Who was liable for failure to get mortgage funds in time to complete

[givemeanother]

Posted this in legal but also here in case anyone has experience:

Hi all, can anyone shed any light on who is liable in this situation.

We were due to complete yesterday (Monday) on our house. The mortgage funds should have been released to our solicitor on Friday, but this did not happen and our solicitors did not follow up with the bank or let us know until Monday morning.

Unfortunately that coincided with Monday's Bank of England outage meaning delays to electronic money transfers and the funds didn't come through in time to complete.

This means we at the bottom of the chain are being sued for breach of contract and to pay everyone else in the chains additional removal costs that they've incurred.

Given the problem arose between the solicitor and the bank, what are the chances of them accepting liability and paying that cost? Otherwise we're hit with a £4k bill when we didn't do anything wrong.

Was there a reason the mortgage funds were released so close to the completion date? My solicitor has always advised at least 3 working days.

Your solicitors must have let you know on Friday that you wouldn't be completing?

Sounds like a nightmare for you, nothing but sympathy!

We took the solicitors advice that mortgage funds are released the working day before. Our seller also had his mortgage funds released in the Friday so I don't think it's uncommon - but agree three days makes more sense!

Our solicitors were optimistic on Monday morning that nationwide were sending over the funds that day, and we would still complete. Had we known earlier we could have out the removal companies on hold and not racked up such a bill.

I just hope the solicitors or bank are willing to cover the problem, but not optimistic.

It's your solicitors fault.
I don't think they are supposed to even exchange without drawing down the funds.

My OH has worked in Conveyancing for the past 20 years
at the point of exchange you call down the funds from the lender. They are simultaneous you wouldn’t do one without the other. Lenders each have a required number of working days notice and this usually dictates the length of time before exchange and completion.
when we purchased our house in 2020, at the time NatWest were requesting 10 working days (due to the high number of transactions) therefore we had to have 10 clear days between exchange and completion.
he said most lenders require minimum 5 working days therefore calling for funds on a Friday for a Monday completion is not the norm unless you had agreed this with the lender
hope that helps

Info on Nationwide

I’m really sorry you’re going through this OP and can’t comment on whose fault it is.

However, surely the only contractual obligation you have is to your seller and therefore the only removal costs you should be paying are theirs (and they pay their seller’s and so on and so forth up the chain).

Why are you being asked to foot everyone’s bill?

You surely can't be personally liable if you followed your solicitor's advice, surely?

Sorry this happened to you, what a nightmare.

I don't think it's reasonable for you to pay everyone's moving costs.

I was also hit by the national Bank of England issue, and although we did manage to complete as did my sellers, the whole thing was a nightmare, and I'm not sure what happened higher up the chain.

I was bottom of the chain, no issues with my money, and we didn't complete until about 3pm yesterday. So even with no money issues, it's likely the whole chain wouldn't have completed. Is everyone in the chain aware of the national issue, or is it all just being blamed on you?

Personally, I think your solicitors are partially at fault, and the national issue is partially at fault, so there's no way you should be paying anything. I'd tell your solicitors that as it wasn't caused by you, you aren't willing to pay, and see what they come back with. It may just be that everyone is trying it on.

Your solicitor is the one that requests the funds so I'd put the blame with them op.

I'd have thought the issue is, the solicitor advises but the responsibility lies with yourself.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Thankfully we completed a day later and now have access. The solicitors now sort out who is liable for the extra charges, and we'll see where we get to.

To clarify, the mortgage funds were called for at point of exchange (2 weeks before completion) so the bank had plenty of notice. They were scheduled to be transferred from the bank on the Friday - I've seen evidence of that - but unclear why they didn't come through then.

The major stumbling block was with the BoE though. If that issue hadn't have happened, it would have all gone through in time.

Ultimately I cannot see it being your liability, it will be your solicitor’s liability as they are acting on your behalf and take responsibility for the transaction.

The BoE error is a

I work for a small lender and we still run completion money transfers once per hour of the working day by TT. We believe that moving day is stressful enough without worries about funds. Nationwide appear to be cheapskates but at least they are very clear about their process and so your solicitor should have been aware :(

Glad you have managed to complete.

The BofE issue clearly isn't your fault, and I can't see how it would make you liable for anyone else's costs.

It was an absolute nightmare on Monday, but the sellers are trying it on imo.

do you have an update here? did you end up paying anything?

Many lenders won’t agree to release the funds until the morning of completion. It would be unusual for the funds to be released on the day before a weekend of completion was not scheduled to take place until after the weekend .
In your case, are you sure that the funds were requested for the Friday?
As completion has now taken place, hopefully everyone will have calmed down. It’s unlikely that your seller will sue you , and unless they’ve already served a notice saying that time is of the essence, contractually they’d have a problem. As they’ve accepted your money and completed, they’ll struggle to ask for compensation after the event.
Your solicitor should be able to advise you .

It was complicated but we did get a resolution.

Our solicitors were able to make a claim via their bank who paid compensation on behalf of the Bank of England. This covered all the additional moving costs the whole chain incurred from the move running into a subsequent day.

It also transpired that the reason our funds weren't transferred on the Friday before was due to the paperwork completed by the solicitors. They'd put in two requests to Nationwide for the funds with different dates and even though the latest form they submitted was the correct date, because they hadn't pulled the first form which had a later date to draw down funds, that's why the money didn't come over the working day before completion (our seller was also with Nationwide and did get their funds on the Friday so it would have been possible with correct paperwork).