Complaint against solicitors and house purchase searches

macman

At a typical partner billing rate of £300ph, that £50 represents about an extra ten minutes of their time. I'd say they undercharged you.

ThePants999

sunflowers123 wrote: »

They quoted me £500 to purchase 1 High St. The purchase collapsed, but then was back on again three weeks later and they changed their quote to £550. Both the seller and purchaser details remain the same, all paperwork complete and it was a case of waiting on a suitable date to exchange. What extra work would they need to do? When I spoke to my new solicitors they agreed that they should not be allowed to do this and should be reported to The Legal ombudsman!

But you said, "I instructed sols to deal with purchase and sale." They might not have had any work to do on your purchase, but almost all the work on the sale needed to be repeated.

sunflowers123

I think I need to start again with my explanation.

I was quoted £500 for my PURCHASE. They now want £550 due to in effect a three week pause. Appreciate this is a small sum but have lost quite a lot of money so far.

I was quoted £500 for SALE of my house. This fell through and I paid £450 for abortive fees. They have quoted £500 again for brand new sale. I didn’t mention this part in my post as I have no issue paying this.

ThePants999

Gotcha. That makes much more sense. However, it doesn't take much of a solicitor's time to cost £50 - could have been just archiving the file and then retrieving it!

(On a side note: surprised the sums are £500 and £500. There's far more work in a purchase than a sale!)

sunflowers123

ThePants999 wrote: »

Gotcha. That makes much more sense. However, it doesn't take much of a solicitor's time to cost £50 - could have been just archiving the file and then retrieving it!

(On a side note: surprised the sums are £500 and £500. There's far more work in a purchase than a sale!)

Oops you’re right, purchase was £550, not £500.

PS thanks for your input.

Silver_Queen

I'm a bit confused about why you want to complain. The quoted amount increased by £50 which I understand can be annoying but you weren't forced to go with them and have in fact changed solicitors. Surely the solicitors can quote however much they want given that your previously arranged sale and purchase collapsed this is now essentially a new matter? What exactly is it that you want to complain about?

Silver_Queen

Sorry, forgot to add. The searches are a bit more worrying as it sounds like they didn't commission all the searches they were supposed to, especially if you were about to exchange. I would definitely have expected more than just a coal search and local search. Did they ever ask you what searches you want or give you advice/options? How close to exchange were you, exactly? Are we talking days or weeks? Have you asked them about it? It could be that they had requested the search and it was yet to come back, but they managed to cancel it after the transaction fell through. If they can't show that this is the case, I would say you have a valid ground for complaint here but just so you're aware, you need to exhaust the internal complaints procedure before you can take it to the ombudsman.

davidmcn

If the property is in the sort of location where it's obviously going to be connected to mains water and sewerage then there's not much point paying someone to confirm that. Or there may have had other evidence (e.g. an old water search with the deeds)?

Any other searches are optional and often just tell you the bleeding obvious (or things you can check yourself for free).