Next week’s unexpected bank holiday for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s State Funeral on Monday 19 September is set to cause chaos for home buyers and sellers and movers across the UK.

The Government said at the weekend that a national bank holiday would ‘allow individuals, businesses and other organisations to pay their respects to Her Majesty and commemorate Her reign, while marking the final day of the period of national mourning’.

The bank holiday will operate in the same way as other bank holidays, and while there is no statutory entitlement to time off, most employers are expected to follow their normal bank holiday processes.

COMPLETIONS

But with hundreds of completions taking place each day any set for Monday will come unstuck.

Agents and conveyancers throughout the UK were desperately trying to move completion dates yesterday.

If the banks are closed, how can we complete?”

Taking to Twitter The Secret Conveyancer (@the_conveyancer) posted: “So the 19th is a bank holiday, but, you ask, what if contracts have exchanged, with a legally binding completion date of the 19th? If the banks are closed, how can we complete? Speaking with a couple of decades experience let me give you my considered advice: I have no clue”.

But it appears it would only be in the most extreme circumstances that a sale would collapse completely.

BANKING ACT

Under Section 1(4), Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 when an unexpected bank holiday happens its legally acceptable to switch dates.

The act says that dates in completion contracts can be amended to state “a day declared by an order under section 2 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 to be a non-business day.”

John Ahmed, chief executive of conveyancing panel manager Movin Legal, told The Neg: “Fortunately this will simply be a case of people talking to each other and it would be an extremely exceptional circumstance for a sale to fall through. I feel sorry for those with removals booked but this is truly an exceptional circumstance.”