Solicitor held my money for 20 years should I get interest on top of the capital amount

delilahdelilah

RHemmings said:

delilahdelilah said:

My reply from solicitors 

 

Thanks for your email and I understand your concerns, I will have to pass this over to Mr Xxxxxxx  to have a look at. I know he is busy at the moment, so bare with me and hopefully we can come to some resolution in this

matter.

 

Kind Regards

DId they really say 'bare with me'? Everyone will make language errors but that's a bit of a glaring one and I wonder about their staff. 

If I was fussy, I might wonder if the first sentence is a comma splice. And, shouldn't it be a 'resolution for this'? 

Yes I spotted the ‘bare’ but missed the poor grammar in resolution in this’ ….. let’s see what they come back with …. I think they may have assumed that I wouldn’t take this further. 

I am not sure whether I should say that I may be taking independent legal advice …. So they may take me seriously …. But Thankyou for your help 

delilahdelilah

I have written to the solicitors as have not heard since 1.7.24 when they were asking Mr x for him to look at this …. 

My email 
Hello x

Please can you let me know if there is any progress with Mr x . 

Please could you advise your policies and procedures in the event of similar situations. 

‘  The Legal Services Commission re Registered Charge was actually £8,910.29 not £8,748.’ 

There was no legal charge registered?  Please could you evidence this charge ? 

I am considering contacting the ombudsman for advice on this as my questions are not being answered.  

 Regards 

any thoughts or advice would be appreciated 
many thanks 

MeteredOut

initial thought - you might want to remove the real names from your last post.

delilahdelilah

I received this reply today 

Thank you for your email below. Mr x has requested that Mr  xx review your comments as the file handler concerned and indicate his response, before he/we can respond, substantively, to your correspondence.

 We understand that the Legal Ombudsman will require the above process to be undertaken, in any event.

 We hope to be able to reply to you in a reasonable timescale. We trust that this is satisfactory in the circumstances 

Kind Regards

Mr  xx was the solicitor who dealt with my property sale 

Now waiting for their response from Mr xx

newsgroupmonkey_

From start to finish of your complaint, they have 8 weeks. Make it absolutely clear.

Don't hold back.

They'll doo-doo themselves if you do go to the Legal Ombudsman. It will cost them up to £400 if either you settle or the ombudsman finds in your favour. On top of any costs. It costs you nothing.

Jude57

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

From start to finish of your complaint, they have 8 weeks. Make it absolutely clear.

Don't hold back.

They'll doo-doo themselves if you do go to the Legal Ombudsman. It will cost them up to £400 if either you settle or the ombudsman finds in your favour. On top of any costs. It costs you nothing.

In common with every other Ombudsman, the Legal Ombudsman won't even look at your complaint until you've exhausted the firm's own Complaints Process. It's important to give the firm time to investigate and respond to a complaint and although the OP has had correspondence with the firm, there's no indication they've actually made a specific complaint. Until and unless they do, and until and unless the firm fails to respond satisfactorily, there's no point trying to involve the Ombudsman. More information about how to complain here:

https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain/

newsgroupmonkey_

Jude57 said:

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

From start to finish of your complaint, they have 8 weeks. Make it absolutely clear.

Don't hold back.

They'll doo-doo themselves if you do go to the Legal Ombudsman. It will cost them up to £400 if either you settle or the ombudsman finds in your favour. On top of any costs. It costs you nothing.

In common with every other Ombudsman, the Legal Ombudsman won't even look at your complaint until you've exhausted the firm's own Complaints Process. It's important to give the firm time to investigate and respond to a complaint and although the OP has had correspondence with the firm, there's no indication they've actually made a specific complaint. Until and unless they do, and until and unless the firm fails to respond satisfactorily, there's no point trying to involve the Ombudsman. More information about how to complain here:

https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain/

You've just backed up exactly what I said.
And I think it's very clear that they've made an official complaint - they've complained that the interest owed has been miscalculated.

I'll quote from the website you put up.

"Your service provider has up to eight weeks to put things right.

If you are not happy with their final response, you can bring your complaint to us."

MeteredOut

delilahdelilah said:

I received this reply today 

Thank you for your email below. Mr C has requested that Mr R review your comments as the file handler concerned and indicate his response, before he/we can respond, substantively, to your correspondence.

 We understand that the Legal Ombudsman will require the above process to be undertaken, in any event.

 We hope to be able to reply to you in a reasonable timescale. We trust that this is satisfactory in the circumstances 

Kind Regards

Mr R was the solicitor who dealt with my property sale 

Now waiting for their response from Mr R

I agree with the other responses that you make it clear they've got 8 weeks. I'd go back, thanking them for their response, and giving them the 8 week date at which, if the issue has not been resolved, you'll involved the ombudsman.

But, reading the tone of that response, I suspect they're finally realising you're not just going to walk away, and I'm hoping they'll come up with a suitable recompense.

delilahdelilah

Thankyou all for your comments above … most appreciated.  

I had a call yesterday from Mr R …. The practice Owner.    He has returned to work (in semi retirement) and this case was in his desk.  He was very surprised and says this sort of thing very rarely happens and to go unseen for such a long time is very curious.  He did suggest that maybe I should see it as a windfall that it has been found.  Which initially it did strike me as such - only when it sank in  that they had my money for 20 years and I saw it as their error that I changed my thoughts around it.  He also said it might not be a mistake and laughed that he hoped he might not have to ask for the money back once he investigated.  (Light-heartedly said).  He also suggested the interest was probably only the sort of amount they would have accrued themselves.   I think not.  

Anyway he asked me to not do anything rash at the moment whilst he looks into it and assures me that we can sort this to a mutually agreeable resolution.   So am now waiting to hear from him 

thanks for reading 

BarelySentientAI

delilahdelilah said:

He also suggested the interest was probably only the sort of amount they would have accrued themselves.   I think not.  

As we worked out very early in this thread, it might have been exactly that.

That's not a particularly good reason for them to only pay you it though, but don't get distracted.