Solicitor - T&C's

cifulikeit

Hi.. my solicitor sent me a pack around there fees and charges etc and stipulated that they would not commence any work until they received a £50 deposit and until they had checked and copied my passport which i would have been fine with, however after i sent them a couple of emails asking for confirmation which the didn't reply to, i decided to give up on them and didn't pay £50 nor did i visit them to take my passport in or visit them to discuss anything. Now that i have decided to sell my mums house and i need the deeds to provide to my new solicitor, my old solicitor has advised me that i cant have my deeds until i pay my bill. But i dont have a bill as i have not requested them to commence any work, if i have to pay them for holding the deeds then thats fine etc, but they are advising me that they have completed elements of work on my behalf, yet i never formally responded or paid my deposit as stated above. Can anyone advise me on what to do please? Thanks in advance..

TBagpuss

From what you say they dod do some work, in setting up your file sending you all the initial information etc. Morally and ethically you should pay for that. After all, you wasted their time.

How much is the bill that they are asking you to pay?

If you never signed their terms of business then they may not be able to sucessfully sue you for the unpaid fee.

When did you tell them that you were not proceeding? Or did you just ignore them?

However, if they are holding the deeds for your mum's house then they may well be entitled to charge for releasing those, depending on the basis on which the deeds were stored with them, and wholly separately from anything you owe them for the abortive transaction.

cifulikeit

I didnt wast any of there time as we never gave th go ahead for the instruction for them to act on our behalf, if they can provide some evidence of work then i will pay, thats not the issue,

In terms of the deeds, if there is a charge for holding these then again, im happy to pay, what i dont like and i was hoping for some clarity is if they are actually entitled to hold onto the deeds when the house has now been sold and i have instructed them that i wont be using them for the sale of the property.

silvercar

If the property is registered then the deeds are held by the Land Registry and anything the solicitor holds is merely a copy.

G_M

Have you written them a polite, simple letter?

With paragraphs in it?

Asking for the bill broken down into its constituent elements?

If so, have you read it? Does it specify anything you believe they either have not done, or should not have done?

Have you then written another polite, simple letter?

With paragraphs in it?

Explaining why you believe you do not need to pay the bill?

If so, and you are still getting nowhere, have you followed their complaints procedure?

davidmcn

It doesn't sound like you've incurred a fee, though your interpretation of whether or not they've done work may differ from theirs.

If you do owe them money, then they're entitled to hold on to your papers, including the title deeds (assuming there isn't a mortgage involved). But as pointed out, the "deeds" might not be all that important.

bobobski

In what capacity are you asking for the deeds, since the house is not your own? I.e. are you assisting your mum/acting under a POA, has your mum passed away and you are administering the estate, has the house actually passed to you now and "mum's house" means "the house that used to be mum's"? If the work is not for you in your own private capacity, I would argue that the lien over the deeds doesn't apply.

Solicitors aren't supposed to start acting for clients until KYC has been done. I would argue KYC is not billable work. If it was, they're in breach of their AML duties. So I'd also argue against the bill.

As for the point about deeds at the LR, as a solicitor who has recently dealt with a situation similar to this, trying to get the deeds for an investor client from another law firm, I can tell you there are many things which you cannot rely on the LR for. I don't know the nature of the property here but there are lots of non-registrable interests in land, such as short leases, that would be in the deeds packet but not registered at the LR. For example, we don't know if OP's mum's house has a tenant under an AST in it.

csgohan4

G_M wrote: »

Have you written them a polite, simple letter?

With paragraphs in it?

Asking for the bill broken down into its constituent elements?

If so, have you read it? Does it specify anything you believe they either have not done, or should not have done?

Have you then written another polite, simple letter?

With paragraphs in it?

Explaining why you believe you do not need to pay the bill?

If so, and you are still getting nowhere, have you followed their complaints procedure?

Concur indeed

cifulikeit

Yes i have written a polite letter... nothing received at this time.

Thanks for all of the other information, its useful.

The MIL has died and the solicitor has been extremely poor in responding and advising on details pertaining to the MIL estate, the wife unfortunately wrote a letter to the solicitor advising them that she has no confidence in them, now they want to bill her.

Ill write them another letter if i dont receive a reply using some of the information above.