dodge solicitor - is fee reasonable ?

gemma.zhang

Hi guys,


We've exchanged contracts already, and completion is in 10 days, just received the MASSIVE :eek: solicitor bill.. Wanna ask for help.

We dropped out the first purchase, and our solicitor merely did any work at all, just received draft contract from seller's solicitor, and he charged us 100 + Vat for that !!!.. and claimed the charge is for answering our queries, checking draft contract, preparing for searches !!... Is it fair to charge 100 pounds for merely nothing !!!.

Also, he claimed to charge our FLAT fee of 650+vat for the case, however, now !!! he charged us for drafting 'Statutory Declaration' !, isn't it part of work included as a solicitor, why is him charging us 75+Vat for this !!!??

Now, the total fee is a whopping 1150 pounds(inc VAT).. didn't expect that extra 200 pounds !!!.. Just want to have ideas from you guys to see if it's reasonable at all before I start make a fuss about it !!! don't want to argue with him, still, we'll need him to get our title deeds done PROPERLY.. any ideas appreciated !!!.

Besides that 1150 huge fee(inc 30 CHARP, 40 title deed form (don't know the official name), there's 220 land registry fee, searches.. faint !!!


Another quesiton not-related. We're taking a mortgage of 218,599, and it's said advance mortgage is that amount - 30 pounds (CHARP) fee. I don't understand here, I still need to pay 30 pounds somehow, otherwise, the total amount is still 30 pounds short.. on the solicitor bill, there's a 30 pounds CHARP fee charged, we assume that is the one for exchange transfer ?


Thanks guys, any advice appreciated..

Doozergirl

There's a CHAPS fee from your mortgage lender to your solicitor, then from your solicitor to your vendor's solicitor.

I don't know what a statutory declaration is.

Considering that you have to pay £650 for everything they do, then £100+VAT isn't unreasonable. They're expensive people! I got a bill for nearly £300 for looking over a legal pack recently :mad: That's more than a Vivienne Westwood handbag! I'd have taken a chance and read the thing myself and just asked questions if I'd had any idea!

Sammy85_2

ok, sorry in advance that i cant help you with everything in your post, but i hope the following helps.

Its common for them to charge for the first property that fell through. The minute you appoint them the fees start, whether you go through with it or not. As they say, time is money. (even if its not much time)

CHAPS fee is £30, its just a money transfer fee. You probably have two to pay: one to transfer money from your mortgage lender to the solicitor, and one for the money to be sent on from the solicitor to the sellers.
The isnt uncommon.

Dont know about this statutory delaration though, ive certainly never had an additional charge outside of the standard legal fees (around £900 in my experience) Maybe its usually included with most solicitors fees and not with yours. I dont know.
But in any case, your original quote for this property should include that if its a standard thing. Anything extra they should have asked permission to do anyway since its not in the quote!

Good luck

gemma.zhang

We were not told of the price when we asked him to draft Statutory declaration.

The property we're buying owns a piece of land outside its front garden, and the house is on a private road, each household owns a portion of the road, and the private road is very narrow, only allows even number householdd to park on one side, the other side of road is alway kept empty. We were told that although we 'll own that piece of land (currently as parking space of current vendor for over 15 yrs), we don't have exclusive rights to park, or not allow other people to park oustide our door. The only helpful way is to get vendor to sign a 'Statutory Declaration' form, publish the fact that they've been using it as parking space for the past 15 yrs, and will be helpful in case we run into dispute with neighbour over parking space.. I don't really understand how use it would be !! however, maybe better to have it than NONE ???.. Also rights of way to back allayway is not mentioned on title deeds. Our solicitor 's gonna send this statutory declaration together with title deeds to land registry office, hoping that it will be registered as well !!!???

We just want to know if it shall be included inside our FLAT FEE ? although it's not that much 75 + Vat, I could let it go.. Just the fact that, he's not doing much, keeps making mistakes on bills, on basically anything that's possible, plus this GENEROUS bill , really !!!!es me off !!!! ....

clutton_2

calm down !!! solicitors are expensive people to employ. Initially, they should have sent you a note of their fees in advance - their basic flat fee plus "disbursments" which are fees they are charged by outside bodies - like search fees by local councils - they charge you what they are charged - usually.

It is not until they actually get the papers to read about your particular house that they actually know what the job entails.

A statutory Declaration is utterly in your interests - in terms of establishing your historical legal right to make use of something - such as this parking place. If you do not have a stat dec - it will make your life much more difficult when you come to sell - a stat dec attempts to establish the equivalent of squatting rights over something, so that you can ultimately claim ownership of it without having to pay for it ! he is doing you a favour.

this bill does not seem high to me - what was the purchase price of the house you failed to buy and the house you subsequently bought ?

Redbedhead

But the stat declaration is not a standard part of selling a house, therefore it will be paid in addition to the basic flat fee.

Did you ask for a quote when you asked them to complete it? I don't think £75 + vat is bad at all for drafting a legal document. Realistically £75 probably doesn't even cover an hour of their time plus their overheads. Why did you assume it was covered by the flat fee? Generally their fee quotations will state that the flat fee is for the basic work on purchasing the house and any additional work will be charged seperately.

To be honest £100 + vat if they have already started looking over the contract for you is not bad at all. It isn't 'merely nothing' - you said yourself it was for:
"claimed the charge is for answering our queries, checking draft contract, preparing for searches !!"

It appears you pulled out of that sale as well so they incurred costs on your say so and then you changed your mind - completely reasonable of them to charge and not unusual I would say.

You will have to pay the CHAPS fees in addition to the bill and not from the mortgage amounts I would imagine. Generally they appear to be £30 plus VAT so £35.25.

Sorry but you seem to be complaining about a 'generous' bill that is actually only £175+vat higher than you thought it should be, hardly a huge increase considering the additional work they had to do, which you did instruct them to do, so I can't see you really have cause to complain.

Debt_Free_Chick

gemma.zhang wrote: »

Now, the total fee is a whopping 1150 pounds(inc VAT).. didn't expect that extra 200 pounds !!!.. Just want to have ideas from you guys to see if it's reasonable at all before I start make a fuss about it !!! don't want to argue with him, still, we'll need him to get our title deeds done PROPERLY.. any ideas appreciated !!!.

Besides that 1150 huge fee(inc 30 CHARP, 40 title deed form (don't know the official name), there's 220 land registry fee, searches.. faint !!!

So the total amount is £1150 but it includes VAT so his total fee is actually less than this.

From what you say, he should have charged £650 for the conveyancing, £100 for the aborted sale and £75 for the statutory declaration.

If that's what he's charged, that seems reasonable. I can see that you weren't expecting it, but the statutory declaration is outside of the normal conveyancing process - it's an extra that was necessary for this particular purchase. It might have helped if he'd warned you at the time that there would be an extra fee to pay, but it really isn't an unreasonable amount.

lotto-dreamer

For dropping out of the first purchase you would have been charged for any work done to the date before it fell through. Most solicitors record each time they work on a file (whatever they do i.e. telephone call, letter, preparing documents).This is where they would have got the £100 figure from (plus VAT) If the fee earner who worked on the file charges, say, £100 an hour and spent at least an hour overall - this is where that figure would have come from.

The FLAT fee of £650+vat would have been an estimate BUT based on a straightforward matter. This is where they make a profit! (or not) i.e. if fee earner records less than £650 overall for all work done on file it's a profit. If not they might ask you to pay more (although they are supposed to warn you in advance if case is proving more time consuming and therefore expensive)

For something like a Statutory Declaration this would be extra - as the need for it would only have come up during investigation of the title and not all matters would require one.

The CHAPS fee on your bill is for sending the purchase monies by telegraphic transfer to the other solicitors on the day of completion.

The additional CHAPS fee is probably because your mortgage lender is deducting a fee of £30 from the mortgage monies they are sending your solicitor ready for completion (some deduct this which is very annoying and some don't but simply send the full amount and the CHAPS fee just gets added to your total mortgage - if you look at your mortgage offer you received it might explain this)

As for the Land Registry fee of £220 this is charged by the Land Registry for registering your title - it's a fixed fee.

The 'title document' fee you refer to is probably for filling in the Stamp Duty Land Tax Form - solicitors charges for this vary. The firm I work for has just put their fee up to £70 plus VAT.

Hope this helps!

The only consolation is perhaps that your seller's bill from the estate agents would have been a lot higher! (usually 1.5% of the property price plus VAT)

budget_counsellor_shaz

Unfortunately when you instruct a solicitor you have to pay their unreasonable charges. I used to pay solicitors and now we complete our own conveyancing. It has been a real eye opener:eek:

The contracts are standard and are purchased from the law society. The only part that differs from contract to contract are the special conditions. So these few sentences at the end of the contract are the only bits they need to concentrate on. £100 for reading a few sentences:eek:

The searches don't cost much either. We save ourselves an absolute fortune.

Other countries don't have our silly house buying system. But in this country a lot of people make a lot of money out of the house selling process in the UK. :rolleyes:

I wish you all the best in your future home......it will be worth it in the end.

Shaz

lotto-dreamer

budget_counsellor_shaz wrote: »

Other countries don't have our silly house buying system. But in this country a lot of people make a lot of money out of the house selling process in the UK.

Oh, how I agree with you there!!

However, if you are purchasing in England and intend to do your own conveyancing - you do need to have a good understanding of Land Law - there can be a minefield out there regarding rights of way, planning laws etc etc.

Also, if you purchase with a mortgage, I doubt your mortgagee would be happy with you doing your own conveyancing!

Even if you personally don't have any problems while living in your property if you do your own conveyancing- when you come to sell this is where it can affect you if your purchaser's solicitors pick up on things you didn't. Your property could either become very difficult to sell or could cost you a lot to put things right.

lotto-dreamer

budget_counsellor_shaz wrote: »

The searches don't cost much either. We save ourselves an absolute fortune

These are usually standard fees charged by local authority, Land Registry etc - and solicitors don't (usually) make a profit from these at all.