This particular owner took matters into their own hands, their solicitor completed the requisition 37s and the sale went through.
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If it slipped through the loop though then a new owner could find themselves with the responsibility for outstanding fees.
Purpeller, I would suggest sending a letter to the new owner telling them how much is outstanding and that they are now the ones who owe it. Suggest they contact their solicitor if they did not agree to be responsible for the arrears. Either their solicitor closed the sale without getting the req 37 or the vendor/vendor's solicitor provided false req 37 details.
Sybil
And have grounds for a complaint against his or her solicitor.
A situation relating to this has developed in my building. Owner wanted to sell and had unpaid fees. Our agent has been instructed to "freeze" accounts of those unpaid debtors and not assist with things like requisition 37s (replies to queries asked of the management company when a sale is going through, which the agent answers) and meter readings. This particular owner took matters into their own hands, their solicitor completed the requisition 37s and the sale went through. The new owner now owes the balance of unpaid management fees which he/she did not incur. The buyer's solicitor should have been more thorough here but the end result is the same....we're going to have major trouble getting those fees.
If the solicitor completed a legal document for a company without their authorisation and made it look like it was completed by them and then passed this onto a purchaser then this could be at worse fraud. edit: especially if there were fees and they did not declare them. Can you get a copy from the other party? This would be killer evidence of wrongdoing.
Its a worrying sign that the bad old days of property being sold and solicitors acting as they please seem to be returning.
If a solicitor outlines that fees will be paid from proceeds in writing then this should be more than sufficient and we have never had any issue in this regard.
We do seem to have an issue with solicitors coming to private arrangements with each other as to the split of the current years service fee and then letting us know that they will pay x amount and the new owner will pay the rest. This is despite them having no legal authority to do so and it being in direct contravention of our articles.
Its neither as easy or as clear cut as it should be. As per my other thread we have just become aware that a seller (a bank) paid all the fees to a private company just because they effectively held out their hand and asked for it. Despite the agent being contractually terminated for years and years and no director ever being contacted to confirm. The agent also confirmed that they have had no dealings for 3+ years, yet still took easy money when it was offered, again, tantamount to fraud but its so easy to do and there is so little recourse without hyper expensive legal fees to correct.
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