Cheeky Solicitors

davidmcn

BB. wrote: »

(the fee listed on the mortgage offer was £120 inc VAT and not + VAT)

The conveyancing costs in your mortgage offer are just a notional figure for the purpose of calculating the total charge for credit - nothing to do with what your solicitors are actually charging you (in fact it's more normal for there to be a global fee for your whole purchase, assuming most people are taking a mortgage, rather than an additional fee).

sparky130a

BB. wrote: »

I


And now this! and none of these fees were mentioned to us before they starting to act on our behalf.

Whether it was "mentioned" is irrelevant. What does the fee breakdown that came with the contract you signed say?

martindow

It seems very odd to charge extra in this way. For the conveyancer the sooner it completes, the sooner they get their bill paid. I would think it would be more logical to have an extra charge for a long gap before completion.

Miss_Samantha

martindow wrote: »

It seems very odd to charge extra in this way. For the conveyancer the sooner it completes, the sooner they get their bill paid. I would think it would be more logical to have an extra charge for a long gap before completion.

The work is the same either way. However, people in a rush are usually willing to pay more to have things done quickly.

That's why it is possible to charge a premium, not only in this case but for most things.

ThePants999

FWIW, the last solicitors I used had a similar fee for expediting - but in their case, it was for exchanging within 8 weeks of instruction, not for completing within 2 weeks of exchange. That makes an awful lot more sense to me, since the bulk of their work is done prior to exchange.

BB.

caronoel wrote: »

The solicitor has been fair with you in flagging up the additional costs well in advance.

Your complaint will, quite rightly, be rejected.

You now have three options:
1. Wait two weeks to completion
2. Ask the seller to pay the fee, if they need an urgent completion
3. Pay the £150 yourself.

You are in a very strong negotiating position with a time pressured vendor. I'd suggest you put options 1 and 2 to them, and don't waste your time and energy 'complaining'

£150 isn't unreasonable for an express service. Why should the offer this for free?

I would disagree with your statement that they flagged it up the well in advance...


The solicitor emailed me last Fri afternoon saying that the contract for us to sign was being posted that evening and that following our previous email exchange and phone conv (where no additional fees were mentioned) she reported the completion date to the Sellers to be next Friday. She took a week to send that contract to us as when we spoke last Monday she thought it was already sent to us and when she discovered it wasn't she said it would be sent last Mon evening. So took her a week to send it.
The contract hasn't arrived with us until this Monday so by the time we read it and return it to her via post will be tomorrow at the earliest. Which is just a week form the discussed completion date. Yet we weren't aware of that charge until the contract arrived on Monday at which stage she already communicated the completion date of less than in two weeks time.


So wow is that being flagged well in advance Caronoel?


The Sellers have already dropped the price for us once on the condition that the sale will be done asap, so I don't feel we can ask them to cover this cost.

BB.

davidmcn wrote: »

The conveyancing costs in your mortgage offer are just a notional figure for the purpose of calculating the total charge for credit - nothing to do with what your solicitors are actually charging you (in fact it's more normal for there to be a global fee for your whole purchase, assuming most people are taking a mortgage, rather than an additional fee).

That's why we challenged this as they have already quoted us for that (£99+VAT). Then they tried to add another fee for the same service (£150 inc VAT) and when I questioned that, they removed it but upped the originally quoted charge to £150 incl VAT. So I will probably challenge it again when it comes to paying the bill as we should be paying what was originally quoted i.e £99 + VAT = £120.

sparky130a

BB. wrote: »

I would disagree with your statement that they flagged it up the well in advance...


The solicitor emailed me last Fri afternoon saying that the contract for us to sign was being posted that evening and that following our previous email exchange and phone conv (where no additional fees were mentioned) she reported the completion date to the Sellers to be next Friday. She took a week to send that contract to us as when we spoke last Monday she thought it was already sent to us and when she discovered it wasn't she said it would be sent last Mon evening. So took her a week to send it.
The contract hasn't arrived with us until this Monday so by the time we read it and return it to her via post will be tomorrow at the earliest. Which is just a week form the discussed completion date. Yet we weren't aware of that charge until the contract arrived on Monday at which stage she already communicated the completion date of less than in two weeks time.

Woah! You got that far down the road and engaging your legal representation before seeing a contract?

BB.

steampowered wrote: »

Why don't you complain to the solicitor/conveyancer now, rather than waiting until later.

If you were not told about the charge the solicitor/conveyancer might agree to waive it.

.

Because I am worried that if we challenge this now they may become obstructive and delay things for us... and there are two minor queries we are still waiting for them to get back to us. They are slow as it is so don't want to risk it....

BB.

sparky130a wrote: »

Woah! You got that far down the road and engaging your legal representation before seeing a contract?

Exactly, they thought they've posted it to us ages ago and we haven't returned it yet!


It was only when I called them last Monday to talk about the exchange / completion she realized they haven't even sent it to us yet! and then delayed sending by a few days.