Buyer reuquest after exchange

[Fred999]

We’ve exchanged contracts on our house sale and purchase today, with completion planned for Friday.

All of a sudden our buyers solicitor are now requesting an indemnity policy to cover lack of fensa cert. This seems a bit strange to me that this is coming up now - surely it should have been sorted before exchange?!

It’s not something we want to pay, so are we able to refuse this now? Surely they won’t drop out of a sale and lose their deposit over it.

Speak to your solicitor

If you've already exchanged you're under no obligation to respond to any enquiries any more.

Tell them no there's no obligation whatsoever to provide one now you've exchanged contracts.

Thanks, yes we will speak to the solicitor first thing tomorrow, but we only saw the request by email this evening so haven’t been able to contact them yet. I think we’ll just be refusing!

Ours only cost £20. Sounds like their solicitor forgot, though.
You can refuse, but if they kick back, consider whether you want to upset the apple cart for the sake of £20.

How can they "kick back?"

They've got no comeback. They'll have to suck it up. They're not going to walk away from thousands of pounds in exchange deposit for the sake of a FENSA cert, and if they do, well...

Exactly - presumably they could also stump up £20 for one if they thought it was that necessary.

Tell them you won't be paying for it as the contracts have already been exchanged. If they really feel like they need it they can just pay for it themselves.

Seems like their solicitor has messed up and trying to get you to cover the cost of their mistake

Look it up on Fensa website
It will be there if it was registered

What happened in the end, OP?

We ignored it, it was never mentioned again and we just completed!

Congrats!