What can she do?
Discussion
This may have been done to death so just point me at the threads if you know.
One of my staff is in the process of buying her first house. She was quoted £1000 for conveyencing by a solictor who was recommended to her by a friend.As a purchase its been very straight forward,a few bells an whistles to sort out but nothing exceptional.
The Solicitor now wants to charge her £2,800.
She has asked him for a written brekdown of the work to explain the difference which he will not give her despite several requests.He did give her a very brief verbal justification on the phone but no detail.
He is also extreemly patronising to her on the phone e.g. " But XXX at least you'll be happy in your new home." etc.
She needs to complete in two weeks time and is worried he will use this as leverage.
PH being a broad church is there anyone out there who can give her any advise?
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Wednesday 2nd November 16:13
One of my staff is in the process of buying her first house. She was quoted £1000 for conveyencing by a solictor who was recommended to her by a friend.As a purchase its been very straight forward,a few bells an whistles to sort out but nothing exceptional.
The Solicitor now wants to charge her £2,800.
She has asked him for a written brekdown of the work to explain the difference which he will not give her despite several requests.He did give her a very brief verbal justification on the phone but no detail.
He is also extreemly patronising to her on the phone e.g. " But XXX at least you'll be happy in your new home." etc.
She needs to complete in two weeks time and is worried he will use this as leverage.
PH being a broad church is there anyone out there who can give her any advise?
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Wednesday 2nd November 16:13
i'm going through the same process at the moment, and i am shocked that they can charge extra (and such a huge difference). surely, any expenses have to be detailed in a written quote? - this all sounds a bit dodgy. my solicitor has itemised every single item. also, was she quoted for both 'buying' and 'selling' in a chain? - even then i would expect £1500 tops. there are plenty of lawyers on PH anyway...
and it's a heavily regulated industry.
Davel said:
Ask for a written breakdown of the proposed fee plus an explanation of the variation so that she can evaluate the difference and take further advice if she need it.
Tell her to put it all in writing so that she can vist CAB for advice if necessary.
Forget CAB. Law Soc is the badboy to use here.
sideways mostly said:
the initial quotation was verbal I beleive
Strictly speaking it's word against word, but as Harry says if she sends him a letter explaining that if he fails to provide a detailed breakdown of the fee and explain why it deviates from the intial quote, that she will take matters to the Law Society that might get the weasel to behave himself.
Harry Flashman said:
Ask for a written breakdown of the proposed fee plus an explanation of the variation so that she can evaluate the difference and take further advice if she need it.
Tell her to put it all in writing so that she can vist CAB for advice if necessary.
Forget CAB. Law Soc is the badboy to use here.
Do what Flashman advises. Ring the Law Society and let them know of your problem. They can slap him on the wrist or even bar him from practicing if they find against him. The rules for quoting are quite clear and were put in place just to stop this kind of thing happening.
pp
jonnie5 said:
The bill doens't include the stamp duty does it?
Worth checking, actually - doh, I didn't think of that. My solicitor (yes, I used one - we corporate lawyers know nothing about property*) included this in her bill, so total bill was q lot more than just her fees and other disbursements. So ask before getting shirty.
* in fact we know nothing about anything.
When I moved last year I got a detailed letter from the Solicitor telling me what fees I would have to pay and when. The searches etc were billed seperately during the ongoing process. As it happened the first house I was going for fell through so she did a lot of extra work, and did searches twice. We paid the searches again and at the end of the process she billed us for the abortive first purchase. However her abortive fees were very reasonable. Certainly nothing like the excess quoted in this case.
However if it includes stamp duty, searches cost etc that might explain it.
However if it includes stamp duty, searches cost etc that might explain it.
I'm not a solicitor, but it really annoys me that the people who do the actual work in the conveyancing process (i.e. the solicitor) get, say £300 for an typical job yet the Estate Agent does relatively little (and pretty much nothing involving any skill) and gets a %age of the sale price. Even worse, the flipping government gets a potentially large %age of the sale price for doing precicesly nothing. The whole structure is arse about face.
Gassing Station | The Pie & Piston Archive | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff