I’m not happy. On Tueday this week my solicitor told me that I could complete on my new home tomorrow, Friday 27th November. I’ve already spashed out on a hire car to take me and my worldly goods to Liverpool on the assumption that I move into my new home on Friday. I had £x set aside in my internet account and £y set aside in my offshore private bank account, but only a few days to get the funds transferred to the solicitor’s client account.

I went online on the Tuesday morning and tried to initiate an instant transfer. That was not possible as the internet account has a transfer limit of £10,000 per day. Instead I was asked to initiate the transfer by telephone. I phoned and went through all of the details. At the end of the call they told me that they would have to call me back on my Stockwell landline number to confirm the transfer. I’m in Stevenage I told them. Go to your local branch they told me. There is no branch in Stevenage I told them. Nothing I can do for you they told me. End of call. I went down to London and initiated the transfer from the branch in Victoria. However, the transfer would not go through until the following day, Wednesday, because it was after 11 o’clock by the time I got to the bank.

That same morning I’d emailed my account manager in the offshore bank asking him to start the transfer. I’ve not had any response from him yet! That afternoon I logged into their online service and sent an email to the bank admin people making the same request. Then I picked up the phone just to be on the safe side. I was told that the bank cannot accept my transfer intructions by email, phone, or fax because I’d not previously set up a mandate to do so. He promised to email me the relevant mandate forms. He sent an email with no forms attached. I replied asking again for the forms. Time passed. I phoned and was told that he’d gone for a long late lunch. By the time I’d received the email with the forms I’d missed the last post to send them back.

On the Wednesday morning, yesterday, I sent the mandates to the bank using the Post Office special delivery service which guarantees delivery by 9am the following day. The service cost £10.95

I called the bank at 10:30 this morning to check that they’d received my instructions and made the transfer because I know that the CHAPS deadline is 11am. They hadn’t received my letter.

I called the Post Office at 11 o’clock today and they confirmed that the letter has not yet been delivered. She cheerfully told me that is should be there by 9am tomorrow, and that if I call them after it has eventually been delivered then I will entitled to a refund of my £10.95

If the letter arrives tomorrow the CHAPS transfer will not get the funds into the solicitors’s client account before 2pm, possibly 4pm.

I won’t get they keys until the funds have been transferred from my solicitor’s account to the seller’s (solicitor’s?) account. If the funds are not in my solicitor’s client account on time then I won’t get the keys tomorrow.

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