Solicitor Dispute in Divorce

pphillips

Comms69 wrote: »

literally nothing to do with outstanding payments.

I'm not sure what you're misunderstanding, but this has everything to do with outstanding payments,

According to Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract (16th edn) Chapter 19:
"An agreement by the parties to an existing contract to extinguish the rights and obligations which have been created is itself a binding contract, provided that it is either made under seal or supported by consideration. ."

Therefore, if you owe £1000 to someone and they agree to call it quits for £700, they cant then go after you for the outstanding £300 once you have paid the £700. The reason for this is because the the new agreement is legally binding if it is supported by consideration (a payment of money).

bap98189

Forget whatever your solicitor told you - he/she most likely does not do the invoicing and in any case has left the firm. The question is very simple: did the law company do the work they are invoicing for?

If they did the work then the invoice is valid and you will have to pay it. Do not ignore it. Do it now before this gets to court.

pphillips

bap98189 wrote: »

Forget whatever your solicitor told you - he/she most likely does not do the invoicing and in any case has left the firm. The question is very simple: did the law company do the work they are invoicing for?

If they did the work then the invoice is valid and you will have to pay it. Do not ignore it. Do it now before this gets to court.

According to the OP it is already at court and the OP says that they want to defend the claim. The OP has not asked us whether or not they should pay it.

Comms69

pphillips wrote: »

I'm not sure what you're misunderstanding, but this has everything to do with outstanding payments,

According to Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract (16th edn) Chapter 19:
"An agreement by the parties to an existing contract to extinguish the rights and obligations which have been created is itself a binding contract, provided that it is either made under seal or supported by consideration. ."

Therefore, if you owe £1000 to someone and they agree to call it quits for £700, they cant then go after you for the outstanding £300 once you have paid the £700. The reason for this is because the the new agreement is legally binding if it is supported by consideration (a payment of money).

But getting a ‘final’ bill and settling a debt partially are not the same thing.

pphillips

Comms69 wrote: »

But getting a ‘final’ bill and settling a debt partially are not the same thing.

I'm not sure what your getting at, what matters is whether the parties were in agreement that the debt had been settled. It seems that this was the understanding between them at the time when the final invoice was paid.

Comms69

pphillips wrote: »

I'm not sure what your getting at, what matters is whether the parties were in agreement that the debt had been settled. It seems that this was the understanding between them at the time when the final invoice was paid.

Not if they weren't charged for an element of work.


So in your example if they had charged £200 for drawing up documents, and now claimed that it was £250 for those same documents; then there may be a defence.


BUT if they hadn't been charged at all, then that money is still due.


I'm not aware of solicitors chasing frivolous debts through court, especially where if it were so simple to defend. But hey, It's not my money on the line.


Since you're so convinced you'll no doubt go an represent the OP in court, as a lay rep, and settle any court order?

paraza

Thanks for all your replies.

My solicitor was moving firms. I wanted to stay with my solicitor as they had handled all of the divorce proceedings to date. I was advised that to move my files to the new firm that my solicitor was moving to, the account needed to be settled in full. This was agreed and the full and final settlement invoice was raised. This invoice was paid in full, the invoice that I had been advised was the full and final settlement amount. The files were released and transferred over to my solicitor at their new firm. A couple of weeks later the now previous law firm raised a new invoice, citing it as additional work that had not previously been billed. I disputed this as I had requested a full and final invoice in order for my files to transfer. I have been advised that this is an estoppel because they were not entitled to invoice for an additional amount when a final invoice had already been confirmed. Hope this helps. Thank you

paraza

Comms69 wrote: »

But getting a ‘final’ bill and settling a debt partially are not the same thing.

The final invoice was settled in full. The query I raise here is the fact that I don't believe they are entitled to raise a further invoice when they have confirmed the final bill was settled and allowed my files to transfer to the new law firm? I have been advised that a law firm is not entitled to do this once a final invoice has been settled

paraza

bap98189 wrote: »

Forget whatever your solicitor told you - he/she most likely does not do the invoicing and in any case has left the firm. The question is very simple: did the law company do the work they are invoicing for?

If they did the work then the invoice is valid and you will have to pay it. Do not ignore it. Do it now before this gets to court.

The solicitor did do the invoicing and also confirmed in writing to me that the final bill had been settled in full

paraza

Gavin83 wrote: »

I agree with pphillips. While it might be a valid bill there's nothing to confirm this in the OP. It's entirely possible it's an extra charge they've forgotten to bill for but it's also entirely possible they've made a mistake and this extra amount shouldn't have been invoiced. Either way they've made a mistake.

Paraza, when you asked the old law firm what this extra charge is for what did they say? Ultimately if you owe this money it needs to be paid, however it's worth questioning.

Also don't ignore them, this won't go away. It leads to issues such a court summons, as you've experienced.

I received a court summons yesterday via a 3rd party law firm. Again slightly baffled as I understood they had to been seen to resolve directly with me. They haven't. They said this was additional work they previously hadn't invoiced for. However a practicing solicitor has advised me that a law firm is not entitled to raise an additional invoice once a full and final invoice has been agreed and paid in full