My client was due to complete on his house purchase last Friday, but completion fell through because one of the parties in the chain banks with NatWest. Completion will not now occur for at least 2 weeks because the removal companies now have a big backlog due to failed completions. My client made sure that the completion money of £400k was with his solicitor on Friday, and has now asked the solicitor to pay interest on it during the period up to the date when completion finally takes place.The solicitor refuses, as he says the rule is that interest is only payable if the client asks for it BEFORE passing money to the solicitor. Is this correct?
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Is this something that will be paid by Nat West under their " no one will lose out " claim? Plus all other attendant delay costs.
I think you may have a good case ( David any comment?)
I would ask for the money back and the ask for interest to be applied before passing it back to the solicitor again if necessary.
Natwest and RBS have been giving out compensations to clients who were affected. We managed to get some of our conveyancing clients compensations from the bank. RBS even agreed to compensate us for the extra time we spent on matters due to their system failure but partners decided not to claim anything.
As far as the interest is concerned see SRA Handbook.
@Noradh ... it is not taking ages, infact it's taking a couple of days!