Financial security if chain falls apart upstream

[amonty]

Hello everyone,

I am buying into a chain (I am chain free myself). The property I am buy has all the papers in order and we have green flag form our solicitors. However the property my sellers are buying has some critical missing paper work. This has delayed our contract date by almost 2 months. Now my mortgage offer was originally for 3 months and this month end I will be 3 months over (i.e. my offer would have expired). Now I am always fearful of the financial loss I will have to incurr as part of this failed deal.

Is anyone aware of any protection policy or anything insurance product that can protect me against the financial loss risk. More over I have funny feeling that the sellers had their mortgage offer given to them after me so would have more time than my offer and thus dont care much for my issue. I will end up paying for the solicitor, the re-valuation fee and also possible new mortgage application. I dont have the money to pay for the above twice. Please help.

Warm regards,
Monty

[EPalmer]

I can beat you on that.
I put an offer on a property in January and moved out of mine as that completed end of April and we were told we were in the best position, money in the bank and no chain below us! Since then, the chain I am buying into has increased significantly. The people at the top were going to rent then the week we were due to exchange they put an offer on something and decided the whole chain would have to wait for them. Oh and they don't want to move their children until the school holidays? The chain now involves 5 contracts all delayed because of this.

My mortgage offer is about to run out, my furniture is in storage and I am paying extortionate amount on short term rental. Two deadlines for exchange have been and gone.

What is really frustrating though is that none of the solicitors or agents talk to each other and I have absolutely no idea how close we are to exchange. An example of this is my solicitor said we were ready to exchange the end of April yet he had no idea there were three links above me nor had he even spoken to their solicitors? I work in corporate legal where all the solicitors are copied in on emails on legal work and we manage to buy and sell companies, and all their assets in a matter of months, all issues being identified and solved by good communication between parties from the outset by preparing a contact sheet of all parties, advisers, agents, etc and circulate this to everyone.

If I pull out I will lose not only a lovely property but a great deal of money and so it goes on.....

Surely by now solicitors and agents should be able to communicate with each other and deal with conveyancing in a far more efficient and speedy way. Here's an idea - use e mail?

I wonder if anyone has similar stories?

Elaine

[amonty]

@Elaine: I reckon the communication bit is the main problem. In my case my Solicitors uses e-mails and telephone and is quite communicative but the same is not true up the chain. So one squeaky wheel stop the whole chain. Reading about your situation I can confirm you win hands down. I reckon the whole industry needss an overall. Laws and books may still make sense but the Generation X communciation technologies havent touch Lady Justitia.

[EPalmer]

It definitely needs a complete overhaul with regard to communication between parties.
Problem is, because people seem to put up with such poor service from solicitors, and rarely complain, this is unlikely to be achieved!