Solicitor drawdown early

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randomfolk

New Member
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Hi all,

Looking for some advice on a situation we’re stuck in right now with our solicitor and mortgage drawdown on a new build.

Timeline:

  • Day 0: Our solicitor received close statement from the other side. Also the other side shared they were waiting on some final documentation(I only know this on day 4 because we strongly questioned our solicitor).
  • Day 1: Our solicitor went ahead with drawing down the mortgage, even though this is a new build and some final documentation (like from the Land Registry etc.) was still pending.
  • Day 2: They transferred the full funds — both the mortgage and our personal contribution — to the seller’s solicitor. At this point we still thought like we will have key soon.
  • Day 3: We followed up asking when we could get the keys, questions were forwarded to the other side but no response. Meanwhile, we found out from other buyers in the same phase that their solicitors didn’t draw down yet, because the builder was still waiting for key government documents to complete the sale.
  • Day 4: Contacted a team from builder. Got told they miss key documents and not ready to close. Said our solicitor were aware of it. Our solicitor finally got in touch with the seller’s solicitor, who said they are still waiting on documentation. We asked for the funds to be returned to our solicitor’s account, but we’ve now learned that returning funds to the bank isn’t really an option — it would trigger a full reapplication for the mortgage.
We were not informed that the drawdown would take place on Day 1, nor were we made aware of the outstanding key documents.

We expect our solicitor to carefully check everything is in place before the drawdown, obviously it did not happen.

So now we’re stuck. The money is sitting with our solicitor, we can’t get the keys yet, and we’re accruing interest already — even though we haven’t made the first repayment yet.

Main concern:
accruing interest, and our solicitor

Questions:
  • What should we do at this point?
  • Is there any way to stop interest or limit it while we wait? Checked with bank, there are only 2 options: repayment in full and reapply with full process, or payment break but interest is still accruing. Ideally we would like no accruing interest and easy process for the second drawdown.
  • Is this considered a mistake on our solicitor’s part? We were never told the drawdown would happen at that point and never approved the drawdown.
Any input or experience would be really appreciated — we’re quite stressed about this.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
randomfolk said:
Any input or experience would be really appreciated — we’re quite stressed about this
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I think the first thing you need to do is take a step back and breath. It's a very stressful time closing but once in the house, it'll all be forgotten quickly.

You are only 3 days in to your mortgage, it's not unusual for closing to hit a snag that causes a delay. In the grand scheme of things, on a 3.5% rate you are paying interest daily of <0.01%. Right now it seems like a big number nominally but in relative terms it is inconsequential to your overall mortgage.

In our experience, our solicitor was very clear with us that drawdown was our decision but she confirmed that everything was in order from our side. She was just very explicit that there can still be unforeseen delays

randomfolk said:
Day 1: Our solicitor went ahead with drawing down the mortgage, even though this is a new build and some final documentation (like from the Land Registry etc.) was still pending
Click to expand...
Did you have a closing date? Again speaking from our experience, our solicitor would not draw down until we had a confirmed closing date for keys to be handed over. I think we drew down 2 days ahead of this to allow for funds to transfer in and out of solicitor

If you have a date for next week then I wouldn't worry too much about it. If this goes on for more than 2 weeks then either your solicitor has made a big mistake or you didn't understand the information you were given
 
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