Conveyancing solicitor asking for more money after the fact.
Discussion
Rovinghawk said:
blueg33 said:
Huge purchase of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Understanding even a little bit would be a good idea!
Or they could hire a professional......................But people think they can get this professionial advice aa knockdown price and still expect the lawyer to be some kind of psychic. They then come on PH and say how crap their solicitor was.
I admit that getting SDLT wrong is poor (unless its a lease which can be tricky), but there are genedral comments on here with people saying that all solicitors they have used are incompetant. Well the link that I see is the instruction.
I have done crap instructions when I have been in a hurry etc and generally those are the deals with legal issues that take longer to identify and resolves.
I am not satying this stuff out of any particular love of lawyers, but more from 30 years experience of instructing day in, day out on property deals, from single houses to huge sites.
Many years ago, I was an estate agent, and the deals that went best were the ones where the client communicated well with his/her solicitor, the ones that went badly were where the solicitor was in a communication vacuum
blueg33 said:
Huge purchase of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Understanding even a little bit would be a good idea!
A typical conveyancing solictor charging £1000 won't be thes best you can get, won't visit the property and probably doesn't know the area. It seems sensible to help him/her out by providing basic info.
Well, I am a lawyer. I could undertake all conveyancing myself. But I don't. What I do is pay someone who is an expert in that area so I can rely upon their advice. A typical conveyancing solictor charging £1000 won't be thes best you can get, won't visit the property and probably doesn't know the area. It seems sensible to help him/her out by providing basic info.
Jasandjules said:
blueg33 said:
Huge purchase of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Understanding even a little bit would be a good idea!
A typical conveyancing solictor charging £1000 won't be thes best you can get, won't visit the property and probably doesn't know the area. It seems sensible to help him/her out by providing basic info.
Well, I am a lawyer. I could undertake all conveyancing myself. But I don't. What I do is pay someone who is an expert in that area so I can rely upon their advice. A typical conveyancing solictor charging £1000 won't be thes best you can get, won't visit the property and probably doesn't know the area. It seems sensible to help him/her out by providing basic info.
Rovinghawk said:
blueg33 said:
Like many things you get what you pay for.
They claim they can do the job for which they're paid.A 2cv does the same job as a Rolls Royce (it takes you from a to b along a road), but you would expect a 2cv to do it as well. But if you had paid the same price as the rolls on a Bentley, you would expect it to do the job as well just with different nuances
blueg33 said:
Most solicitors are pretty honest in my experience
Probably true - but you do have to be careful. We had one pursue my wife for the cost of a consultation that was supposedly free.While she was having the consultation - they asked her to sign a blank piece of paper so they had a record of her signature "for future reference". The next thing we know - we get a bill off them for £x00.
When we argued that the consultation was supposed to be free - they provided "evidence" that we had agreed to the costs in the form of a photocopied agreement with her signature at the bottom (looks like they had cut her signature out and placed it at the bottom of an agreement - then photocopied it).
They took it all the way to county court - but pulled out of the case on the morning of the hearing - probably because they were unable to produce the document with her original wet signature on it (because it didn't exist).
ORD said:
So your son thinks the sols should make a loss on this transaction? He sounds like a real gent.
(a) they won't make a loss, they'll just make a lower hourly rate than they'd planned.(b) if (!) they won the business based on their quote, then that sounds like sharp practice to me. Low-balling part of the fee that they know the customer is legally obliged to cover?!?
havoc said:
(a) they won't make a loss, they'll just make a lower hourly rate than they'd planned.
(b) if (!) they won the business based on their quote, then that sounds like sharp practice to me. Low-balling part of the fee that they know the customer is legally obliged to cover?!?
(a) there's generally bugger all profit in conveyancing in the first place(b) if (!) they won the business based on their quote, then that sounds like sharp practice to me. Low-balling part of the fee that they know the customer is legally obliged to cover?!?
(b) I don't do conveyancing work but, as I understand it, it's generally quoted on the basis of a fee plus disbursements (e.g. SDLT and HMLR fees), with an indicative figure given for those likely disbursements.
The engagement letter wil almost certainly provide for a fixed fee for the solicitor's own costs plus payment of disbursements. Contractually, the OP's son likely hasn't got a leg to stand on. At best, it's a poor client relationship issue in the solicitor quoting the wrong fee.
Edited by Lurking Lawyer on Sunday 3rd August 22:48
havoc said:
ORD said:
So your son thinks the sols should make a loss on this transaction? He sounds like a real gent.
(a) they won't make a loss, they'll just make a lower hourly rate than they'd planned.(b) if (!) they won the business based on their quote, then that sounds like sharp practice to me. Low-balling part of the fee that they know the customer is legally obliged to cover?!?
(b) Classic PH. Obvious mistake by cheap and fairly low-skilled professionals becomes calculated fraud!
PurpleMoonlight said:
Lurking Lawyer said:
(a) there's generally bugger all profit in conveyancing in the first place
Really?£3250 plus VAT and disbs for a £185,000 commercial property (cash purchase).
Seems a nice little earner to me .....
I pay lawyers approx as follows on my deals:
Land/Property Acqusition £5000
Long lease with put and call options £6000
Development Funding £6000
Investment Exit £6000
Funders Lawyers £12,000
Construction lawyers £5000
Tax advice £2000
Plus disbursements like SDLT, land registry fees etc. attending meetings, site visits, postage, photocopying etc all included.
The property acqusition one is the main comparator to this thread. The fee is for a straight forward conditional or unconditional contract with a deteiled report on title and contract. The typical transaction takes 2 weeks, I expect the lawyer to attend land meetings every two weeks and to visit each site/property in person. I expect all contact with my team to be via a partner. I am not fussed who does the work in the background as long as its all partner reviewed.
If you pay £800 to a conveyancer, it strikes me as reasonable that you wont get that level of service.
PurpleMoonlight said:
Really?
£3250 plus VAT and disbs for a £185,000 commercial property (cash purchase).
Seems a nice little earner to me .....
But in the OP's case it was a straightforward residential purchase - there's no way you could charge a fee like that which you quote, or anywhere near it. It relies on volume of work to make a return. The margin on an individual matter is not substantial.£3250 plus VAT and disbs for a £185,000 commercial property (cash purchase).
Seems a nice little earner to me .....
Commercial property may well be different - as I said, property work is not what I do.
Jasandjules said:
blueg33 said:
If you repeatedly find you solicitors to be incompetant, I suggest you change the way you instruct them.
As a general rule the public know only that they wish to sell the house they are in and buy the next one. They rely wholly upon the expertise of the lawyer from that point on and that is what they are paying the fees for.That said, SDLT on a residential property isn't exactly a state secret - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/rates-tables.htm
So there really isn't any excuse for not bothering to check what you are liable for. SDLT is a Tax.
Therefore the purchaser is liable for it. So, as it not a fee, there is no recourse. Unless the the terms of engagement say otherwise (highly unlikely imo).
Jasandjules said:
blueg33 said:
If you repeatedly find you solicitors to be incompetant, I suggest you change the way you instruct them.
As a general rule the public know only that they wish to sell the house they are in and buy the next one. They rely wholly upon the expertise of the lawyer from that point on and that is what they are paying the fees for.I would love to tell you that I and my secretary are 100% perfect but sadly there can be the odd exception that proves the rule. 99% of the time it is down to a client changing their mind over something at the last minute (like asking for funds to be sent by TT (£18 disbursement) rather than cheque or for the funds to be sent to two, not one, account(s) ). Sometimes there can be an extra search of a few quid.
How do I deal with it? Honestly? If less than £20 I tend to suck it up, £50 I look at it and the Client and decide based on how things have gone and what the client is like. Almost always though they will get a call from me before they get an e-mail/letter about it as people respond much better that way.
Once, and only once in 12+ years, I have made a 'big' mistake (like £5kish) This was as a result of the Client choosing at the last second to split their sale and purchase and as we had already used the deposit on the sale for the purchase we were going to be the £5k light on redemption of the charge on completion for the 18 days between the two. The Client knew we need the money to complete the purchase as per the Completion Statements and was asked over the phone to send the £5k early (ie on the completion of the sale) but 'forgot' about the phone call. Bit of an uncomfortable ride for a few days and the Firm ended up footing the £100 or so extra interest charges on the mortgage but lesson learnt and never to be repeated.
Just to add:-
You tend to have to provide draft completion statements to clients before exchange these days to give them time to pull funds together. At least once a month something goes a little off track requiring extra hours and work from me to sort out. I hardly ever revise the fee on the draft completion statement to reflect this as I take it as being part of the occupational hazards.
We also do Client Satisfaction Surveys. Almost all of my clients return theirs and I've yet to have anything worse than "satisfied" - I call them happy sheets as they remind me why I do this job.
Even the best professionals in the World make mistakes and my experience on both sides of the fence is that it isn't so much if a mistake has been made that is an issue but how it is dealt with. I expect that the OP's son would feel a lot different if he had had a phone call from the solicitor first.
You tend to have to provide draft completion statements to clients before exchange these days to give them time to pull funds together. At least once a month something goes a little off track requiring extra hours and work from me to sort out. I hardly ever revise the fee on the draft completion statement to reflect this as I take it as being part of the occupational hazards.
We also do Client Satisfaction Surveys. Almost all of my clients return theirs and I've yet to have anything worse than "satisfied" - I call them happy sheets as they remind me why I do this job.
Even the best professionals in the World make mistakes and my experience on both sides of the fence is that it isn't so much if a mistake has been made that is an issue but how it is dealt with. I expect that the OP's son would feel a lot different if he had had a phone call from the solicitor first.
You are right, he would have, but a call was not made... just a letter, no apology, just a request for payment.
The issue is surrounding the LR fee, and it appears they simply got it wrong.
Since they have asked for the difference, he feels somewhat coerced to pay.
OK, one could argue that it was a genuine mistake, but since nothing had changed in respect to the conveyance itself from the beginning, I am inclined to agree with his hesitation. I for one would never go for a second bite cos I made a genuine mistake, it just pees off the client, and he won't use me again!
There has been a lot of talk about the morality in this, but originally what I wanted to know was his actual legal position, in that he was presented with a full and final bill, that bill (which included all disbursements)was settled, then the conveyancer is coming back for more two weeks later to cover their mistake...
So what is it? Is the conveyancer on a sticky wicket? Is the quote and invoice not a contract?
Whatever son chooses to do, I am very interested in the legal position.
The issue is surrounding the LR fee, and it appears they simply got it wrong.
Since they have asked for the difference, he feels somewhat coerced to pay.
OK, one could argue that it was a genuine mistake, but since nothing had changed in respect to the conveyance itself from the beginning, I am inclined to agree with his hesitation. I for one would never go for a second bite cos I made a genuine mistake, it just pees off the client, and he won't use me again!
There has been a lot of talk about the morality in this, but originally what I wanted to know was his actual legal position, in that he was presented with a full and final bill, that bill (which included all disbursements)was settled, then the conveyancer is coming back for more two weeks later to cover their mistake...
So what is it? Is the conveyancer on a sticky wicket? Is the quote and invoice not a contract?
Whatever son chooses to do, I am very interested in the legal position.
As I have not seen the Client Care and ToB he will have had I can't comment on this matter specifically.
If it were from my Firm he'd ultimately have one less leg to stand on than Heather Mills.
BUT there is a whole heap of interconnecting factors that may mean that the 'real world' answer is different to the legal answer.
As this is a disbursement that they have made on his behalf I would suggest that he should be paying up, but you knew I'd say that
If it were from my Firm he'd ultimately have one less leg to stand on than Heather Mills.
BUT there is a whole heap of interconnecting factors that may mean that the 'real world' answer is different to the legal answer.
As this is a disbursement that they have made on his behalf I would suggest that he should be paying up, but you knew I'd say that
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff