Challenge Solicitors Fees?

KILL_BILL

they should have gievn details of their chargeable rate at the begining of the matter and on your bill it should state how much time has been done

eg

6 phones calls at *** per hour to client

4 letters to client at *** per letter

time spent reviewing file at *** per chargeable hour


etc etc etc

JoannaA_2

If you never had a letter or terms and conditions setting out his charging rates then just write asking him to obtain a remuneration certificate and say that as you had no rule 15 letter or terms and conditions you are considering making a complaint. I would suggest that for obtaining probate a fair fee would be about £300 plus Vat- so offer that, and say that if he accepts that then you will not need a remunerationcertificate. I think he will accept that. Otherwise, if he does not, you should continue with both the request for a remuneration certificate and the complaint , but you will have to pay half the bill and all the vat before the remuneration certificate can be obtained.

maggiebee48

Fantastic news that they have halved the bill. Well done!!!

Now I have a query. A friend has a problem with the abuse of a right of way accross her garden. Basically, her upstairs neighbour (entitled to use the right of way as access to her garden) has taken out a fence panel to her daughter's garden which runs adjacent to her garden and now everyone in the daughter's house is coming up and down the right of way through my friend's garden. Kids are running through when she is trying to sit quietly and read a book.
Is there any way that this can be resolved at a reasonable cost, please? The neighbour won't listen to reason and is calling the route a 'family right of way' but I'm sure she wouldn't allow access through her part of the garden if a stranger lived in the adjacent house!
A local solicitor has quoted £165 plus vat per hour to take this on. Is this a reasonable fee and how many hours do you think this might take? Is there any way we can lessen the fee, perhaps by providing the deeds to the maisonette etc?
Help desperatly needed-my friend is going mad!

Thanks,
Maggie

kazzah

when my mother died my sister and I went to the solicitor who had drawn up the will to get him to administer the estate for us- all was going fine until he told us that he charged 2% of the total value of the estate including her house as his fee!

we completed all the work ourselves- all banks were happy to accept death certificates and copies of the will as proof we were entitled to act as excutors and saved ourselves a considerable amount of money!
my mother would have been outraged at his charging us 2% - I'm sure she would have come back and haunted us!

when my MIL died- she had no property and a small estate and we didn't even bother to consult a solicitor we simply administered it ourselves as my hubby was the sole beneficiary

I think sometimes they take the micky a bit with their costs!

maggiebee48

Yes, most small estates can be done quite easily. I did my dad's over 20 years ago and my husband did his father's without help. They are very kind at the probate office, too. It's amazing how much help is about to guide you through. The dss do a booklet 'what to do after a death' or something similar and it has lots of good info in it.
Banks and solicitors do charge an awful lot and it's mainly basic admin work that a clerk could do.
I'm sure there are the odd estates with complications, but 'mr average' should be trouble free.

Maggie