Contracts and INDEMNITY letter? - house sale

Elaine762

Hi Everyone,
I'm looking for a bit of advise.

I am buying an apartment and now after a few months of sale agreed, (yes, months, too many snags involved incld. land registry etc but all sorted now) finally my Solicitor signed the contract back to the vendor's solicitor who was always pressuring my Solicitor to sign it asap. He did now and sent the cheque for the 10% deposit on the house. My Solicitor got the indemnity letter (which I didn't know what this was until present) and sent it to the bank to request funds for the apartment. the bank refused the indemnity letter saying the name of the Address isn't completed because its missing one word of the Address. as an example imagine "28 New York Road, Santry, Dublin, Ireland", the "Santry" is missing. thus my solicitor sent back the indemnity letter to the management company where the apartment is and is now looking for this to be amended but hasn't received it yet back (this was only sent yesterday Monday).
On top of this my solicitor told me today that he still waiting on the seller's solicitor to send the contracts signed and exchanged which the other Solicitor hasn't done yet.... my solicitor already sent this last Monday, 25Th March.
My questions are:
are these kind of snags on the "indemnity letter" something usual with banks, and should it take too long for the management company of the apartment to amend this?

Also, should I be concerned that it is taking now over a week for the contracts to be signed from the vendor's side?
Sorry for the long text but I am just getting a bit concerned since it's coming so close to an end and things still can go wrong
Thank you

busylady

Indemnity letters can often require an amendment, this should not be a problem and would usually be issued within a few days, depending on how efficient the Management Company is. If the contracts were sent back on March 25th , I would not be concerned, it can take a little longer than a week for the Vendors' solicitor to have the contracts signed and returned. Hope it all works out.

jayjay2010

I had a similar situation, docs refused because it was 19B but should have been 19 Block B. Very silly but cause last minute delays of about 2 weeks. Very frustrating at the time!

bri007

We are in similar situation, signed contracts last week. Set closing date etc for 3 weeks time.

However, our bank has conditions attached before issue of Cheque. Identity of house insurance to bank... do I have to take out house insurance ASAP to get the indemnity letter or can they do it from the closing date?

Elaine762

Thank you everyone that really calmed me down a bit, hopefully things will work out. And its amazing how such a small detail can create such a bit delay ugh! Management companies can be so slow too... it certainly doesn’t help

happyfriday74

The indemnity letter is standard.

Your solicitor asks the Management Companies agent for this but the drafting of the letter is out of the agents hands.

The agent has to request the apartment blocks insurance broker for this letter and the broker in turn has to then ask the insurance underwriters so the letter comes from quite far away.

All you can do is pester the agent who in turn pesters the broker who pesters the underwritters.

It should take about 2 to 3 days but if anyone on the chain is slow it can take longer. You are back to square one if an amendment is needed as the whole thing has to go through the chain again.

The letter is mandatory on every sale so once you sign contracts and you are a few weeks out from closing out the sale get your solicitor to request this.

Also you be surprised with the amount of solicitors who tee up a property to close on certain day and then only request the letter that morning!

Interested Observer

The same thing happened to me but my broker flagged it before it reached the bank. The insurance company told me it could take 10 working days to issue a new letter so I just canceled the policy and took out a new one. Took an hour instead.

Elaine762

happyfriday74 wrote: »

The indemnity letter is standard.

Your solicitor asks the Management Companies agent for this but the drafting of the letter is out of the agents hands.

The agent has to request the apartment blocks insurance broker for this letter and the broker in turn has to then ask the insurance underwriters so the letter comes from quite far away.

All you can do is pester the agent who in turn pesters the broker who pesters the underwritters.

It should take about 2 to 3 days but if anyone on the chain is slow it can take longer. You are back to square one if an amendment is needed as the whole thing has to go through the chain again.

The letter is mandatory on every sale so once you sign contracts and you are a few weeks out from closing out the sale get your solicitor to request this.

Also you be surprised with the amount of solicitors who tee up a property to close on certain day and then only request the letter that morning!

That makes a lot of sense! The first indemnity letter (that has to be amended) took 1 week. Plus, now that it has to be amended I think ny solicitor had to ask for this to the vendors solicitor who consequently will follow up on the management Co agent and so on

Also my solicitor told me it should be normal for them to take this long to sign the contract back as there are 4 people to sign it. I didnt realise this part but its due to the property being owened in a percentage by a pension scheme apart from the oweners