Spanish Solicitor has ripped me off, please help

Rtype

I have recently sold a spanish property that I co-owned with a friend, everything was going well until the solicitor transferred the funds from the sale.

I have a Nationwide account and my friend has a Revolut account, both of these accept Euro transfers with some of the best exchange rates, so we asked for the Euros from the sale to be transferred to these accounts in Euros.

The spanish solicitor transferred the money to both of us in Sterling, without our permission, and is now fobbing us off and we don't know where to turn due to the complexity of it being a spanish solicitor.

They told us that our accounts would not accept Euros so they had to convert them using their prefferred company that they use all the time, which is a 'world leader in currency exchange rates'. The rates given by this company 'Corpay' have lost us around £6000 compared to what Nationwide or Revolut would have given us.

I strongly suspect that they get a commission from using this company, which I obviously can't prove, but we are both now left not knowing what to do.

Every time I email the solicitors, they fob me off with responses and go round in circles. One email says that they transferred the money in Euros (they didn't) and then the next email states they could not because our accounts would no accept Euros (they do).

Can anybody advise as to where we can go from here as I feel conned and do not want to let them get away with this?

Many thanks in advance for any advice or help

Stubod

..I think you are probably stuffed unless you employ another (probably Spanish), solicitor which will probably cost you more than the money you have "lost"???.....unless they have a formal complaints procedure...(which they probably don't??).

Martico

Only advice I can give (if you've not already done so) is to research what look like the best support/help forums in Spain and ask there as well.  

Schwarzwald

write a formal complaint email and demand that the EUR shortfall needs to be paid as there were no instructions that a Spanish solicitor wires the proceeds of a Spanish property sale in any other currency than EUR.
They were never instructed to wire you GBP.
Offer them to wire back the GBP taht you received in exchange for received the EUR amount of the sale

then escalate it to the highest level at this law firm, equivalent of ombudsman, file a legal complaint, etc

km1500

although obviously I don't know about Spanish solicitors I would be surprised if, like in the UK, they did not have a complaints system and maybe even a regulator

 I would research this and in the first instance make complaint to the firm and then up to the regulator if they exist

MultiFuelBurner

https://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/2018/03/09/how-to-file-a-complaint-against-a-lawyer-in-spain/

Boat_to_Bolivia

As galling as it is to lose any money, I imagine it will cost you far more in terms of time and money to start a claim than to just accept the loss.

For a start you will need to employ another Spanish Solicitor or an English Solicitor's firm who have offices in Spain (costly) and it could take an age to be resolved (again costly)

Sorry but my advice is to take a deep breath and stomach the loss

Just IMHO.