Advice Please - Solicitor wants more money!

Bubble16

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. My OH and I bought our house in March 07 and were happily enjoying being on the housing ladder. Then we received a letter from the solicitor we used when purchasing the house saying oops, we screwed up with your bill, you owe us an additional 175 we look forward to receiving it thankyou. Possibly not the best course of action on our part but apart from a phone call my OH made saying what are you talking about we ignored it, and the subsequent letter in May. We have now received a letter saying pay up or we will start action against you and charge you interest. Now I have checked the maths and they are right, they did screw up however I paid everything they asked in good faith so I object to them now demanding more money. Secondly and slightly more importantly we don't have it. The only part I don't mind paying is 25 which got added on as we didn't use Bristol and West for our housing insurance so they deducted 25 from the money they lent us. That I appreciate was our fault although I didn't know they had done it! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Only advice I have had so far is to send a letter saying see you in court (where you can explain your amazing accounting and lack of ownership of a calculator) in the hope they would be too embarassed to actually do this. Thankyou all.

markelock

offer them the money in instalments. if you owe it (and you seem to believe you do), then you should probably pay it.

then forget about it, in the grand scheme of things £175 isn't something you should let bother you too much.

Doozergirl

I agree. You do owe it so you'll have to offer them installments. It doesn't matter that they've made a mistake, I'm afraid.

Cat695

surely there is only a certain amount of time someone can come after you for money like that?? though i would be guessing it'll be alot longer than a year

Debt_Free_Chick

Cat695 wrote: »

surely there is only a certain amount of time someone can come after you for money like that?? though i would be guessing it'll be alot longer than a year

Six years :eek:

Cat695

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Six years :eek:

Jesus.....looks like shes paying

neverdespairgirl

Cat695 wrote: »

surely there is only a certain amount of time someone can come after you for money like that?? though i would be guessing it'll be alot longer than a year

FOr most debts, the limitation period is 6 years.

poppysarah

This isn't a debt though is it. It's a mistake by a firm of solicitors who've neglected their very important task of correctly administering the sale /purchase of a house.

Do they specifiy what its for, and was that included in the original t&c from them and the list of fees they wanted.

TBH They are being very cheeky. Check through all the paperwork you've had off them.

I know people are saying it's only 175 but it's been absolutely months.

I would ask them at the very least to specify what exactly has happened. ask them to confirm that all the house sale has been confirmed and then go and see a legal form for half an hours free advice.

If they'd asked within three months I'd say just pay it - but it's well over a year.

Somewhere you might have had a final bill off them - they can't keep coming back at you for more money.

But seek indy legal advice before telling them a straight no.

Debt_Free_Chick

poppysarah wrote: »

This isn't a debt though is it. It's a mistake by a firm of solicitors who've neglected their very important task of correctly administering the sale /purchase of a house.

Whilst I agree with the remainder of your post, if this does turn out to be a properly incurred charge, then it will be a debt i.e. money duly owed, but not paid.

Mistakes are just that - a mistake doesn't result in the amount owed being written off. In law, it's still owed

they can't keep coming back at you for more money.

Problem is, they can - if the amounts are owed, they have six years to come back and ask for payment.

This is why it's often recommended that you keep paperwork for six years

poppysarah

They can't keep coming at you demanding money after sending you a final bill though.

They might physically be able to do it but if they take you to court the judge will want them to show that they have been competant in requesting money in an appropriately timely manner.

It is appalling that legal companies make threats like this - just because they know the law and can quickly get paperwork filled in.

As before, the OP should take proper legal advice about proceding in order to completely ensure that the debt is finalised once and for all.

Neillgb

You have admitted you owe the money. Pay it. Look on it as an interest free loan.

In view of the delay it would be reasonable to ask to pay in reasonable installments.

If you don't pay they may well 'see you in court' where based on what you have said they will win and you will have additional fees and interest to pay. You will also have a nice CCJ on your credit file.