Aghh Solicitors 😡

[MoirasRoses]

This is purely a rant. Just need to vent.

The solicitor of our vendor is absolutely shit. Whole chain is ready to exchange bar our enquiries. So asked the vendors to give him a nudge yesterday. Today found out that our solicitor sent him the enquiries in mid September & he’s only just looked at them after they chased him yesterday. Two enquiries have had to go to local council who he has contacted today. FFS. WHY?! He’s had months. Councils are so bloody slow at the mo there’s a chance this could delay things be weeks. The whole chain was expecting to move next week & are living out of boxes. I’m so pissed off with him.

Other than being furious, there’s not a lot else I can do is there Genuinely concerned our buyer is going to give us an ultimatum at this point..

Is there no indemnity insurance to cover what needs to go to the council?

It’s enquiries to do with a section 38 agreement & copy of a Building Regulation Completion Certificate.. there’s been no mention of indemnity insurance. I have swiftly gone back to our solicitor who I’m also annoyed at for seemingly not doing much about getting these enquiries back since September. She rarely replies though 😒 it’s like pulling teeth. I’m not sure how else to express to her that our buyers will walk if they can’t move in November. I suppose they don’t care, they still get paid.

Our solicitor is really lovely. However, our buyer's solicitor is an arrogant fuck who is never available and sends the most arrogant emails I've ever seen. I actually hate our buyers and wish we had never got involved with them. If our experience of them has been any indication of what kind of neighbours they're going to be, then I feel very sorry for our lovely neighbours.

House buying / selling is fun isn't it. We found a decent conveyancer and solicitor some years ago and give him repeat business despite paying through the nose but we have had our share of complete arseholes along the way.
You're right though, nothing you can do but sit back and wait. You might be surprised how fast the council reponds, it's been known to happen!

Any chance you can move into rented, to save the chain breaking?

We had to last year, and although it was a pain, it kept our buyers and the chain further down happy.

Can you contact the council yourself?

I feel your pain. The house we are selling is all good to go and our buyers are ready, as are the people at the top of the chain. The issue is the vendors solicitors who are absolutely dreadful. It took them at least 10 weeks for them to issue the draft contracts, some information is missing and we were only able to instruct the searches two weeks ago. It’s so so frustrating. Top of the chain want to complete by the end of November which is not going to happen but could have been a realistic possibility if they had pulled their fingers out. 😡

A copy of a Building Regulation Completion Certificate.

The entry in the local search which shows the certificate is in existence, is sufficient. The actual certificate pretty meaningless.

The section 38 enquires probably more pressing - do phone the council in question to gee them along. Presumably you’re selling a recently built home.

I phoned the council today. We are buying a 4 year old house. They’ve checked & confirmed the road is adopted & maintained by the council. The guy on the phone seemed unsure where we’d get a copy of the section 38 agreement. He gave me an email address to try & the vendors have found a front sheet of the agreement but not the whole document. 😩 I’m at least content knowing it won’t throw any major issues, we may now just have to wait. I’ve passed it all onto our solicitor.

I’ve just had a read of our local searches. S38 is stated as ‘agreement between xxx & the council with svenska handelbanken with bond in the sum of xxx - agreed on 21/06/2016. Strikes me that this confirms there is one. But guessing it’s due diligence to see the whole document perhaps?

And the certificate section of the local searches says ‘provisional certificate of completion - 38 agreement with bond reduced to xxx’. Fair enough they need to see the actual certificate I suppose in this case. Just irritating it wasn’t requested weeks ago.

Thanks for the support all 😊 I’m never moving house again 😂

Your solicitor should accept that. Often in the transfer (TP1) there’s an obligation in there that the developer maintains the roads until such time as they are adopted, which again, deals with the s.38 enquiry.

I’m confused. Why do they need the s.38 if your road is adopted? The s.38 and bond are there in case the developer doesn’t get it done.

My solicitor is lovely but so busy at the moment she's really stressed.

Anyway we have a similar issue with our buyers, small chain, all ready to go and then something they have t done will delay it a month. I'm bloody fuming, vendors I'm moving to are upset etc. Nothing we can do but I feel your pain!

I don’t really know re-s38. I think it’s because the local search said the road was unadopted. But my call to the council confirmed that was in fact adopted & maintained by the council. I’m tempted to ask the council to send me written confirmation & hope that satisfies the solicitor! I feel like she’s potentially overlooking the fact the local search confirms the agreement as well but I’m not a solicitor & I like to think she’s acting in our best interests.

Your local search will say if the road is adopted.

Ok. So your solicitor is doing as they should and asking for the s.38 as the search says the road is unadopted.

She’ll need to check the plan on the s.38 covers your street and links it to the road that is definitely adopted.

Similarly frustrated here with our vendor's Solicitor. Enquiries submitted on 22 sept still unanswered. Responses twice sent back to us with missing info or enclosures omitted. It's absolutely driving me crackers.