Negligent solicitors claim – how to go about

francohoops

Hi

We purchased our flat 8 years ago and used a local solicitor. Having put it on the market 2 years ago we found a buyer, accepted an offer and were all ready to move to a new house. Unfortunately the buyer’s solicitors found the lease to be defective in 3 areas;

- Insurance – flat below did not have to insure via freeholder, whereas we were obliged to
- Foundations (major issue) – Not specified who is responsible for (we have responsibility for roof)
- There was no deed of mutual enforceability

At the time of our purchase, no mention was made by the solicitor that we were using. We are still trying to resolve these problems 2 years on, and have incurred significant legal costs and stress.

My question is, is there anyway that we can seek to hold the original solicitor responsible for negligence? How would we start this process (we have requested the original file)? Ideally we’d like to do this ourselves and try to not incur further legal costs. Is it worth writing to them, and if so what would be reasonable opening gambit?

They have clearly done a very poor job, and should be liable. I would love to see them held accountable, but don’t want to incur a load more expenses if we have little chance of getting anything back. Is the small claims court an option?

Many thanks for any help or advice

Frank

Marco12452

In the first place you should address this with the solicitor that you used, try going to the head of the practice if it is not a sole trading business. Suggest you are considering approaching the legal ombudsman, but do not portray and angry or inflamatory stance, stay calm and be professional.
If you don't have any joy here, go to the legal ombudsman with all the facts and figures you can obtain, using any documentation you have to back it up (photocopies, don't give up originals). See - http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/consumer/index.html.

missile

Complaints about solicitor IMHO it is a waste of time, but here is the link http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/redressscheme.law .

Save yourself the stamp. Learn from the experience and use a better solicitor next time.

francohoops

It may be a waste of time, but given the number of seemingly clear errors that were made I would hope that we have a case.

Is there a time limit regarding claims. We bought the flat 8 years ago, but only became aware of the issue 18months/ 2 years ago. Would our case still be valid?

Are we ok to draft the letter to the solicitor ourselves? Also should we point out the errors explicitly? Should we give them a deadline to respond?

Thanks

F

Yorkie1

Yes you can draft the letter to the solicitor yourselves. I would set out the errors you allege specifically, although try to be succinct in doing so. It's very easy to get into long-winded rambling text from which it is hard to understand what you're saying. Perhaps do an initial bullet pointed list like you've done in your post, e.g. I am writing to complain about the service I received from your firm in connection with my purchase of xxx flat. There are 3 main points : 1) ... 2) ... 3).

You can then expand on these if you feel you need to, together with why you feel their service was inadequate (e.g. wouldn't have bought if solicitor had identified these issues or whatever) and the consequences to you. And then wrap up with what you want the outcome of the complaint to be.

I don't know if there is a time-bar but I would expect the solicitor to have to retrieve the file from archive. So ask them to acknowledge receipt within 5 working days and to give you a timescale for a full response to your actual complaint.

francohoops

Thanks for your replies.

I've drafted a letter covering the main points and will send it off today. I've given them a month to respond given the holiday period.

Thinking ahead, I presume they'll have some excuse as to why these things weren't picked up, but assuming that the Legal Ombudsman route is ineffective, are there any other options? I was thinking along the lines of the small claims court. Would that be worth pursuing? I don't want to spend a fortune pursuing this, but am very angry that a supposedly professional service that we paid for has done such a bad job.

Thanks
F

Annisele

The small claims track is unlikely to be appropriate for the sort of case you're talking about. Generally the small claims track is for straightforward claims with a value of less than £5,000, and you can't claim legal costs - from what you say, your case may not be appropriate for small claims.

Do you have legal expenses insurance on your home insurance?

TonyMMM

francohoops wrote: »

I was thinking along the lines of the small claims court.

You need to determine exactly what you are claiming for ..e.g. the loss in value of the flat. I would suspect it will be more then the small claims route limit.

francohoops

Well, if we can get this resolved and the lease corrected and the flat saleable we would be looking at claiming for some of the legal costs against the solicitor we used to purchase the property.

If we end up unable to rectify the lease (I really hope not), then it'd be the loss in value of the property.

So neither (as opt 1 is legal costs and opt 2 would be over £5k) would be applicable to the SC court?

I will check the buildings insurance to see if it covers legal costs. That is a good point.

So as it stands, we have the following options

- hope that solicitor admits the errors and helps to rectift
- legal ombudsman
- maybe claim legal costs on buildings insurance

are there any other routes/options. would trading standards be of any use?

F