We've had the strangest issues happen with our recent sale, but we're officially on record as of this past Friday. However, the buyers' attorney refused to wire the funds (fine, I know some do not do this any longer), but they also would not mail a check to us (we've moved out of the country). They did not care that these were basically our only options. Fortunately, our own attorney had to step in and have the sales wired to her office and then wired to us, but this is resulting in a delay of funds being transferred to us.
Is this typical? Can an attorney simply refuse to pay the seller how they prefer to be paid, or be paid at all in this instance? We had a few other issues with their attorney's office, but maybe it's not worth it to even lodge a complain with the bar association or anything.
Refusal to wire or send a check
byu/LibrarianByNight inRealEstate
Posted by LibrarianByNight
5 Comments
Absolutely not typical, that is very bizarre. Attorneys are supposed to protect their clients, and by refusing to wire the money they could have tanked the deal. Report him.
Who doesn’t wire funds anymore?
Why did you sign over the title if you didn’t get the money?
Your attorney got you into this situation where you gave up a house and you don’t have the money.. it’s your attorney’s responsibility to make you whole.
If you were out of the country, maybe that set off internal red flag and they were being hyper aware of potential wire fraud. They should be smart enough to be able to complete the transaction without sending the funds somewhere incorrectly, but they were just taking an extra step to make your attorneys responsible to wiring funds to an overseas client.
How sellers get paid does seem to be getting messy. Your situation is a bit extreme, but what it has in common with some of my recent experiences is the last-minute surprise. Do these closing attorneys/lenders not realize they have to get the money to the seller at the end of it all?
They’ve been working on your file for 30-60 days, and they just now notified you about their payment policy? This should have been arranged in advance so you at least knew about it. I’ve had something similar happen 3 times now, in various ways.
Put it in the contract, problem solved.