Queries Raised in Draft Contract

anxshush

Hello everyone, I am new here so I do apologise if this has been asked before, I did go back a few pages but couldn't find anything!
My husband and I are in the process of (hopefully) moving, we have a buyer for our home and have just had the mortgage valuation done on the property that we would like to buy. I received an email from our solicitors this afternoon saying that the "fee earner has now fully reviewed the draft contract papers supplied by the sellers solicitors. A number of enquiries have been raised which need to be replied to before we will be in a position to send you the contract for signing."
I was wondering if any of you had had this before or if anyone may have an idea of what these enquiries may be?
Thank you for taking the time to read this! 😊

davidmcn

Enquiries are a standard list of questions about the property, designed to flush out information you'd want to know about.

Sandtree

They are generally nothing exciting, but its how the paralegal person earns the fee... for us buying a leasehold property the fee earner was asking for copies of correspondence from the managing agent, proof that service charges etc were up to date, questions about notification of any planning permission requests and a host of other things.

Ours didnt turn up much other than some commentary about a "living wall" construction for a football training ground we back on to... unfortunately the fee earner felt that alone was enough to earn the money and we had to do digging (turned out the original planning permission for the grounds required a living wall to be built which the people didnt do before the council signed up to ownership warts and all so they said they were going to plant some ivy to grow up the chainlink fence as they felt it met the requirements and cheaper than the original proposal

anxshush

@davidmcn @Sandtree thankyou both so much for your replies, that has put my mind at ease - I was starting to think it was something awful haha!

princeofpounds

I've been on this board for years and never heard the term 'fee earner'... anyone know what that's all about?

eddddy

princeofpounds said:

I've been on this board for years and never heard the term 'fee earner'... anyone know what that's all about?

Not surprisingly, a "fee earner" is somebody whose time is chargeable to the client - so that includes solicitors, trainee solicitors, legal executives, paralegals, conveyancing executives etc.

It's a term that's frequently used in solicitors firms' quotes etc.

greatcrested

In most cases it refers to the fully qualified solicitor even though much of the routine work may be done by a trainee or admin bod. Naturally the fee-earning solicitor's time is charged at rates 3 or 4 times that of the underlin. Or maybe in this case the 'fee-earner' IS the underlin, and the charge will be much lower.

In most cases, it is immatarial, since most conveyancing contracts these days are on a fixed fee basis, whoever has actually done the work.

It becomes relevant though if, for example, the sale/purchase falls through. Your final bill in that case is not based on the fixed fee agreed, but on the number of hours spent to date, and the hourly rate of the fee-earner.

Flugelhorn

I think there is more of a shock when the buyer's conveyancer doesn't make any enquiries, they seem to do it as a matter of course - they have to find something to justify the fees

Sandtree

princeofpounds said:

I've been on this board for years and never heard the term 'fee earner'... anyone know what that's all about?

You could argue its a bit of smoke and mirrors as it somewhat masks who is actually doing the work. The term is literally what it says on the tin... the person in the law firm that is doing the work that earns the fee. In theory it could be a Partner, Associate or some form of paralegal (or even a trainee paralegal) but the blanket term somewhat hides that (though billing would make it clearer) and in practice fee earners tend to be the lower grades and if you are dealing with senior staff they tend to use their grand titles instead.

People seem to assume that everyone who works in a solicitors firm is a solicitor whereas, particularly in the world of no win, no fee injury law firms, the reality is the majority of the staff are paralegals or people doing their ILEX qualification on the job with oversight from an Associate (though very arms length in some firms)

PS. not implying its used to defraud people... they will bill the £130/hr for a paralegal, £250/hr for an Associate and £1,200/hr for a Senior Partner etc when the bill comes in, just avoids questions at the time.

AdrianC

princeofpounds said:

I've been on this board for years and never heard the term 'fee earner'... anyone know what that's all about?

Bog standard term in the legal industry, and in wider professional services. Anybody whose time is chargeable to clients, rather than the support staff who enable them to charge.

The_Earl_of_Streatham

Flugelhorn said:

I think there is more of a shock when the buyer's conveyancer doesn't make any enquiries, they seem to do it as a matter of course - they have to find something to justify the fees

Yeah, because if they miss something, nothing's going to happen is it?