Stupid question about solictor holding back funds to the house we are buying?

[flownthecoopkiwi]

We made an offer which was accepted. We had a survey done which found cracks and about £3.3k to fix. We asked for an electrical survey to be done - found work costing £1.2k needing to be done.
Our solicitor said the sellers have agreed to hold this money back from the purchase price, so while we pay the full whack she keeps it back and we use if for repairs.
If, for example, we used a different electrician and the cost was lower than that quoted, do we get the difference. I.E. is it our money really that we get back or does it only get used to fund the work as quoted by the people who quoted for it.

Told you it was a silly question.

Yes, we have been incredibly lucky.

Ask your solicitor? It sounds to me that holding the funds back is in order to ensure the money is spent on the electrical work, not just knocked off the purchase price. Therefore, if you don't have an invoice for that amount, the seller should get the difference as part of the purchase price.

from memory it was done this way rather than have to go back to the mortgage company with a reduced purchase price and redo the paper work.

it is nothing to do with the seller whether you actually do the work - that is your problem. The price should just be reduced. Of course they don't have to agree, in which case no sale.

never heard of this, and won't the mortgage company want to know the actual purchase price?

We agreed a hold back of funds when we sold our flat because the buyers were worried about a potential issue with the service charge. Once the time limit elapsed and the issue hadn't occurred the money was passed on to us.
So presumably the seller would receive any unused funds.

We are still paying the full purchase price, it's an alternative to us saying the electrics need work, please pay and get it done. We have to do the leg work after we move in and effectively use their money to get it done.

It's a probate sale so the executors (who are solicitors) don't want the bother I think.

I think you are right, it's our money that we retain so can spend accordingly. I only ask really as we got some electrics work done on our current house and the electrician was fab so would prefer for him to do the new house.

ok, now I'm confused.

I do need to speak to our solicitor. Don't want to bother them though so they can focus on us actually exchanging!!!

I hope your solicitor can cope with more than one thing to do at a time!