Conveyancer can't do Help to Buy ISA - help!

[houseargh]

Ok - so I'll start by saying I know we've been idiots not to check this in advance. We naively thought that Help to Buy ISAs were common enough / straightforward enough that all solicitors specialising in conveyancing would be able to deal with them but apparently not... Part way through the process of buying our first house and our solicitor has just announced that she can't do Help to Buy ISA. We have an account each and are entitled to several thousand pounds, which we're incorporated into our budget and really can't afford to do without.

So firstly - does anyone know if it's possible / has heard of someone engaging a solicitor just to do this one thing (ie. if we stick with our existing solicitor for the rest of the conveyancing job). She has kind of implied this could be possible but thinks we'd be unlikely to find anyone as there's a limit to how much they're allowed to charge for this so it's only worthwhile if rolled into a larger conveyancing job.

Alternatively - tell me your stories of switching solicitors part way through a sale and how it all worked out ok in the end....?!

Absolutely kicking ourselves because she otherwise seems hyper efficient and totally on top of everything, so in addition to costing us money and delaying the sale I know that switching solicitors will likely involve ending up with someone less on it, more delays etc.

Why can't she do it? Is she a qualified lawyer? Did she tell you up front that she couldn't? I would complain about this to be honest unless you were told upfront. It's a normal scheme and she should have told you on instruction if she doesn't participate. I would ask her to waive her fee but buy the searches etc.

That’s really weird, it’s usually a question on the first instruction forms you do. I’ve engaged 2 conveyancers recently and both asked that on day 1.
Switch for sure, they sound incompetent. Usually you don’t spend much unless you complete, I changed recently and it was £80 lost which was worth it.

She is a qualified lawyer, member of all the right schemes etc and came highly recommended by a trusted and sensible friend. She says this was mentioned in a letter that we never received and I am obviously pushing back on that. Glad to hear anyway that it is considered a normal scheme - we certainly assumed it was standard enough that if we hadn't heard otherwise, it was doable. Feeling less idiotic now.

Anyway, glad to hear that switching solicitors is not necessarily the end of the world. We already have most or all of the searches back so I would hope we could do without incurring major financial cost.

If she can't do it, better she tells you and you can deal with now - than she fakes her way through it and cocks it up. Just unusual to find a lawyer that admits they don't know everything 😉

I suspect the reality isn't that she can't process your Help to Buy ISA, but that she doesn't want to. The fee that solicitors can charge for doing the paperwork is low (£50 plus VAT, I believe), so her firm has probably decided not to do that work.

That probably doesn't help you now, but might explain it.

She's not actually in a firm - she's a solo operator, which I think goes some way to explain how efficient she is otherwise but also explains the lack of a huge amount of paperwork in the lead up, which I guess is why this got missed. She was very transparent - told us that she hasn't registered to be able to do it as she didn't get much interest so it wasn't worth the effort. Which I can understand. Just wish I'd known that before embarking on this process! Anyway, I will take some comfort in the fact that she's already made some good progress on searches and queries so we will have had some benefit. Now to find a new lawyer - she's the second recommendation from a trusted and sensible friend who hasn't worked out so now I'm inclined to just Google conveyancing and go with whoever turns up top of the list!

Oh what a pain! Good luck on your third attempt!

How annoying- think you may need to switch to a different solicitor but crazy this only came to light now

Have you thought about offering her more money to do it? It's probably that the registration is a ball ache but it might be cheaper for you than having to go elsewhere and start again?

@ithinkitsadhd we did - it was a no. I think it's basically that the registration is a ballache and she doesn't expect she would get any other requests to do this, so doesn't want to for a one off. We have made very clear that we will be changing solicitors if a solution can't be found so she understands the situation. She has suggested we contact the estate agents to ask if their preferred solicitors (who are acting on behalf of the vendor so also involved in the transaction) can do it - as they have a relationship with the EA, who obviously have an interest in this going through without a hitch/too much delay, they may be more inclined to take it as a one-off task than any other random solicitor would (and we would keep her as our conveyancer otherwise - which I would like to, as she does genuinely seem excellent in other ways). Just waiting to hear back on that - if that's a no then we'll be on the hunt for a new solicitor. I guess every house purchase has some kind of hitch - hopefully this is ours and no more surprises!