Solicitors fees more than quoted - is this normal?

mildredalien

Looking for a bit of advice whether to query the fees sent with our solicitor contract today for buying our first home.

I initially contacted them via phone and they took the information about us and the house we are buying and emailed us a quote - stating 'our fees for your purchase will be £500 legal fees plus £100 VAT' and specifying a £54 local search fee among other disbursments.

When the contract came through today it stated £550 fees plus £110 VAT and £90 local search, the remaining charges were the same.

They are a local solicitor so would know the local search fees, I'm wondering why they are trying to squeeze extra money from us already? The emailed quote did not say anything about it being an estimate or subject to other information, it just said 'our fees will be'.

The overall cost is still comparable with other quotes I received from conveyancing firms - most of whom were not local and who had mixed reviews at best. This firm came recommended by a family member.Should I bother querying the fees and seeing if they will honour the original quote or is it not really worth it?

csgohan4

Why don't you ask them? It won't do any harm will it?

mildredalien

csgohan4 wrote: »

Why don't you ask them? It won't do any harm will it?

Hopefully not, probably just my FTB anxiety showing!

TBagpuss

Ask them. It may be that they have recently reviewed and increased their fees, for the new financial year, and that you were given the old figures in the e-ail and the updated ones in the letter.

mildredalien

I'm just trying to imagine the situation where they say 'oh yes my mistake, we'll drop our charges for you' and it seems fairly unlikely

G_M

The local search is a disbursement, and as such they charge you whatever they are charged. Disbursements are never more than an estimate at the start of the process.

The increase from £500 to £550 appears less straight-forward, though there are a number of possible explanations:

* their fees increased and you were informed of this but forgot
* their fees increased but they forgot to inform you (dispute this)
* the conveyancing was complicated in some unforeseeable way and they charged extra for dealing with this complication (they should have advised you at the time)
* they undertook some optional extra work which was detailed in their Terms of Business. A typical example is completion of the SDLT form for HMRC. Some conveyancers treat this as an 'extra' in order to be able to quote a low initial fee. £50 is a typical fee for this (though I've seen £120 quoted on one thread here!)

Howver, if their invoice/Completion Statement does not make things clear, then ask.

pathtofreedom

Just to add, don't assume that still won't go up later. You might need chancel insurance, different indemnity insurances, chaps fee payments, stamp duty, etc etc. You might be able to get the people selling to you to pay for some of those but until they start work they won't know what little extras they might find which slowly pushes the price up.

Things like the searches will be the same whichever solicitor you use, you just have to decide what you like about each of the firms you're getting quotes from. Do they have an online case tracker, so you can not worry so much if they don't talk to you for a few weeks you can see they have submitted searches but just not got them back yet. Do they have a lot of people working there, so if one is off they can cover your purchase easily? Is it easy to park there even if you have to pop round at lunch to sign something, or do you need longer opening hours if you can't get time off to pop in easily.

mildredalien

I got the original email quote on Tuesday, instructed them on Thursday and received the documentation today - even my memory isn't bad enough to forget information in that time!

They also haven't actually started any work yet, so that's not a reason for the increase - the change is in the initial contract/terms of business that we need to sign and return to them. They originally said that the local search would be £54, now it apparently will be £90 but if they won't know what it is until they ask I suppose it could increase further? I was under the impression that the local search was just dependent on the specific council, and that it wouldn't vary for different properties but I may be wrong.

It is a 'fixed fee' quote rather than based on an expected hourly rate so I'd hope there aren't any more added fees - there's no chain and it's a new ish freehold property so shouldn't be very complicated. They have provided quotes for the other disbursements and stamp duty which were all as expected/quoted.

davidmcn

G_M wrote: »

The increase from £500 to £550 appears less straight-forward, though there are a number of possible explanations:

* their fees increased and you were informed of this but forgot
* their fees increased but they forgot to inform you (dispute this)
* the conveyancing was complicated in some unforeseeable way and they charged extra for dealing with this complication (they should have advised you at the time)
* they undertook some optional extra work which was detailed in their Terms of Business. A typical example is completion of the SDLT form for HMRC. Some conveyancers treat this as an 'extra' in order to be able to quite a low initial fee. £50 is a typical fee for this (though I've sen £120 quoted on the one thread here!)

Or they quote different fees depending on how the client has been referred to them (or who you spoke to, or what mood they're in...). I think it's fairly likely that they'll agree to match the quote that they gave to you in the first place.

dc197

The cost of the local watch varies by local authority. The 54 could have been an average figure and 90 is the actual figure for the house in question.

TBagpuss

dc197 wrote: »

The cost of the local watch varies by local authority. The 54 could have been an average figure and 90 is the actual figure for the house in question.

Or that they read the wrong line in a list and gave you the figure for the neighbouring LA.

SO far as their own costs are concerned I would expect them to match what they originally told you - e-mail them with a copy of the original and ask them to confirm that they will stand by this quote for their own costs.