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I suspect this will go to appeal, and possibly by ACC on the basis of what, admittedly without access to any of the relevant documentation, appears potentially to have been a fundamental error in the procedure between the solicitors for the parties. The Trial Judge (see for example paragraph 41 of the Judgement), relies, as I believe he is entitled to do, on the common ground between the parties; and ultimately in which the solicitors acting for neither party appear to come up smelling of roses.

None of us has the benefit of the correspondence files of either solicitors, but the general rule is that if purchase monies are paid over to Seller’s solicitors in advance of completion, they are transferred on the basis that they are held strictly to the Buyer’s solicitors’ order. It follows that if the Buyer’s solicitors fail to stipulate such a condition, and obtain agreement to it, then it seems to me they do so at their peril.

There is however an implied assumption from the Trial Judge’s comments in paragraph 41 of the Judgement that this is what happened, which I derive from his use of the words “as is common ground”, as it seems to me it would otherwise be a quantum leap to establish that ACC would have held the purchase monies on trust for the buyer as beneficiary. The fact remains that they should not have transferred it onward to their Seller client, let alone out of the jurisdiction, prior to completion in any event, unless with specific prior agreement from the Buyer’s solicitors to do so. Conversely, if they had that specific prior agreement, then it seems to me that any duty they might have had as trustees was discharged at that point, the Seller then holding the Property on trust for the Buyer, assuming of course that he could do so, which of course in this case he could not.

The various other posts do raise some interesting points. For example, there is certainly an argument for removing the requirement for PI insurance from the conveyancing transaction; wow, wouldn’t that wake up Partners to the true risks of conveyancing, the need to ensure that only staff of appropriate competence and experience deal with these transactions, and that they are commissioned at an appropriate fee level, as opposed to the nonsense fee levels at the lower end of the scale presently, leading to inevitable corner cutting. Sadly this simply harks back to the days of solicitors’ monopoly position in conveyancing, and scale fees, and the prospects for reverting to that regime must be remote in the extreme. However, anecdotal evidence does suggest that the level of insurance claims arising out of French property transactions is a fraction of those in this Country, and anyone engaged in French property transactions will know full well the level of legal costs involved.