Bought a property a few years ago, the management company ran its invoices one year in arrears so my solicitor secured a deposit from the seller to cover these, with the intention of returning the remainder to the seller once the invoices were up to date from when we purchased to property.
A few months ago I received a letter from my solicitor with a cheque in it basically saying: we have spent X many years trying to return remaining balance to the seller through their solicitor and we haven’t heard anything back. We have even sent them a cheque a year ago and it wasn’t cached so we are going to release the funds to you.
The value of the cheque is in the hundreds, so not an insignificant amount of money. Especially when energy bills are going up the way they are. I have contacted the estate agent to see if they have a contact number for the seller to see if they can put us in touch and I can transfer the money to them but have heard nothing back. I don’t know their name so can’t look them up and the estate agent can’t tell me due to GDPR
Ultimately it is their money, they deserve to have it back. But also, how long/far is it reasonable to pursue getting it back to them before giving up. I don’t want to finally give up, accept it as an unexpected windfall and spend it (probably on the mortgage) only to then contacted by them afterwards.
3 comments
I would assume the solicitors giving up would mean it’s yours now.
Electoral roll for the year preceding your purchase?; [Info-record.com](https://Info-record.com) (lists who has lived at your address?); No neighbours or local tradesmen remember their name? It’s their money. I’d find them.
Can the estate agent not contact them themselves?