Solicitor negligence - what now?

avgjoe

My partner and I before we got married, bought a property where she was to hold 99% of the title and I was to hold 1%. We instructed the conveyancing solicitors in writing of this pre purchase.

In their documents to us pre purchase that percentage was somehow reversed and we informed them of the error and to correct it and they wrote back they'll do it. 

Fast forward 2 years we wanted to check whether they actually did and they have the percentages thw wrong way around. 

Now we aren't selling or getting divorced but obviously the percentages are the wrong way and to fix that presumably we would need to transfer a significant portion at a high price and tax. 

Can we get the solicitors to pay the cost of this plus inconvenience or what are we entitled to at this stage? 

GDB2222

avgjoe said:

My partner and I before we got married, bought a property where she was to hold 99% of the title and I was to hold 1%. We instructed the conveyancing solicitors in writing of this pre purchase.

In their documents to us pre purchase that percentage was somehow reversed and we informed them of the error and to correct it and they wrote back they'll do it. 

Fast forward 2 years we wanted to check whether they actually did and they have the percentages thw wrong way around. 

Now we aren't selling or getting divorced but obviously the percentages are the wrong way and to fix that presumably we would need to transfer a significant portion at a high price and tax. 

Can we get the solicitors to pay the cost of this plus inconvenience or what are we entitled to at this stage? 

Clearly, the conveyancers are at fault, and they need to put this right. However, I think there's no tax due, and all they need to do is amend whatever deed you signed.

Why not ask them?

avgjoe

Gave them a call this morning and they said it would only be an issue if we were to sell the property and to just show documentation then that there was a mistake made but that doesn't seem helpful. They didn't say they could just adjust percentages when I asked? 

TripleH

Put in a formal complaint and ask them to amend it to show the correct split now as your proposed resolution.

Give them time to sort and if they don't then escalate your complaint.

I assume this split was agreed as part of you buying the property initially?

If they come back with 'it doesn't matter' remind them that if they don't fix it now they may be in breach of their professional indemnity insurance by failing to mitigate exposure to claims. That should shut them up.