Last minute delay for completion nightmare

[wishIwasonholiday10]

We are supposed to be completing today but our lawyers IT system is completely down and they have been unable to transfer the money. Has anyone experienced something similar and what happened next? Our sellers just rung us panicking as they have had all their stuff packed up and we have loads to deliveries booked to the new house tomorrow (whiteware, furniture etc). We are bottom of the chain - will be liable for everyone’s costs even if it’s our lawyers fault?

25 years ago when I worked in conveyancing:

We had paper files in a central office in a filing cabinet.

I wrote down the receipt of funds (from whatever source) in the file.

I had a schedule of ‘things to do in the lead up to exchange / completion’ which involved me pulling out the file and literally putting a tick in a box if those things had been done and chasing them if they hadn’t.

These days, there are no paper files and it’s quite possible there is no office to keep them in. Everything is online.

If the online system goes down, you would think the provider would have some sort of offline backup run daily or weekly.

I have no idea what has happened there - I haven’t worked in conveyancing since the paper files days. It may be someone with more recent experience will know. Alternatively, I use computers, I don’t program them - there may be a very good reason why such backups aren’t possible.

Thanks for the info. Would we have to pay out any physical money in this scenario or would the claims just be passed on to the lawyer? We don’t have a lot left after the move and would struggle to pay everyone’s costs in the interim. I imagine it might be a very slow process considering the number of people affected.

I’m afraid I don’t know. Hopefully the conveyancers are insured so it will just be a matter of passing all bills to the insurance company and letting them get on with it. If they then go after the IT company’s insurers, that’s nothing to do with you.

In the days of paper, this just never happened. The worst that ever happened was when I was at the top of the chain and didn’t get the money until mid afternoon.

People not moving out on time happened but not a catastrophic failure like this.

OP, how are you holding up? Did you get any information at all?

If it's been caused by a cyber attack they could well not be able to log into computers or maybe even access email or phones. So some of the companies may not even have access to case reference numbers.

Gah - Another thing to worry about when buying and selling! Excellent -.-

Hope it all gets resolved ASAP OP - you have my sympathies.

I am in the same situation but with remortgage. Supposed to complete on 23.11. It is their database or 3rd party network that has most likely been compromised - hacked and shut down to avoid data leak. I have experienced this before but not on my completion day. Speaking to legal ombudsman may be worth a try. I pushed my solicitors to releasing the money today but god knows if this happens.

The latest on Twitter (from people’s comments) is that no service will be restored today and theres still no time scale for when it will be. 😩

I’m going to be trying to get through to my solicitor all day today because surely they must have some sort of plan in place!! If anyone else is with ONP and has any luck, please let me know!

@Aleo9977 Oh no, I hope that’s not the case! We are also with ONP.

They should have an emergency and recovery plan for system failures.

They should, but I’m not holding out much hope!

It’s an absolute disgrace, I tried to call my conveyancer this morning but all I got was a recorded message. There must be a back up system. Surely to god

Wowsers that sounds horrendous OP. Could you put an email in to one of the papers consumer rights people? This seems so current that they might well want to publish something.

I'd also make a formal complaint to my solicitor now if I were you, so you can escalate it as soon as possible.

From what I know of the 2021 failure, there isn't for every firm, they aren't aby obligation - yours may have one

I had just the sale of my uncle's home over the line, to pay for his care, in 2021

I am a mere non-lawyer but the Solicitors Regulation Authority doesn't have any info.

as I said upthread, I think useful info is on a Facebook page that's private - "when conveyancing goes rogue".

the Telegraph has something but in general they have enough PR to keep it out of the papers. It should be a national scandal that changes contract law.

updated article

some firms haven't ploughed everything into the system and still have workarounds

https://todaysconveyancer.co.uk/cyber-incident-affects-c-80-conveyancing-firms/

Hi all, we have just spoken to our Case Manager at ONP.

They now have access to phones and emails. It seems like they have got external servers they’re going to be working on and will be slowly coming back online today. Any completions between last Wednesday and today will take priority. Once they are all up to date, they will look at completing and exchanging others.

If you are with ONP, please ring your Case Manager. Ours was very transparent and really brilliant in terms of updates and the next steps.

Thank you for the update! What is ONP? Is that the company? I wonder if all companies are the same

@Whatadayyyy O’Neill Patient Solicitors. 🙂

Ah ok, well hopefully if they are starting to come back online other firms will be the same 🤞🏻

Hi all, we are also impacted by this outage. The situation isn’t quite as stressful as OP but due to delays with probate (another sore topic) we now only have 2 weeks to complete otherwise our mortgage will shoot from 3% to 5%! We’ve not exchanged contracts yet and have been told we can’t progress because our firm can’t access their files 🫠

If anyone impacted gets any information on timelines for resolution that would be great to hear.

Hi everyone, this story has now made BBC. I’ve just WhatsApped our position. It may be worth others doing the same to lobby for a speedy resolution. It’s ridiculous that the software company have not provided an update since the 24th. Good luck!

Cyber-attack leaves home sales in limbo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67543838

We have been told the solicitor affected is on stage 4/4 in terms of resolution so it shouldn’t be too long, hopefully.

That is reassuring, which solicitor out of interest? We are with Taylor Rose

I don’t know-it is our buyers solicitor.

Let’s hope we hear some good news today! I will let you know if I get anywhere