Divorce Costs

Anov13

Can anyone help me please. I'm in the process of getting divorced, at the outset the solicitor i chose stated that it should cost between £3k-£5K but could rise if we went to court. 

We've just swapped Financial details, and i've already spent over £5k.

Once they saw how much was in the mix finance wise they also told me that they had put their prices up.

They've also sent me a letter about Wills and charged me for that stating that it is an important part of the divorce process and they will not take it off the bill.

Can you please suggest what i should do firstly about the charges already levied which are above their initial estimate, and secondly the letter about Wills which i challenged as just a sales letter to which they responded it's a part of their service.

Please advise.

Thank you

MEM62

Divorces are not cheap.  Most parties to them are unable to be reasonable and the resulting bun fight results in considerable legal costs for both sides. It would be unrealistic in most cases to expect the legal fees to be anywhere near £5K.  Your solicitor has a responsibility to be clear in their charging structure and the scope of work that they have done for you.  Sorry for the bad news but expect it to be costly.  

DullGreyGuy

Solicitors normally work on "time and materials" basis so the estimate is a ballpark of how long they guess it will take. What you actually pay is X hours at £Y per hour plus any disbursements. 

It's something to be mindful of, was a story a while back of a woman emailing her solicitor in Nov/Dec in a really chatty way, asking what her plans for the holidays were etc (story didnt say what the solicitor was engaged to do). When she got the bill she'd been charged 10 minutes time for reading each email she'd sent and each reply that she'd received, so her email conversations had cost her over £500 and had been nothing to do with the case. There's a reason why law firms call them fee earners!

Just remember that each time you send a chaser or if you drip feed information through 3 times a day each one will carry a cost and most law firms the minimum charge period is 10 minutes. That said, they're better than me, my minimum charge period is contractually 1 day but in reality it's half a day. 

tacpot12

You need to take stock as to whether you think this solicitor is delivering value for money. If not, then you need to move to another solicitor. Just bear in mind that there will be some cost associated with 'jumping ship'.

Your new solicitor may give you the ammunition to make a formal complaint and ask for some money back if they identify incorrect advice or work that has been created unnecessarily just to bump up the charges, but I would not hold out much hope of this. Even with strong evidence, you will end up at the Ombudsman.

The Will issue is outrageous, and I would make it a condition of staying with them that they remove the Will charge. I would start interviewing new solicitors now!

They are not wrong that you need to write a new Will, but they should not be able to blackmail you into when you do so and who you use to write your Will.

VyEu

You're talking about forms E voluntary exchange? Depending on the complexity of the assets, it could well be that much. Court is always more expensive.

As for the Wills letter, I don't know what it says but advising that a divorce can affect your Will on divorce is valid imo.