Guidelines on Postal Settlement 2001
In the settlement of conveyancing transactions, should the practice be discouraged whereby the seller’s solicitor only sends the Disposition and other titles to the purchaser’s solicitor on or after the day of settlement, whereby the purchaser’s can only be sure that a validly executed Disposition has been placed in his hands after his settlement cheque has been encashed, by which point he has lost of his clients and/or his clients’ lender’s money? Is the former practice of exchanging cheque and Disposition and titles on the day of settlement itself not safer, and better risk management?
The Conveyancing Committee agrees. Although the mechanics of settlement are something which ought to be the matter of agreement between the solicitors, the Committee feels that, where postal settlement is envisaged, the preferable course of action, wherever possible, is that the seller’s Solicitor should send the executed deed and deliverable title deeds contemporaneously with the purchaser’s solicitor sending the settlement cheque, each to be held by the receiving party as undelivered pending
performance by the other side, to be confirmed by an exchange of communications (telephone, fax or e-mail) on the settlement date itself. The Committee would encourage all practitioners to adopt this practice.
