Image source, Alice Fenton
Image caption, Alice Fenton and her family have been unable to complete their property purchase
By Michael Race
Business reporter, BBC News
Alice Fenton is one of many homebuyers currently in limbo as a result of a company which provides IT services to law firms being hit by a cyber-attack.
Her family was set to complete the purchase of a home, but were told by their solicitors documents were "inaccessible" due to the incident.
The firm, CTS, was first hit by the problem last week, but has not revealed its scale.
An email seen by the BBC suggests up to 200 law firms have been affected.
Ms Fenton said her solicitors informed her on Monday that the firm had been affected by the impact of the cyber-attack on CTS, meaning her family are unable to currently complete the purchase of a property in south east London.
The 35-year-old said her main concern was the fact her mortgage offer is set to expire on 11 December.
"If we don't complete before 11 December our mortgage interest rate will jump from 3% to more than 5% which would cost us hundreds of pounds more a month," she said.
Generally, on property completion day, the buyer's solicitor arranges for money to be transferred to the seller's solicitor. A failure to complete is technically a breach of contract.
The problem at CTS is having a knock-on effect on the firms involved in property completions.
Cyber-attack leaves home sales in limbo
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, some buyers complained they had been given limited information from CTS and no updates on when the problem would be resolved.
CTS last posted an update on its website, and on X, on Friday, saying the outage was caused by a "cyber-incident" and that it was working with a "leading global cyber forensics firm to help us with an urgent investigation into the incident and to assist us in service restoration".
It said it was "unable to give a precise timeline for full restoration" of its services and has given no detail on the scale of the problem and whether people impacted will be compensated.
On Monday, the property law regulator, the CLC, confirmed there was disruption to some transactions, but it has since said none of its 220 members are directly affected.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority, which also regulates law firms that carry out conveyancing, said it was monitoring the situation. It is understood at this point the impact on its members is minimal.
'No timescale'
Meanwhile, customers appear to remain in the dark over whether their property purchases can be completed on time.
Mrs Fenton said her solicitor was "very apologetic" but "wouldn't tell me a timescale they were working towards to fix the issue".
"Any delay also costs us money because it's more time in our rental, which is more expensive than our monthly mortgage payments will be," she added.
Additional reporting by Emma Pengelly
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Cyber-attack leaves home sales in limbo
Published
3 days ago