Warning - do not use wolstenholmes solicitors

homelessmat

I was told yesterday by my new solicitors that DWF had told them that I needed to fill in an application to the Compensation fund to get my £xx,000 refunded (no mention of my mortgage companies £xxx,000). I suppose it goes without saying that I did it immediately and faxed it over to the SRA and my new solicitors. Got me wondering how many more hoops we need to jump through, and that is even without my file being located.
http:// www. sra. org. uk/consumers/problems/solicitor-owes-money.page
You might want to enquire as to whether you need to do the same.

Brahan_seer_3

Simply_Me wrote: »

The power of this forum I assume...Abbey or rather Santander have decided to honour my mortgage at the same rate as I had previously been given, yippee!!

What a day I've had..my compensation file has been allocated to a caseworker and is being given top priority given the amount of money involved and my circumstances. So hopefully will hear about the release of my money soon.

But get this DWF sent me a letter containing an authorisation form to have my file released as they had managed to locate my file, menawhile new solicitors write to me stating that I had previously instructed DWF and before they passed the file over they wanted their fees settled. Well you can imagine...I called new solcitors to ask what they were on about as no one had mentioned anything about fees previously and anyway I didn't instruct DWF they were instructed by the SRA as intervening agents. So I called DWF who said it was standard procedure to ask new solicitors for an undertaking to honour any outstanding fees owed to Wolstenholmes. Oh my God talk about adding salt to injury no one absolutely no one can tell me where my £41k is, I have been without this money for almost 1 calendar month now, not sleeping, not eating, soon to be homeless and they want an undertaking about fees owed to Wolstenholmes. You can imagine my rage. DWF explained that the SRA instructed them to request this and new solicitors are not obliged to give such an undertaking I said good because they wouldn't be giving it nor would I be authorising them to give it. I asked DWF and SRA to have a bit of sensitivity and if they persisted in this policy then they would have more calls from more iritated people. They also were not prepared to give me an undertaking as to when I might have my £41k back, funny that!

So anyone who is asked or their solicitors are asked to give an undertaking to recover any fees owed to Wolstenholmes (and that's assuming Wolstenholmes did any work) say NO! You are not obliged to give or authorise such an undertaking.

The SRA did say that they were going to make things clearer to all involved in respect of the undertaking. But why do we need to keep explaining that this is an unprecedented situation and a copy and paste job is not sufficient, there needs to be some sensitivity in handling people who are already on the verge of a mental breakdown.

If a client sacks a solicitor half way through a job then the first solicitor will usually want paying before he releases his file to the next solicitor, or at the very least to receive an undertaking from the second solicitor for his costs. No solicitor will give an uqualified undertaking for costs. Before giving any undertaking he will want to know what the costs are likely to be or for there to be a cap on the amount which he is beeing asked to undertake to pay. He will also want his client to put him in funds before giving the required undertaking.

That said we are not here dealing with a normal situation. As you rightly say the Wolstenholmes debacle is unprecedented. There has to be a degree of common sense. I don't think anyone whose conveyancing matter has not been fully completed already should be asked to pay for any work which may or may not have been undertaken by Wolstenholmes.
Hopefully the SRA will make the position clear not only to the public at large but also to DWF. Wolstenholmes had after all already ceased trading before the SRA intervened.

hils

Just an enquiry, My mums apartment was sold recently (14/12/09) and Wolstenhome completed the conveyancing. We recieved the funds but it appears that the estate agents have not received their fees , although in the completion statement these have been deducted...

Who is responsible for claiming for the fees, should it be the estate agent or myself.....


What should I be doing to trace this matter...

Many thanks Hils

Brahan_seer_3

hils wrote: »

Just an enquiry, My mums apartment was sold recently (14/12/09) and Wolstenhome completed the conveyancing. We recieved the funds but it appears that the estate agents have not received their fees , although in the completion statement these have been deducted...

Who is responsible for claiming for the fees, should it be the estate agent or myself.....


What should I be doing to trace this matter...

Many thanks Hils

You are responsible for paying the fees. The monie are probably still held in Wolstenholmes frozen client account. The agent is probaly aware of the Wolstenholmes situation and is likely to be patient. Contact DWF in the first instance.

Mike_Teas

Latest news from the Law Society can be found at http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/sra-makes-3m-payment-help-clients-wolstenholmes

mjmal51

From the link above
"The managing partner denied any wrongdoing and it is understood that at least one of the solicitors involved is contesting the intervention."
Unbelieveable!

"An SRA spokesman said: ‘We are acutely aware of the inconvenience that has inevitably been caused to clients by closing this firm down."
Would have been an awful lot less inconvenience if the SRA had acted a lot earlier and a lot more if they had continued not to act.

Simply_Me_2

More of the professions money wasted on these waste of spacers who call themselves solicitors.

Mr Ilyas my advice to you and your firm is save your money as you will need it to pay me and all the others back.

Your action against the SRA for intervening will not succeed when you have so many people left penniless and homeless and of course my matter was to be completed before any intervention of the SRA.

Let's remind ourselves of timescales. SRA intervened 24 and 27 December, accounts frozen 23 December. My money depositied into your account 17 December, my completion 22 December. So any opportunity you and your colleagues had to either refund my money or complete my transaction which you did not do had nothing to do with the SRA AT ALL.

Oh yes and another thing staff redundancies were also made before any intervention took place so I wouldn't bother wasting anyone's time by disputing the intervention.

Brahan_seer_3

Simply_Me wrote: »

More of the professions money wasted on these waste of spacers who call themselves solicitors.

Mr Ilyas my advice to you and your firm is save your money as you will need it to pay me and all the others back.

Your action against the SRA for intervening will not succeed when you have so many people left penniless and homeless and of course my matter was to be completed before any intervention of the SRA.

Let's remind ourselves of timescales. SRA intervened 24 and 27 December, accounts frozen 23 December. My money depositied into your account 17 December, my completion 22 December. So any opportunity you and your colleagues had to either refund my money or complete my transaction which you did not do had nothing to do with the SRA AT ALL.

Oh yes and another thing staff redundancies were also made before any intervention took place so I wouldn't bother wasting anyone's time by disputing the intervention.

I suspect that the Law Society Gazette may have got it wrong and that no one if contestimng the intervention. I believe however that Nasir Ilyas may be contesting his suspension (see earlier postings) on the basis that he was no longer a member when the SRA intervened. He is after all (or perhaps now was) hoping to stand for Labour as MP for Burnley at the next election.

cottager

Brahan_seer wrote: »

He is after all (or perhaps now was) hoping to stand for Labour as MP for Burnley at the next election.

Was. He wasn't selected:
http://www.burnleyexpress.net/burnleynews/Julie-Cooper-will-be-Labour.5889158.jp

Betty123

Just because NI was not CE or a member of the LLP at the time of the intervention, does not exonerate him from went on before when he was.