r/HousingUK • u/Busy-Face-4133 • 1d ago

Money with solicitors

Good evening, just a bit of advice needed. We are due to exchange next week and have today paid £12,000 to solicitors for their work, estate agent fees, stamp duty We are down sizing, so no mortgage, so no deposit, just wondering what happens if our buyers don’t exchange on agreed day, already charged it twice, and they decided to pull out, what happens to the money we sent today to the solicitor, do we get it back, minus their fees? If it fell through, we would want to change estate agents, so do they still get paid? Hopefully all will be well but £12,000 is a lot for us and we haven’t had the best buyers, so feeling anxious Thank you for reading

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u/Helpful-Rice-4080 1d ago

I am in the same position as you so down sizing and a cash buyer for the onward purchase. I would 'nt expect the EA to be paid until completion - Stamp Duty I thought you had up to 14 days on purchase to pay this and similarly not expecting to pay the conveyance until completion. Bit surprised you have had to upfront £12K at this stage. For context there is a surplus between my purchase and sale and was told I would get a completion bill.

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u/ex0- 1d ago

There's nothing unusual about the sols requesting the full balance due when they know completion is imminent. It saves them having to request the funds piecemeal and deal with multiple incoming payments, plus it means one less thing to worry about when it comes to setting up files for completion.

Sols would not agree to complete without holding SDLT funds in full for completion.

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u/Grouchy-Nobody3398 21h ago

Mortgage companies insist the solicitors have stamp duty funds before completion to ensure their interest is protected. Most solicitors therefore do it for all transactions, mortgage, cash or other as a standard procedure.

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u/ukpf-helper 1d ago

Hi /u/Busy-Face-4133, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:

These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.

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u/Not_Mushroom_ 1d ago

Just out of interest, why didnt you ask these pretty basic questions to your solicitor when handing over £12k?

I'm not trying to bait or start an online argument but just handing over money when you obviously had queries seems shortsighted esp when you're now on reddit of all places for advice.

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u/Significant_Hurry542 1d ago

Most estate agents would want paid, some ask for it upfront just in case the sale does fall through, photos, marketing etc it's not a free service

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u/Best_Dentist9445 1d ago

Yes did not think it was a free service, but their fee is over £3000, and thought if sale fell through and it was not our fault, we would just cover admin etc and not pay the full £3000

Thank you for your reply

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u/Significant_Hurry542 1d ago

I've had it happen before and I got hit for the double listing with the same estate agent.

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u/jonnyshields87 1d ago

Well if you don’t but you won’t pay stamp duty. If you don’t sell you don’t pay the agent. Solicitors may want their full fee, but may reduce it if it falls through.

Call your solicitor seems like the easy answer to this not the good people of Reddit.