Family left without home for Christmas
RENTAL NOTICE GIVEN THEN IT FAILURE LEADS TO CHAIN COLLAPSE
A NOTTINGHAM family are set to be homeless this Christmas after an IT outage at a conveyancing firm led to their house-buying chain collapsing.
Katrina Crowson, along with her husband and one-year-old son, will be without a place to live from Monday, November 29, after a cyber security breach at Premier Property Lawyers (PPL) delayed their purchase of a house in Newark.
The Colwick family were set to complete the purchase on November 12, however were told on Tuesday, November 23, that the sellers above her in the chain had pulled out due to the wait.
“We’re basically going to have nowhere to go - we have nothing,” said Ms Crowson, who told the Post the family had already put in notice for their current rental property.
The 38-year-old social care worker said they have still not received their deposit back and have no friends and family to live with. She added that it was “too short notice” to rent another place.
“As it stands we have no money so we are really in a bad situation,” she added.
“Okay we might find a hostel or a night shelter but it’s not a place for a child to spend their first conscious Christmas. Me and my son can apply for shelter through Women’s Aid but my husband’s not going to be allowed there - he will be sleeping in the car.
“What they did was break up our family, so close to Christmas. It should be a special time, our son is one-year-old, last year he was a baby but this year round he understands Christmas trees and all of that.
“Dreams and plans of owning our own home have been taken away from us through no fault of our own.”
Ms Crowson is just one example of the human cost of the IT issues at Enderby-based PPL, who are the inhouse law firm of Myhomemove.
Cases of prospective house-buyers suffering delays in their transactions have been reported across the country this month.
“There’s lots of people being left in total devastation just before Christmas,” continued Ms Crowson.
She also said that she felt as if she was being “strung along” by the estate agents, William H Brown.
William H Brown said it was offering advice to Ms Crowson and “urgently” finding alternative accommodation for the family.
A spokesperson said: “We’re very sympathetic to Ms Crowson, her family and all those affected by the IT outage at Premier Property Lawyers.
“Our William H Brown team is in regular contact with Ms Crowson to provide any assistance in finding a solution.
“This includes offering advice on her current tenancy (not with William H Brown) and urgently finding alternative accommodation.”
A spokesperson for Premier Property Lawyers said: “We understand the uncertainty and disruption that our clients, and others in chains with our clients, like Ms Crowson, may have experienced over the past couple of weeks due the challenges faced by Premier Property Lawyers.
“We have been in frequent contact with the estate agents we work with and have let them know that following intensive, non-stop work, we have the majority of conveyancers back up and running on core systems, and have been actively working on cases, completing already exchanged transactions and exchanging contracts on files that are ready to exchange and complete.
“Despite Premier Property Lawyers and our client being ready and willing to exchange contracts earlier this week, issues higher up the chain meant that unfortunately the chain could not proceed to exchange.
“Accordingly, we would not recommend any buyer give notice on a rental property before exchanging contracts on their purchase unless they have alternative arrangements should there be a delay or one party in chain decides not to proceed to exchange contracts.”