Advice Please - Solicitor wants more money!

tbs624

Bubble16 wrote: »

My OH and I bought our house in March 07 ...........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.

No-one should ever ignore letters like these - it won't make the issue just go away.

Bubble16 wrote: »

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.

Any chance that you also “checked the maths” at the time, knew they had made an error but chose to keep quiet? What about if you had “checked the maths” and discovered that the solicitor had made an error in his or her own favour?

Bubble16 wrote: »

Secondly and slightly more importantly we don't have it.

so pay in instalments, as others have suggested

Bubble16 wrote: »

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!

All these things are part of house buying - big sums of money going in and out so check them.

Bubble16 wrote: »

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.

Poor advice IMO - I’ve yet to meet a solicitor who would be embarrassed to go to court on this sort of issue and you’ll run the risk of a CCJ which would be really useful if you ever need to renegotiate your mortgage funding.


It is undoubtedly some sloppy work on the part of the Conveyancer and the Legal Cashier so write to the Managing Partner or Practice Manager expressing your disappointment but offering to pay in regular instalments. Solicitors Accounts Rules are pretty stringent but this one is likely to be classed as an error, which will have come to light when the accounts were audited.

Bubble16

Thanks for all the advice people. Guess you have just confirmed what I already knew, my OH is a lot more bull headed than me and this will hopefully mean I don't have to listen to quite such a long rant - or probably not!

With regards to a few queries, the costs have been explained and they appear to have no record of billing us as they don't know how much the original surveying etc bill was for. They know how much it should have been but seem to think they sent us a bill for a different amount. On top of which the balance was paid after a phone call saying the balance, not a letter. Hindsight - yes should have expected a written bill, however what can I say, I was excited about getting a house and didn't expect there to be a problem. I could also have checked the figures myself but again its a solicitor, you kind of expect them to be right!

Pink Shoes, thankyou but I don't need comments on my financial competence, that wasn't what I asked for advice on, I am still paying my mortgage despite being out of work since April.

jayoh

Pink Shoes, thankyou but I don't need comments on my financial competence, that wasn't what I asked for advice on, I am still paying my mortgage despite being out of work since April.

Quite right, it amazes me how judgemental people can be on here sometimes - unfortunately some people don't have any money left for contingencies at the moment, as nice as that luxury would be!!!

Debt_Free_Chick

Bubble16 wrote: »

Pink Shoes, thankyou but I don't need comments on my financial competence, that wasn't what I asked for advice on, I am still paying my mortgage despite being out of work since April.

Although, I think there's a useful message in PS's post. You need to have an emergency fund for the things that "just go wrong" when you own your own property. A new washing machine would cost you £200+ and that's after you've paid for someone come out and tell you that your existing one is uneconomical to repair.

You should really have several hundred quid tucked away to pay for this stuff - the mortgage is only the start of your financial commitments

Smi1er

They say you owe them £175

You admit you owe them £175

And the problem is what?

Their mistake, yes, but it's your debt.

Write them a letter saying times are hard etc and offer £25 per month for seven months

GDB2222

Smi1er wrote: »

Write them a letter saying times are hard etc and offer £25 per month for seven months

I vote for £25 a month for 5 months, with a request to write the rest off as they are in financial difficulties. Solicitors, of course, may write back and say that they are in financial difficulties too.

pinkshoes

jayoh wrote: »

Quite right, it amazes me how judgemental people can be on here sometimes - unfortunately some people don't have any money left for contingencies at the moment, as nice as that luxury would be!!!

I wasn't being judgemental, I was pointing out the importance of a contingency fund, which should be a necessity and basic requirement in owning a house, and NOT a luxury.

If you can't even spare £200, then if you haven't already done so, coming up with a financial plan would be a pretty good idea. My only interest is preventing the OP from risk of reposession...

Richard_Webster

The kind of thing that can happen is that the solicitor prepares a statement with all the money in and out - SDLT, Land Registry Fees, Search Fees, their actual VAT invoice including minor searches like Land Registry and Bankruptcy - all the figures can be right and agreed but the adding up is wrong, so the bottom line amount asked for can be wrong simply through a calculation error. OP hasn't actually explained how the discrepancy arose, if he agrees that the money is owed, but I guess it may be something like that.

If the final figures closely follow the estimate originally sent by the solicitor then OP can't really complain and should pay, but I agree the solicitors have to accept some blame for (a) getting it wrong in the first place and (b) leaving it so long to ask for the money, so certainly they should accept instalments over a period.