Help ASAP

[Streamliner]

Need help , my best friend has sold his house which he has owned for many years , three months ago when he instructed the conveyancing company he sent then a signed letter to confirm I had full rights to aid in the Dale and also my account details to put the funds into when completed. Two days before completion the conveyancing company are refusing to pay onto my account , they are saying that my friend needs a UK bank account over 12 months old , he live in South Africa and has done so over 13 years hence the no uk bank account ... this is so far from a money laundering issue it's a joke , he has paid a mortgage for the last 13 years , what can we do and do we have a case to sue them for negligence as they took the sale on and only now ask for this which they know he has not got ????

[atticus]

The conveyancers' client needs to use the firm's complaints procedure, which hopefully will lead to the firm working with him to resolve this.

[Streamliner]

I presume that's going to take more than Friday to sort out and the buyer will pull out so he will lose the sale , 3 months they have had his formal written instructions and they decide to be idiots 2 days before completion, you couldn't make this up .

[dslippy]

They would have got either a simple refusal to act or the same result wherever they went. Sorry.

Money laundering issues are not matters of common sense but of statutory meanings.

The firm should have picked this up earlier (when did they learn that the client lives in SA?), but once it became clear, the result sounds inevitable.

[Streamliner]

Three months ago at start of process !!!!@

[Streamliner]

However, solicitors are bound by professional obligations to their clients throughout the transaction.

There may be instances where a solicitor should use their professional judgement, as they are required to act in the best interests of each client. Those obligations will take precedence over the protocol.

[Streamliner]

So what your saying is because he lives in South Africa and has not got12 moths proof of a UK bank account he can't sell his house , as no conveyancing will do it , don't believe that sorry

[dslippy]

Believe it or not, but the regulations are surprisingly brutal. Another poster had a similar problem a short time ago.

[atticus]

I wonder if there are also concerns about the instruction to pay a very large sum to the specified recipient.

[dslippy]

Indeed the proposed arrangement is both informal and an apparent attempt to sidestep the MLR. If the OPs bank were aware of the arrangement, they might easily freeze the account. It happens.