Final utility bills when selling a house

Hi, just looking for some advice, not sure whether the advice given by our solicitor is correct?

We paid all bills rendered prior to the day we completed the sale of our house, which we provided evidence of to our solicitor.

We gave meter readings for gas, water and electricity to our solicitor on the day of completion.
Our solicitor then cancelled all direct debits to those utility companies and closed our Spanish bank account. She said the buyers retained €€€ from the purchase price to settle any outstanding accounts.

We are now receiving reminders from the said utilities, chasing payment. In total the amount owing is less than a third of the monies retained by the buyers.

We've informed our solicitor of the problem, but worried we'll have a black mark against us for non payment, yet the buyers have retained monies to pay these bills?

We can't see that we should pay, as the buyers have kept back monies. If we do pay the closing bills, what was the point of monies being retained, and how can we reclaim the retained monies?

All very confusing!
Thanks for any insights.

It's not the buyer that retains this money but the buyer's solicitor.

The buyer has to nudge their solicitor to pay these bills as they become due, otherwise the solicitor will retain the money. It was quicker for us in this situation just to pay the bills, IBI, basura etc and claim these back from the solicitor with receipts. I would be chasing your solicitor for the return of the retained money, minus any spend with receipts.

Edit I should mention that we were the buyers and that the bills had been moved into our name by our solicitor.

Thank you Paul58, We have emailed our Solicitor...again....

We haven't any contact details for our buyers, and we're now back in the UK. To be fair to them, they may not be aware of the outstanding bills-as the utility companies are sending the bills electronically to us still in our names.

Because of the money retention, we thought the utility accounts would be put immediately into the buyers names, and the retained monies would offset the portion on their bill which related to our liability.

Things will resolve themselves in time - hopefully!