Solicitor Mistakes

G_M

This is all pretty petty and really does not warrrant a complaint to SRA or Legal Ombudsman. What loss have you incurred? What outcome do you expect from a complaint other than, perhaps, an apology?

They sent you (almost certainly) draft documets to approve. You spotted mistakes and highlighted them. The solicitor corrected them.

Cakeguts

ThePants999 wrote: »

When my nan died, the solicitors acting as her executors sent me letters referring to the estate of Mr Lilian Doris XYZ, and using "he" in a couple of places. It's hard enough to believe that neither the female forenames, nor a will that talked about "my husband", nor their own records, sufficed for them to twig that their client was a woman - but after I highlighted their mistake and received profuse apologies, and then they promptly did the same thing in their next letter, I was pretty gobsmacked. I guess attention to detail isn't a prized trait in solicitors any more?

The problem is the people who type up the letters for the solicitors and the fact that the solicitors don't check the letters afterwards. You would think that someone who was employed to type letters would be able to copy what a solicitor had written accurately.

melstar11

A lot of it will be audio typing from dictation. Poor dictation where names are not spelled is part of the issue as is failing to check the work thoroughly afterwards.

davidmcn

G_M wrote: »

This is all pretty petty and really does not warrrant a complaint to SRA or Legal Ombudsman. What loss have you incurred? What outcome do you expect from a complaint other than, perhaps, an apology?

I concur with this. It may be sloppy but if it hasn't actually caused you any loss, or delayed the transaction, or resulted you incurring some material risk, then I'd hardly describe it as "atrocious" or "horrendous". I can't see why the SRA would be interested.

marksoton

davidmcn wrote: »

I can't see why the SRA would be interested.

Maybe on a Monday morning when they're in need of a laugh....

TBagpuss

Cakeguts wrote: »

As far as I can make out from dealing with my mother's estate this kind of problem is now normal. I blame the introduction of GCSEs where you can do everything at least twice with someone (a teacher) or in your case the customer pointing out the mistakes so that they can have another go.

It might be more realistic to blame the fact that people want cheap work and instant responses.

This is particularly true of conveyancing where the conveyancers are constantly hounded by clients who have read that they ought to 'chase' their conveyancer every day, who expect responses to e-mails within minutes etc but who are not prepared to pay more than a basic set fee.

You get what you pay for.

As GM says, this is not something with warrants a formal complaint. My all means raise it, ask for an apology, but you have not suffered any loss and you haven't been put to any additional cost, so why would expect refund?

If you were paying on an hourly rate then it would be reasonable to ask for confirmation that you wouldn't be charged for correcting any error, but assuming that you were paying a fixed fee then you have not been charged separately for any extra letter or further draft.

Thrugelmir

Cakeguts wrote: »

As far as I can make out from dealing with my mother's estate this kind of problem is now normal. I blame the introduction of GCSEs where you can do everything at least twice with someone (a teacher) or in your case the customer pointing out the mistakes so that they can have another go.

Allowing spell checkers, calculators, texting and access to the internet has bred a lazier, dumber, less caring culture.

TeaLeaf

This is frustrating for you but ultimately if the solicitor has corrected the errors then you haven't suffered in any way. No Ombudsman will deal with typos. Mistakes such as incorrect titles are unlikely to be because someone has typed out the same error multiple times: someone probably clicked the wrong option from a drop-down menu once, and the computer then 'helpfully' inserts it across all the boilerplate letters. Yes, it should have been caught, but it doesn't herald the end of civilisation.

Centralising admin staff, rather than having an office/departmental secretary, contributes to these sorts of errors. It may cut costs but you lose the very people who are likely to notice that the paperwork looks wrong.

SmlSave

tidds wrote: »

Morning,

1. My surname was spelt incorrectly, addition of a few letters, on documentation sent to me
2. My partners name was spelt incorrectly - her christian name this was copied across to various legal documents solicitor side
3. My current property roadname is NAME, not NAME road, on completion documentation they had it as NAME road
4. We have just received the completion statement and the figures are incorrect by £1

Whilst these issues are all rectifiable fairly easily, considering the money involved this is actually fairly atrocious. I don't want to cause any issues and I want to complete, any ideas what we can do about this? In an ideal world we would get a form of discount, but I know that's unlikely.

How petty. :eek: I trust if you decide to complain about these 'issues' that you are absolutely perfect in your work and never make spelling mistakes.

In the grand scheme of things the solicitor is the smallest fee compared to estate agents and mortgage companies.

Until the world is run by robots human error is going to happen.

I truly can't believe that you'd waste everyone's time by complaining over this

tidds

I understand they're petty mistakes, and i've come here to ask whether they're worth mentioning or not. You're all say forget about it, and so far - all i've done to complain, is on this forum.

I agree with all that in the grand scheme of things it's not worth pushing and thus I will drop it. Thank you for all the advice.