Solicitors Fixed Fee House Purchase

OohSoHolly

Hello All,

I really do hope you can help as I am quite distressed about the whole thing. Around 4 weeks ago we completed on a house and have been "happily" decorating and getting on with enjoying our first home. Last Friday I recieved an email from the solicitors claiming they'd re-looked at our account and that we owed them £447.

I've since queried this with them as when we first agreed to use them we signed a client care letter clearly stating a fixed fee for the purchase plus some disbursements. In there new completion statement the fixed fee is now almost double and we've been charged another £100 on one of the disbursements. They were also recommended to us by our broker on the basis of a fixed fee!

My question is can they do this? At no point during the sale process were we made aware of any new or additional charges and the woman's response at the solicitors was simply; "Obviously there are a few extra added fees for things like the gifted deposit work we did and the help to buy isa's which I am sure you understand."

Any help would be much appreciated as I really am both angry and upset about the whole thing.:o

anselld

Disbursements are never fixed, they are things which the solicitor has to pay on your behalf which you need to repay. The solicitor has little or no control on the cost of these.

The fee for conveyance should be fixed, but it will only be for the scope of work defined in the client care letter. If you have added to the scope by requesting extra items then these will be additional charges though arguably that should have been pointed out in advance.

Levs01

Your argument here should be that you were not notified of the extra charges. It is what you should go in with when you query it.

OohSoHolly

That's one of the things I noticed, the fixed fee doesn't describe a scope. It simply states the cost of your purchase. For me that means what is necessary to cover the cost of my purchase. I have argued that they haven't had my prior consent and await their reply. This is also my second time of asking for a detailed breakdown of costs which they have failed to provide.

If that's the case for the disbursements then fair enough (again would of preferred prior notice) however how a coal and brine search costs £100 I will never know :rotfl: