Solicitors costs for divorce is this right ?

poppyscorner

booma_mitch wrote: »

Hi
I was a family lawyer until a few years ago. Are you sure that the most recent bill is actually outstanding. Even if we already held the money on our client account (i.e. the money you had paid by standing order) we still had to raise a bill in order to deduct it from the money held on client account. Does it say on it anywhere that the full amount has been deducted from your bill and that there is a nil balance? Sometimes when I did my bills (usually a rush job at the end of the month) my secretary didn't always remember to check whether there was any money in client account to be taken off the bill before it was sent out and I would get (quite rightly) upset clients ringing up to see why I had billed them when they had paid so much already. I make the total that you should be paying to be around £1000 which from your op it appear that is what you have been charged and the money just needs to be transferred across from client account.

If however, you have already paid the quoted £500 plus vat and disbursements and this is an additional bill, has the solicitor done any other work in relation to finances such as drafting a Consent Order reflecting the terms of any financial agreement? If so, then this would not be included in the original divorce quote (well, it never was with me) but you should have been given a cost estimate in one of the first letters that were sent to you, called a client care letter. If this was not updated to include any further costs as the case went along then often the solicitor is bound by the original cost estimate.

If I were you I would get out your paperwork, have a look at any bills that you have been sent, check the dates and amounts. If these come to more than the orignal £500 plus bits estimate then you need to send a letter to your solicitor requesting a breakdown and an explanation as to why the costs estimate was exceeded. I would think though from what you have said that it is a case of the money for the second bill being sat in client account and nobody noticing that it needs to be transferred.

Hope that helps.

Hi booma_mitch,

Firstly thanks for taking the time to reply, yes it is an amount outstanding the total amount is divided over 2 seperate bills the first one was prepared in dec 09 and there was £300 in my client account we were around half way through the proceedings and the bill was for £278 which I thought at that point would have been pretty accurate there was also a cheque payment before that bill was drawn up for the court fees for £300 this was obviously not held on account and was paid directly to the courts. the figures on the bill that I have now are as follows

costs £900.00
VAT £157.50
Disbursements £40.00
Total £1097.50
Less monies held on account £374.72
Balance now due £722.78

However very kindly they offer me the option to pay this at a monthly rate through the course of the case they only sent me one statement of account and that was the invoice for £278.

I just fail to see how their estimate had been so wrong or if that is a correct estimate how the actual cost is so inflated when it was like I say very straightforward and he signed all the documents straight away. We had no money or no assets to divide on the end of our marriage he took his 'stuff' and he left to begin a new life he didn't want a thing from me and all I ever asked of him was to sign the papers which he did without question. The statement of arrangements for children was included with the divorce petition and has rougly been adhered to quite well. It was accepted by the courts and I have never spoken about it with the solicitor throughout the whole case. In fact I have been in the presence of my solicitor twice in the whole time of the divorce 1st time was the first meeting and the second was when I signed the financial consent order I have visited the office to hand papers for the divorce back in but never needed to see anyone to do that.

hope that helps to clarify my position a little

thanks again
poppy

poppyscorner

janninew wrote: »

That sounds really expensive! I was divorced last year and my solicitor charged a fixed fee (for a simple divorce, everything already agreed with my ex) and I paid 500.00. They advertise fixed fee divorces on their web-site, its 500.00 if your doing the divorcing, or 250 if your being divorced. Hope that makes sense!

Yeah that makes sense the quotes on my paperwork are £500 plus VAT if i divorce him or £200 plus VAT if I waited until he divorced me ! I'm beginning to wish he had now

booma_mitch

Hi Poppyscorner

Thanks for clarifying. When I used to give a quote for the divorce it included simply the divorce, and did not include any fees for the preparation/checking etc. of the financial consent order. I would expect that this is where the extra fees have come from. However, your solicitor should have given you an estimate of costs at the start of the case, usually in the form of a client care letter. Ours used to be in the form of around a 5 page letter of stuff that you really did not want to read, and on ours you had to sign a copy and return it to say that you agreed. If there is a cost estimate included in this letter, and it has not been updated at any point by your solicitor then they could be on a "sticky wicket" in relation to claiming any costs over and above their costs estimate, in your case £500 plus vat and disbursements.

I would write to your solicitors asking them what the extra costs are for, and that you were led to believe that the estimate for dealing with everything was 500 plus vat etc and see what they say. It may be that they have a blanket cost estimate in the client care letter or that they did update you at some point which I am sure they will be quick to point out(!) but if they didn't then they should be bound by the original. The Law Society is very keen on things like this and it is unlikely that you would be made to pay more if you were not kept updated.

Good luck!

poppyscorner

Yeah you're right there is a client care letter with all of my paperwork within the divorce section of it it says that expenses are as follows :-

Court fee's are payable for Divorce petition £300
Financial consent order - After decree nissi (if agreement reached) £40
Application for financial proceedings (if no agreement) £210
Decree Absolute - To conclude £40

The letter goes on to say that if financial matters did need to be resolved then I should budget a further £500 plus VAT for this work but that was dependant on the scale of these matters and the time taken to resolve it, I queried this at the time and was told that as we didn't have any then the financial consent order would be signed as part of the divorce proceedings and the financial matters part would not apply.
The form went to my exH who completed it and signed it and I did the same and it was filed to the court along with an application for decree absolute.
I think if this is where the extra costs are coming from then that in itself is a disgrace as they didn't even complete the form they simply obtained it and sent it with the application for decree absolute and their own terms imply that whilst it is a disbursement it is part of the usual process of divorce.

Do you think there is any other relevant info I need to have a look at in the client care letter ?

evilsquid1603

Don't worry about writing to them to complain! Your client care letter should also contain info somewhere about who to address complaints to if you are not happy, it will probably be another solicitor in the firm. They have to give you this info as part of Rule 2 of the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2007. You won't get charged for them dealing with your complaint (rule 2.05(3)). I'm on the Legal Practice Course at the moment and it's all being drilled into us not to make mistakes because its wasted time and money dealing with them! If you are still not happy the Law Society is definitely the way to go.

mookiandco

poppyscorner wrote: »

The letter goes on to say that if financial matters did need to be resolved then I should budget a further £500 plus VAT for this work but that was dependant on the scale of these matters and the time taken to resolve it, I queried this at the time and was told that as we didn't have any then the financial consent order would be signed as part of the divorce proceedings and the financial matters part would not apply.

I charge a fixed fee for the divorce and extra for any financial matters at my hourly rate.

The form went to my exH who completed it and signed it and I did the same and it was filed to the court along with an application for decree absolute.
I think if this is where the extra costs are coming from then that in itself is a disgrace as they didn't even complete the form they simply obtained it and sent it with the application for decree absolute and their own terms imply that whilst it is a disbursement it is part of the usual process of divorce.

The form I think you are referring to is 'The statement of information' which is a form where you briefly insert details of your income and capital. But in addition to this your Solicitors will have drafted an actual consent order which would state that all financial claims are dismissed, neither of you can make further claims on the other in future etc etc. The drafting of this document is not necessarily standard and it is not a copy and paste job it has to be tailored to your situation. I would charge extra for this (preparation and drafting).The consent order would be sent to your ex ( 1 letter charged for), you would have received additional advice regarding finances (attendance charged for), the consent order would be sent to you for signature (1 letter charged for) etc etc etc.

Just ask for a breakdown of their costs.

See purple bits above

booma_mitch

I agree with Mookiandco. The drafting of the Consent Order is not always straightforward and even if this was drafted by the other side, you still need to allow time for checking it etc. You also mentioned an appointment with your solicitor, I imagine to go through the consent order. I agree that your solicitor should not have said to you at the time when you queried it that it was included in the divorce costs but they have it clearly covered in their client care letter. For future reference (hopefully you won't need it, I would request any verbal agreement to be backed up in writing). For the record I think that £400 seems like a reasonable amount for sorting out a Consent Order including getting it lodged with the court etc. I would always charge separately for Consent Orders and never include them in the cost estimate for a divorce.

Request breakdown of costs but unfortunately it seems that you will have to pay the outstanding costs, if you are struggling to pay, speak to them about a repayment plan. But in my eyes it is worth the extra to know that you are protected from a claim in the future, and you can live your life knowing that what's yours is yours!

mrsb83_2

Check your client care letter to confirm whether the £500 was a fixed fee or an estimate. If it was an estimate, the firm should have updated you as the matter progressed. Ask for a breakdown of what has been done. The firm should not charge you for this.

Check the terms on the bill, which should confirm that you have the right to have the bill assessed if you think it is excessive (this is different from them not telling you about all the work they have done).

If it is a communication problem, ask the firm for a copy of their complaints procedure. The posters telling you to go to the Law Society are incorrect - you must go through the firm's policy first if you have a complaint. If you are not satisfied, then you may go to the Legal Ombudsman.