Is it reasonable for a solicitor to ask for more money a year after completion?

London_Town

GDB2222 wrote: »

The moral issue is whether you owe them the money? There's no other 'principle' involved. So, don't try to justify your actions that way.

I take your point GDB222. I just mean't the principle of it not being good business to ask a customer for more money, a year after the work was completed.

London_Town

GDB2222 wrote: »

M&S wouldn't let you have the jumper until you'd paid in full. There's no comparison.

Fair point GDB222. Maybe a better comparison would be a builder completing some work on your house, you pay in full and then they ask for a bit more money the year after.

DVardysShadow

London_Town wrote: »

I think that's the strategy I had in mind Hazyjo. If I have to pay it, I want to make them wait and go to alot of trouble to get it. I also intend to write a suitably withering letter to accompany any cheque I send.

You don't need to ask much in the line of reasonable questions to amke £27 uneconomic to collect. But the withering letter will be drowned out by the ker-ching!! when they cash your cheque.

jjlandlord

As OP I would check my previous correspondence with solicitor to check whether this was mentioned anywhere, and/or whether an error is visible.

Then I would ignore their letter.

If they don't give up and I think they might have a case, I would then perhaps send them a cheque for £10 as full and final settlement

GDB2222

London_Town wrote: »

Fair point GDB222. Maybe a better comparison would be a builder completing some work on your house, you pay in full and then they ask for a bit more money the year after.

Say you had an agreement with the builder to pay for a new bathroom suite plus his labour fitting it. He billed you at the end of the job for his labour, but forgot to bill you for the suite until later on. Assuming you didn't point out his error at the time, surely you would pay for the suite without quibbling if he asked for that later on?

We had an electrician do some work for us, and for some reason he forgot to bill us until 4 years later. We had forgotten all about it, but of course we paid up (after carefully checking we hadn't paid yet!). Oh, and I instructed him on a full re-wire just a couple of weeks ago.

People seem to have forgotten all about honest and fair dealing. BTW, £27 would surely be for a CHAPS payment charge, not BACS?

classy69

I would say it is likely to be a disbursement incurred by the solicitor on your behalf, that they have forgot to recharge you for. It has likely come to light during their end of year SRA report work, where the accountants have to review the solicitors ledgers for old outstanding balances, and ask the solicitor what is being done about it.

londonlydia

Actually, using the M&S jumper example, it might be that the jumperhad been on offer, but that offer had finished by the time you paid for it. An error by the cashier (perhaps an old sticker) means you got charged the reduced price. M&S wouldn't come back a year later would they?!

KateLiana27

We had a letter close to a year after buying our house from our solicitors, saying they had overcharged us by £28 (for some survey we didn't end up needing), with a cheque for said £28. We had no idea. Again, it was noticed when they were closing our account, so about a year later seems standard practice.

We happily cashed the cheque.

Would you have accepted £27 from them a year later, if they had overcharged you? If so, it's only right you pay them the money back.

I'd expect them to be suitably apologetic though, as they should really check things a bit sooner - so you're perfectly within your rights to write a withering letter to that effect, if you can be bothered.

DRP

KateLiana27 wrote: »

We had a letter close to a year after buying our house from our solicitors, saying they had overcharged us by £28 (for some survey we didn't end up needing), with a cheque for said £28. We had no idea. Again, it was noticed when they were closing our account, so about a year later seems standard practice.

We happily cashed the cheque.

Would you have accepted £27 from them a year later, if they had overcharged you? If so, it's only right you pay them the money back.

I'd expect them to be suitably apologetic though, as they should really check things a bit sooner - so you're perfectly within your rights to write a withering letter to that effect, if you can be bothered.

^^agreed

And I would certainly make them explain fully (with documentation) exactly how this has occurred.

London_Town

In the example of being charged by a builder for a suite many months later, I wouldn't allow it to get to that stage. It would be so obvious that hundreds of pounds were missing from the bill, I would query it, certainly if it was itemised and the suite cost was missing.

I had a tree surgeon do some work for me when I moved in and quoted £180 for the work. He did an excellent job and I was very pleased. I'd already budgeted the money, but waited and waited for an invoice that didn't come. I rang him to hasten it and he said he'd sort it out. Eventually, after about 3 months I got the invoice and promptly paid it.

My money is tightly managed, it has to be, so it makes my life far easier to be able to pay what I owe as soon as the work is complete.

I'm not a solicitor, so I think it's reasonable for me expect a solicitor to know what they're doing. I would have questioned their bill last year if it had been a few hundred less than I was expecting. However, the figure was what I had been quoted approximately and it all appeared to look in place, so I thought no more of it.

As regards the definition of what the payment is for, you may be right GDB2222, my apologies. I'll have a look at all the paperwork and my original bill over the weekend.