Solicitor Dispute in Divorce

pphillips

paraza wrote: »

Thank you, this is exactly what I am saying and why I am wondering if I have therefore can defend the county court summons

You have to fill out your defence or acknowledgement of service and get it back to the court within 14 days. If you send back an acknowledgement of service, you then have a further 14 days to send in your defence.

Comms69

pphillips wrote: »

But is doesn't work like that, a solicitor will not ask someone to sign a new contract every time they complete a different element of work. The contract that is signed by the client will cover all the work the solicitor completes for the client in relation to their divorce. When the work is completed the client is sent out a final invoice for all the work once it is completed. In this case the client has confirmation from his solicitor that the final bill has been paid and this covers everything. The contract is complete and the firm cannot then write to ask for more.

I can't tell that you have any experience of dealing with debt recovery by solicitors, especially when you think I should be responsible for the OP's decision to defend the claim. The OP only asked for advice on how to defend the claim, but apparently you have come on here with your own agenda,

Yes my own agenda; I represent the firm in question...

pphillips

Comms69 wrote: »

Yes my own agenda; I represent the firm in question...

Well that creates a conflict of interest, you can't give advice to both parties!

TBagpuss

OP, was the bill you paid marked as being a final bill? Did it say on it what time period it covered? When they sent the new bill, what, specifically, did they say it covered, and did they offer any explanation for the error?

I don't think you are likely to get very far trying to argue estoppel, which is a very complex area of law, but it is valid to say, if you decide to defend the claim, that you asked for, received, and paid a final bill , and that you have asked for but not received any explanation as to why a further bill has been raised (if that's correct)

NinaSwiss

Layman question here.

So a solicitor firm completes work items A, B and C
Invoices for item A and B but mistakenly omits to bill for item C.
Same invoice is marked as final bill (incorrectly) and client pays up.

OP - is this similar to what has happened ?

On realising this error, are we saying that the firm cannot request payment for item C (e.g by raising a new invoice for item C) just because the last invoice was marked as final?


Something similar happened to me but in reverse.
Solicitor realised invoice included work that was not completed. I had not noticed but they refunded me about 6 months after I'd settled the invoice.

paraza

NinaSwiss wrote: »

Layman question here.

So a solicitor firm completes work items A, B and C
Invoices for item A and B but mistakenly omits to bill for item C.
Same invoice is marked as final bill (incorrectly) and client pays up.

OP - is this similar to what has happened ?

On realising this error, are we saying that the firm cannot request payment for item C (e.g by raising a new invoice for item C) just because the last invoice was marked as final?


Something similar happened to me but in reverse.
Solicitor realised invoice included work that was not completed. I had not noticed but they refunded me about 6 months after I'd settled the invoice.

This is very helpful, thank you. Yes this is pretty much the scenario. I also haven't ignored the previous solicitor. I asked for more time to respond to them because 1) I had to prepare for final hearing 2) one best friends died without warning and 3) I got diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma (a type of brain tumour) . They ignored my request for time to respond. I wanted to go through all my paperwork to match up the papertrail (it goes back to the end of July) but they ignored this and started court proceedings. They also didn't notify me of this until they had initiated the proceedings. I have been told by several people that they were not entitled to invoice again after they'd already issued their final invoice. I know it is a complex situation but I appreciate your comments

paraza

TBagpuss wrote: »

OP, was the bill you paid marked as being a final bill? Did it say on it what time period it covered? When they sent the new bill, what, specifically, did they say it covered, and did they offer any explanation for the error?

I don't think you are likely to get very far trying to argue estoppel, which is a very complex area of law, but it is valid to say, if you decide to defend the claim, that you asked for, received, and paid a final bill , and that you have asked for but not received any explanation as to why a further bill has been raised (if that's correct)

Yes this is the basis on how I want ti defend the claim. The final bill was raised and paid. Then they tried to raise a further invoice after the final bill was settled

gettingtheresometime

Was the invoice marked e&eo ?

mrschaucer

Or even e & oe? (Errors and omissions excepted)

pphillips

paraza wrote: »

Yes this is the basis on how I want ti defend the claim. The final bill was raised and paid. Then they tried to raise a further invoice after the final bill was settled

It seems to me you have 3 different potential ways of defending the case:
1. The contract was discharged by performance - this requires the contract to be completed so that the obligations come to an end. In other words, the further invoice was a mistake.
2. The contract was discharged by agreement - this required both parties to agree to bring the contract to an end and release each other from it in a new contract requiring a payment.
3 Estoppel by representation - this can be used to enforce a representation that was made by one person in order to induce the other person to make a payment in faith of their representation, when they later go on to deny it.