Please help me, I’m at my wits end with solicitor/lender. We are first time buyers, offer accepted on a lovely house in Feb. From the start our vendors wanted to complete in early June which suited us perfectly as I’m pregnant with DC2 due mid August.
Everything has been fairly straightforward up to now, mortgage offer sorted, survey fine, the vendor’s onward purchase is end of chain. However about 6 weeks ago, we met our solicitor to sign some pre exchange documents, and she informed us that the law firm would be merging with another firm that coming week, and so she would need to request that our mortgage offer be reissued with the new law firm name on it. She assured us she’d be doing it as soon as the firms had merged, so a few days after we saw her.
After weeks of asking her where this updated paperwork is, it STILL hasn’t appeared. We’ve emailed/called her a couple of times a week for an update, and she just keeps saying it’s not been sent yet and that she’s chasing it. Last Friday was our last chance to give notice on our current lease for June, we tried to contact her to explain we’re about to have to pay a whole extra month of rent due to the delay, but she was on annual leave so didn’t respond until yesterday. She phoned to tell me the estate agents have been on to her asking if we can complete asap as the vendors are ready to go, and she basically said ‘I’ve let them know that won’t be possible’, with no reference to our own stress/extra rent expenses etc.
Obviously if this carries on being delayed, having to pay rent in July as well will become less of an issue, but for the sake of everyone else in the chain we still want to complete asap, which could mean us paying for two properties for 4-6 weeks rather than the 2/3 we had hoped for. Not ideal but we will do it as we’re scared of jeopardising the sale etc.
The agent then phoned me, I apologised and reiterated that we also want to complete asap, and that we’re very frustrated after 5 weeks or so of waiting for this mortgage paperwork to appear. I’ve got no idea at this point if it’s the lender being rubbish or the solicitor not chasing enough. The agent suggested I phone the lender, but as I thought, they can only speak to a solicitor or broker about this kind of thing. They seemed surprised on the phone that there would be a delay with something like this.
Sorry this has become very long, just trying not to leave anything out. My question is, what else can I do to sort this out other than pester our solicitor every day? She keeps just saying ‘sorry it’s not here yet but I am chasing it’ but she’s been saying that for over a month and I’m so stressed out now that our vendors are starting to push for completion. I’m so scared of them getting annoyed and pulling out, I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but I’m 30 weeks pregnant and if we lose this house I think it will actually break me 😅 our current rental is absolutely tiny and we have a toddler already.
Another complication is that I have money in a LISA, not loads but really wanted to withdraw it now as obviously this is one of the few things it can be used for and I’ll have to leave it there until retirement otherwise, but the solicitor is saying she can’t arrange for the withdrawal until this mortgage paperwork appears, and that it can take up to 10 days to obtain the funds. I can’t face having to tell the vendors that sorry, we actually need to have an extra up to 10 days after exchange because of my LISA, particularly after we’ve already kept everyone waiting.
Please anyone who has experience of dealing with solicitors, how do I approach this? Family/friends are telling me I need to be much more confrontational, which I’m awful at and I don’t see how it will help as honestly talking to her is like talking to a brick wall, she keeps giving me the same vague response. Also what do I do about the LISA? Has anyone withdrawn money for a house purchase from one? How long did it take?
Any help gratefully received, and please be gentle, I’m extremely stressed and also still quite clueless about all of this as a FTB!