William H Brown - £1000 Money Off Scam

Raarrrbayer

Hi All

Myself and my partner are looking to buy our first home. And being a pair of idiots were persuaded to use the William H Brown conveyancing service promising £1000 off the price of the house if we used their services. They persuaded us they were only trying to help us and then everything seemed to progress without a hitch until we received their solicitors "estimated" fees. The breakdown is as follows:

We paid them £549 for their mortgage adviser and an early advance on the solicitor.

We then received a letter asking for another £350 for "possible" expenses for the solicitor and we would get some back at the end if it wasn't used. Then an estimated set of fees of £1550 not including the money already paid. This seems to be insanely overpriced. From what everyone is telling me it should be £900 total for the solicitor fees (and from the quotes online).

So the total we would pay for the mortgage broker & solicitors fees are £2449 which is daft. If you take away the £1000 off the value of the house we are paying £1449 which is still £550 more than we should be paying. We have only so far actually paid the £549 for the broker and a solicitors advance. What is our best option here? Its entirely our fault for taking this but they don't half put pressure on you saying they are out for your best interests and to get you the best deal.

Thanks

gazfocus

You have to treat the £549 for their mortgage adviser as a separate transaction. A mortgage adviser doesn't work for a solicitor so in most cases, you would pay for a mortgage adviser and pay for the solicitor separately.

However, I do agree that you've been swizzled. Unfortunately, these companies are there to make money, not to help you.

As a rough guide, we used a mortgage adviser who did everything from going through our credit reports with fine tooth comb, to doing the mortgage application and dealing with any requests from the building society...Our mortgage advisers fee was £129.00

Our solicitor cost £510 plus £225 for the 'disbursements', so either way, you are being screwed by the developers, but it's not uncommon unfortunately.

ACG

Ask for any unspent money back from the solicitors and use your own?

This is why you should never use the estate agents services, theyre often expensive and/or poor service...But i wont go into that as you have obviously realised.

The solicitor i use would be about £850 plus stamp duty - assuming the purchase price is below £200k. The money you have paid to your solicitor may include money for stamp duty?

Raarrrbayer

Hi ACG

Thanks for your reply. The house is £115250 so stamp duty exempt. Just checked the T&C's if we go down the route of using our own solicitor we cant have the incentive apparently so having already been stupid and paid £549 we are stuck now. The annoying thing is it was made out the £399 was just for using their adviser they never mentioned the solicitors. Its completely our fault for believing them.

Raarrrbayer

Thanks Gazfocus I thought that was probably the case. The £399 is for using their broker but they get you on the £1000 incentive to use their solicitor too.

ACG

Put a complaint in to the firm, tell them your reporting the practice to the OFT (Office of fair trading), you might get somewhere, you might not but even if not you might be helping them stop the practice in the future.

Raarrrbayer

Thanks ACG I will try that. We are currently having issues with getting them to speak to us. Have probably called about 5 times today. They keep saying they will ring us back.

ACG

You need a lot of balls to do this but wait until they have an office full of people and then go in there shouting and screaming how they have conned you and are rip off merchants - all the good words to scare everyone off.

Raarrrbayer

Bit of a result with this really. My partner rung up and kicked off with them about the insane quote. They have told us we can now use our own solicitor and keep the buyers incentive. Thanks for the advice guys

Dave_Ham

Pleased you got the end result, although the incentive is fabricated.

All they have done is agree a price with you and a price £1k lower with the Seller. It is then wrapped up as some sort of incentive where everyone wins; well the Estate Agents certainly do.

Wishing you more luck and less stress in the process, as it does not necessarily get easier from him.

Just remember that I said this, wait for the Friday afternoon call to tell you that your Solicitor is not working fast enough/returning calls and that the seller is thinking of pulling out - you heard it hear first..

Best of luck

Raarrrbayer

Thanks Dave:) .Yeah the £1000 seems like a bit of a con but at least now we are not having to pay £1500 to their solicitor. Luckily the seller is a friend of a friend so we are on good terms with them. Also we told them we are aiming to complete in December so there's plenty of time. Plus the fact the solicitor we have chosen is 2 minutes walk away from our broker and recommended by a friend