We are in the process of buying a new house.
Seller has modernised the property to sell on.Our offer accepted, mortage approved and survey done in just over a week,great we thought, as we need to complete in 5 weeks before our current rental tenancy expires.Only potential issue from the survey is confirmation that the chimney breast removal meets building regs-it appears it was done some time ago.We tell our solicitor to make sure they check this.Everything going smoothly from her e mail updates,but when we ring to confirm contract exchange date she’s gone on holiday.Not to worry head of the company has taken over and we meet her today to sign off the paperwork to agree exchange on Monday.We have booked removals etc and have to be out of our current house by Tuesday.My wife checks through the paperwork before signing it and the only thing missing is,you’ve guessed it the chimney breast confirmation-our solicitor didn’t even put it in the questions to the vendor’s solicitor and the mortgage provider won’t release the funds till it’s sorted.Anyone got room for me, my wife, two kids ,a garage full of bikes and a house full of furniture?

We had a family recommended solicitor ready to start on our house purchase until the mortgage provider said they weren’t on their approved list so we ended up going with one they provided and they were shite. They made everything take twice as long as necessary including sodding of on holiday at a crucial point!

Has the lender said they will hold back SOME of the funds or ALL?

We experienced a similar situation 2 years ago but it ended up getting well out of hand. Long story cut short: the vendor was a complete arse and had done loads of “improvements” but none met any regs, one of which was removing the downstairs chimney breast in 2 rooms but leaving it in situ on the 1st floor and in the loft. Surveyor wanted to tear him a new one as it had led to all kinds of issues. Lender wouldn’t give us the money until it was sorted. I sent in 2 builders to draw up reports; first came up with £10k+ and the second nearer £20k. Council BC wouldn’t approve the use of gallow brackets in the loft, so I told the vendor to get it sorted or we’d pull out. He dicked about and wouldn’t take any accountability. I did some digging and found out he was friends with someone in the council’s BC … well, well, well. What with that and everything else that needed work I told him to do one.

Bottom line: what does the lender say? What actual work has been done vs needs doing? How about you send a builder (pref a mate) to have a look and do a report/quote?

Bottom line 2: our solicitor was excellent, but I chose to tackle every issue (as per above) myself, as I wanted to know as much as possible about what was going on.

My sympathies. We’re currently caught in conveyancing hell. Looks like ours will be going tits up and starting again. We were expecting to be in by the end of the month.

Our preferred solictor wasn’t on the mortgage provider’s approved list either 🙁

Just buy an indemnity insurance – and get solicitor to foot the bill for thier mistake. Then you move on time.

DTI policy will only cover against the risk of enforcement action and not the cost of the chimney breast falling down.

Two months since our offer was accepted and still not sure what our solicitor has actually done. We’re first time byers and everyone has treated us like we should know what we are doing. It took the bank two months to sort the mortgage offer out (nothing to do with us, we provided everything they asked for the day they asked for it). We even ended up sorting out the bank’s valuation for them as they didn’t seem to know how to ring their own surveyor.
Bunch of bloody gangsters, the lot of them.

We moved 3 weeks ago, about 1.5 miles and due to the poor conveyencer everyone in the chain had appointed it was one of the most stressful things I have ever experienced, most simply do not give a ****

A few years before I moved 200 miles but had a great coveyencers, if you can find a good one they are worth a big amount of money extra IMHO.

And don’t necessarily take personal recommendations without a pinch of salt, our most recent firm was recommended by a mate who is a lawyer, only he got preferential treatment by a departmental head and we got the lowest paid license conveyencer.

DTI policy will only cover against the risk of enforcement action and not the cost of the chimney breast falling down.

That’s what our solicitor has just this minute said in an e mail(good to see she’s working late).She recommends we get our own structural surveyor out to check it’s safe just to cover us especially as it’s a party wall.
Vendor not bothered and won’t get involved as they said they didn’t remove it and it was like that when they bought the property for cash last year.

Never mind their technical skill nick how was their use of plurals and apostrophe?
On a more serious note your solicitor has failed to follow up on a specific instruction this failure may have put your purchase back or at risk, they carry insurance to cover claims from such errors . Having a potentially unsellable property is defiantly your vendors problem not yours.
So tour solicitor is vulnerable and should be bending backwards to solve this.
Your vendor needs to solve this either for you or the next purchaser.
As said indemnity policies are useful but not a magic bullet.
Get your solicitor to raise the question fast.If no satisfactory response get a surveyor in pronto to assess what is needed. Personally I’d get the surveyor anyway.
Negotiate with vendor for the cost of the survey and any remedial work .
Document you instructions to and advise from your solicitor.

Any costs from the delay not from the structural problem raise with your solicitor.

Cheers crankboy 🙂

If your vendor bought with cash they wouldn’t have needed a survey (and perhaps they didn’t have one). If/when you sell you’ll more than likely sell to someone needing a mortgage and it’ll be picked up again.

As for your tenancy … it will roll on to periodic tenancy if you stay on (assuming you are in England). Assuming you haven’t given notice you won’t be turfed out. In any case it is unwise to give notice before you have exchanged as anything can happen up until that point. That said your solicitor should have asked the question ages ago … you have my sympathy.

Hope all goes to plan!