Please help! Solicitors fee for selling a property

brzone

Hello

I need a very good advice please!

I am in the process of selling a property which started from Dec.
And the sale has been delayed up to now, and its almost close to the completion.
Today my solicitor sent me the fee for the service he has done until now saying that its possible to be increased - the fee is around 2800 + VAT. Plus I paid an abortive charge of 400 already.

It is a leasehold property with two management companies. Other solicitor quoted me for £1.600 which I was quoted the same from current solicitor (contract is hourly based)

Somehow I found the solicitor trying to take money out of my pocket by requesting to call, visit the office, and sending unnecessary emails whilst I was getting least information without helps.

As an example, he asked for more fee saying that one of management companies has requested the money to make process faster. I called the management company directly but the company was more supportive without asking for any fee.

And the other day solicitor request for calls saying that it is an urgent but he was just reading through what I wrote. Why could not he do that himself? Even he asked me for a favour to re-write the list of furnitures in Word file so he can copy and paste!

At the end of March, the solicitor sent me rough amount of fee which was around 2,000+VAT. After that time what they did was 1) sending a cheque to management company 2) dealing with buyers solicitors query which was mostly written by me and estate agency. Yet they added £800 + VAT. I complaint and what he was saying was prices for phone calls and printouts were also added to his works. I somehow knew that they would count, so I tried to avoid calls and requested them to minimise costs.

He also said if I ask for breakdown of the fee, they will charge more.

Is this fair? What should I do to claim?

G_M

I'm afraid your basic error was to sign up to an hourly rate. This gives no limit to the cost, and gives an unscrupulous conveyancer no incentive to minimise the work. (I'm being polite!).

Yes, if you ask for a breakdown of fees, that will mean a letter sent out to you, and that takes time, so you'll be charged.

However it sounds like you are being ripped off. Keep a record of every transaction the solicitor undertakes. Every phone call (time them) & letter. And every activity you feel is unnecessary.

Write it all down.

As you are near Completion, it makes little sense to switch solicitors now. And this solicitor will not Complete for you unless his fees are paid first, so at present you are stuck.

The time to do anything about this, therefore, is after you Complete. You can then raise a formal complaint. Look up the firm's internal complaints procedure - it will be on thei website and/or in the paperwork they sent you at the start.

Use the record you have kept to question the bill,

If you don't get satisfaction, you can escalate the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.

davidmcn

This is the OP's fourth thread about their solicitor's bill. I think we're reaching the limits of our pro bono advice...

brzone

Sorry! but bills keep coming.

G_M

Oh good G!

brzone - if you decide to ask another question in future, can you please use this thread, or one of your previous threads? NOT start another new thread.

Thanks.

konark

My solicitor charged me about £500 for buying; selling is much simpler.