Solicitor Kept cashback after fee’s already paid.

NotAMathmatician

As the title reads really. 

We received a draft completeion statement and an invoice prior to completing. We paid this in full before completion. 

However when we asked about the cash back after completing he first claimed that we didn’t have a cashback on our mortgage offer - we sent proof of this and CC’d in our mortgage advisor who also confirmed the cashback is right. 

He then claimed he has received this and has been account for in his fee’s as per the completion statement. We haven’t actually received any paperwork after completion so we’ve asked for a copy of this - which came by email this morning with ‘extra’ charges on it. These are charged that were in the original draft completion statment or on the invoice. We had no idea about these until now. 

As far as we were aware we were squared up when we paid all the fees before completion and was not told otherwise. In fact out documents say that the price they’ve given is fixed. 

So we’re confused. Can he just add on extra charges when the money comes in at completion? 

ACG

What are the extra charges? 
Fixed fee generally means no matter how many hours they put in. If they have additional disbursements to make then they are able to charge them. Examples being indemnity insurance, coal mine searches, multiple bank transfers.

They can not just add on extra charges. They need to give you a full breakdown on money received and a breakdown of where the money went. 

K_S

@NotAMathmatician Usually, where the c/b goes to the conveyancer, it's usually clearly shown on the completion statement - either included in the net mortgage advance or as a line in the statement itself. If there are extra charges on the final completion statement that weren't on the draft completion statement, you should definitely question that.

Here's an example from a recent personal (not a client's) remortgage -