Risk of losing house due to solicitor

T

tostao

Guest
Hi,

We were due to sign and return our forms for a house purchase on Friday April 7th. We're happy with the surveyors report, we have loan approval and eager to get the contract signed. However our solicitor is not returning calls, if we do get through he says he's busy and he'll return the call after he consults our file.

I am very nervous the sale will fall through because we are late signing. This will be our first house, my wife is pregnant with our first child and we had cancelled our lease as we didn't forsee this delay.

I am considering asking for all my documentation back and looking for another solicitor but I am wary that I will still experiance delays regardless. I have also heard that the solicitors are likely to pursue me for their fee if I change now.

Is there any advice that anyone can give me?

Thanks,

Tostao
 
Just to clarify, my solicitor is not Dermot Deane whom is mentioned as a recommended solicitor in the Sticky post
 
What point of the sale are you on - exchanging contracts or closing the sale ? If you are waiting to exchange contracts I would definitely ramp this up a notch. Is this solicitor part of a panel used by a broker company that you are using ? If so - you could complain to the broker's directly if they were the ones to recommend this person. At this point, if you did switch solicitors I think that the contracts would have to be sent back to the vendor's solicitor and drawn up again and sent to your new solicitor. I had a similar issue and this was what we were told could happen. I would imagine that you would want to avoid that . Can you make an appt with solicitor or call into their office and outline and speak to someone there directly? Might there be another solicitor in the office that can deal with you ? Of course there may be some hold ups with paperwork to avoid the contract exchange/closing and there may be valid reasons for that but your solicitor should be able to clue you in . Keep pushing , keep calm and good luck.
 
tostao said:
Just to clarify, my solicitor is not Dermot Deane whom is mentioned as a recommended solicitor in the Sticky post
Click to expand...

To clarify- NOT Dermot Deane?
 
Is there any way you could get his email address and send him a mail outlining your concerns. I would also consider getting onto the auctioneer and getting them to call him to emphasise the urgency. I think you are panicking unnecessarily though - if there was a huge urgency you would undoubtedly have heard from the auctioneer yourself on numerous occasions - I know I certainly did when I was slow in signing my contracts. At the end of the day they won't want to have to put the house back on the market.
 
I would visit the solicitor's offices and ask to see him for 5 mins. if this continues.

Its not quite the same but a few years ago when i was buying a house, it was the vendor's solicitor that was holding up the process. After about 7 months waiting for something, i eventually lost patience and went and visited the other side's solicitor to ask what the hell was going on. I forced him to give me a date for completion.
I find that with most things, you just have to do it yourself to get things done.
 
tostao said:
Just to clarify, my solicitor is not Dermot Deane whom is mentioned as a recommended solicitor in the Sticky post
Click to expand...


Why would you mention Dermot Deane if he is not your solicitor?
 
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