Scammed by a solicitor - please help

moxter

It's very poor form if prices aren't clearly stated in advance, even if it's just the hourly rate. However, every phone call does get billed. My wife, who's a residential property solicitor as well, regularly gets called by elderly clients who just want to chat. They get billed every time, although she'll occasionally warn "repeat offenders" that they do get billed every time.

There's usually a grey area here. Of course a client shouldn't expect that things are free (this is different to many lines of business where the up-front stated price includes everything) but if there are significant additional costs to be borne then the solicitor really should clearly state these.

Fosterdog

When I've used solicitors it's always been two options
1: Pay by the hour and each letter, call, appointment, court date etc. are paid for and an itemised bill is issued
2: Fixed fee where you pay the set fee and all of the above is covered, sometimes they do less work that they would have done for the same price on pay by the hour and other times they do more work and earn less per hour because of it.

I've never heard of paying a fixed fee then having extras added on, that's the whole point of fixed fee over pay per hour, you know exactly what your costs are, even if they work out more than it would have been on pay per hour, you know where you stand up front.

As an absolute minimum they should be providing an itemised invoice so you know what they are charging for.

hollydays

Did you keep telephoning them with queries. Solicitors don't like that in my experience.

hollydays

You say" when I queried these additional fees I was met with quite a hardened response telling me that if I didn't pay all their fees I would be taken to court and sued for all sums plus interest and expenses."

It sounds more likely that you said something like you would refuse to pay these fees?
Did you say that?

brasilian

Thanks for sharing some of your experiences - I suppose such practices might be more common than I might have thought.

Hollydays - the whole thing generally went fine, it was towards the end when I was told about all these extras fees on top and I began to query them as I couldn't understand how they could bill me for them when it was an agreed fixed fee. I just felt it was very misleading and I did tell them that I felt I should only have to pay the agreed fixed fee plus the VAT and outlays which is when I received the response I did. So much for customer service! Re the breakdown, this was suggested however they said this would be at a cost and with all the further costs they had added on top I didn't know whether it was just another tactic to obtain more money from me.

Really appreciate the input and somewhat helps to know that I'm not the only one affected by this sort of stuff.

hollydays

Brasilian, as has already been suggested, You need to remove the name of the solicitors.

hollydays

I suggest you sent a letter to them, asking them for a bill detailing current
Costs. At least then you have something in writing. Does anyone else think this is the correct thing to do. To suggest you'd be charged for this is outrageous.
Alternatively speak to the head of the practice and tell them
What was said.

Pollycat

k3lvc wrote: »

a) suggest you remove the names - given they're a professional legal firm they may not take kindly to your title

hollydays wrote: »

Brasilian, as has already been suggested, You need to remove the name of the solicitors.

Brasilian
You need to take note of the advice above and edit your first post PDQ.

Otherwise, you may find that being charged extra for some conveyancing is the least of your problems.
Taking the title of your post into account, you have accused this firm of scamming you. Bad idea on a public forum unless you have incontravertible evidence that this is true.
And I don't think you have that proof.

Maybe Gik could also remove the name from post #11.

pmduk

I have reported the thread to MSE in an attempt to prevent legal problems for MSE and the OP.