Banks changing settlement date

[Procon]

A bank should not have the ability to change the settlement date for the simple reason they are not a party to the contract. I don't know why they were given that authority to begin with. 

I have experienced this happening a number of times. The first was when they decided they didn't have enough "capacity" to settle on that date and simply changed the date to a week later. 

The second, occurred tonight. I have a settlement acting as purchaser due at 11am tomorrow morning. At 5:50pm, the bank decided to simply "push" the settlement back 5 business days because they "are still waiting for DA". This is despite the checkbox being ticked - Discharge Authority received and checked AND the Discharge of Mortgage being signed. My client is expecting to move in tomorrow. The banks need to be held accountable. They clearly fail to remember there are real people involved which their actions directly affect.

If the bank is not ready for whatever reason, then they simply do not sign off on the settlement. They should not be given the right to change the date which causes a lot of additional work to get it back in the same ready state. Especially now that i will have to wait until tomorrow morning to try getting in contact with my bank to re-accept the original settlement date. A lot of waiting on hold on the phone for no reason and taking away from other priority matters I should be dealing with!

[Paulapexa]

I’ve experienced this also.

Banks can have access to change whatever they want whenever they want and it’s causing huge issues for conveyancers!

i feel like the complaints are falling on deaf ears. The banks own Pexa - they are not going to be held accountable and will not do anything to help because to them “their parts done”!

[TheDoctor]

Hi,

We have a policy of not changing settlement dates for transfer workspaces.

We prefer to advise the relevant Participants why we are not ready to settle and, where possible, an expected timeframe for when we will be ready.

We try not to change the date ourselves but provide enough information to allow the Practitioners to assess the date themselves.

Unfortunately, there are also some Practitioners who have expressed the desire not to be advised WHY we are not ready, just THAT we are not ready.

This leaves us in a position where we cannot have a meaningful dialogue with those Practitioners.

Though we would still not change the settlement date, the settlement may roll out and unbook, with the Practitioner none the wiser as to why.

In those instances, we will usually re-book the settlement for a day when we expect to be ready.

[Bre]

Hi PEXA.

Any response?

I have just had this happen again by a very arrogant file handler of a lender's representative claiming "I provide the funds, I can do whatever I want because I'm funding the matter" and claiming it has no affect on the contract, saying he does it all the time. He then said he uses it as a way to get something happening because he has lists which he has to report on at the end of each day and couldn't see that anything was being worked on. These lenders are not dealing in the contract. They are merely providing the funds. They cannot have access to alter settlement dates. That is a matter between the Vendor and Purchaser only.

[SCTHornsby]

We recently had a particular bank re-re-schedule settlement after re-scheduling original settlement date by about 10 days  They wanted another week!  We went in and amended it to the following day noting that they had had sufficient time to be ready and they were the party who had re-schedule, in the first place.

We also reminder them that our client would be seeking any additional costs and interest from them if it did not settle.

The matter did settle the following day to everyone's satisfaction but it makes you wonder why they needed to re-re-scheduled for another week!