting at my solicitors yet she still refuses to move.
We are finding this inexplicable and really worrying. My solicitor cannot understand it either.

Has anyone else encountered this situation? Or exchanged and completed all in one day?

I would really appreciate your input.

We have exchanged and completed on the same day for our last two purchases. It can be done but its bloody stressful!

Simultaneous exchange and completion is very common, so don't worry.
Is there a chain involved?

I used to work as a property solicitor, and I have to say that Countrywide are notorious for being a bit crap, tbh.

There is no chain as far as my son is concerned. He is buying an empty property.

I am at the top of a chain that has exchanged. I don't live in the house that I'm selling so I personally am fitting in with the others.

I had to exchange because the people in the middle were threatening to pull out.

I still don't understand why exchange/ completion on the same day is better than exchanging before. The money from my sale may not come through until late in the day.

I can see the day being terribly stressful as he is hoping to move on the same day. He is living in my house right now and he will have to move out on the 5th.

There are a couple of things in your posts which would concern me.

You say that the deposit "from the sale of your house" is with your solicitor. He has to hold on to that until completion, but presumably, when your sale completes, you will be transferring a sum for your son to complete his sale? You also say that the money may not come through for your sale until late in the day.

From the point of view of the solicitor acting for your son, these would be my issues:

1. She does not hold a clear deposit on her own file. She would need to send this over when she exchanges - so unless she has the deposit funds in advacne, she can't exchange, simple as that.

1. When YOU complete YOUR sale, your son's solicitor will get her deposit funds. She will then be able to exchange. If everything else is ready, it sounds like this is the reason she needs to do a simultaneous exchange and completion.

1. Even if your son's sellers agreed to exchange with no deposit, (extremely unlikely), if something goes wrong with YOUR transaction, she would have exchanged with a legally binding obligation to complete on a set day, and be in trouble as she couldn't do it. The "something" that could go wrong, could be as simple as your chain not completing until too late in the day for her to have time to draw down your son's mortgage monies and send across completion funds to the seller. You said yourself the money might come through late...

Also, your son's mortgage interest will start to accrue on the day it is drawn down. IF completion fails to take place she will have to send it back, incurring bank fees as well as the interest... for which of course your son would be liable.

HSBC made us use Countrywide, they were dreadful. They only pulled their socks up when we nearly lost the sale through their incompetence & we had a massive fuss.

That is a helpful post pooka moo. I appreciate it.

It clarifies a few points. I will raise them with my solicitor.

Can't offer you any advice but I've heard from a few people that Countrywide are awful to deal with.

No problem, I hope it all goes smoothly on the day and your son loves his new home.

Your solicitor won't be able to send the deposit funds from your sale to your son's solicitor before completion, as your son's purchase is not part of the same chain, unfortunately. (Just in case you were going to ask them that!)

Sorry for all the typos, too!

Well, apparently they've exchanged.

NOW I'm worrying that the chain will complete too late!

Oh God, why is this business so complicated. They had to exchange really as thy have to get out on the day that I complete. It's all tied together
:(

We used country wide tied in with HSBC mortgage for our purchase. It took forever, our buyers threatened to pull out so in the end we exchanged with them and arranged to complete 2 weeks later not actually sure where we would be moving to.

As our purchase was empty we were able to rent it by the day having exchanged till the mortgage money came through - this took another 4 looong weeks and repeated hastling from my Dh.

Good luck op