Excessive unexpected conveyancing charges?

Livinglifewithicecream

A friend is close to completing the sale of their property and the draft statement of account has been sent. The total charge is nearly £2,000 for a firm based in Wales that does almost everything online. This is in sharp contrast to the initial quote.

Can I query the additional charges - is it reasonable to pay for "expedited exchange and completion" when the whole process has dragged on? How much is it to take a copy of Freehold Register, Conveyance etc? What is "dealing with additional enquiries"?

Woodstok2000

Was the initial quote itemised? What are the differences between that and what they have billed you for?

Expedited doesn't necessarily mean quick, it just means theyre spending more time and effort chasing things up - it can still take time.

HouseHuntingAmy

Your friend can absolutely query it, and should. Ask for a fully itemised breakdown and sit it next to the original quote - anything that was not in the quote, or was described as "if needed", is fair game to challenge. "Expedited exchange and completion" is a charge some of the online factories add on, and if the dragging was at their end it is very reasonable to push back on paying extra for it. Copying the register is a tell: official copies of the title register or plan cost £3 each from the Land Registry, so anything beyond that is the firm's admin markup and worth querying on principle. "Dealing with additional enquiries" just means extra questions raised by the buyer's solicitor - annoying, but a common add-on wich should still have been flagged in the quote's small print. The practical route is a polite written complaint to the firm first (they almost always trim something), then the Legal Ombudsman if it goes nowhere - the firm has to give you their complaints procedure. Worth the stamp.

gm0

Almost certainly not (successfully)

expedited exchange and completion refers to their role played in specific process at the end. Which can be done in relaxed normal office process mode. Or "expedited" (with a billing line for it) for diverting attention to th file in a time critical - sometimes extended hours - manner. More time = more cost = More billing. Lawyers. . The fact it took 6 months to get close to exchange is not relevant to whether or not the expedited methods they choose to charge extra for to the stressed happened or not.

Dealing with additional enquiries is all the correspondence and toing and froing with the other side.
You say it has dragged on. Presumably some of that was delays and lack of responses. And some was writing back and forth seeking clarifications on risks about the title, planning, building control, management company of estate - whatever it happens to be.

Basically an estimate isn't a fixed price promise. It's a guess for it could cost X for a "typical" conveyance. With a bunch of assumptions baked in that aren't true here. And this conveyance isn't known until you start it.

And when you read the contract/engagement stuff sent at the start. It will most likely make it clear that it is time and materials for the time spent on activities abc.

So the bill is probably (mostly) legitimate. Their record keeping in support of it may be good or bad - some businesses are organised - some not. You can tweak their tail if you want.

But they will likely blank you if doing this the usual way with the usual type of arrangement letter in place.
And chase the legitimate bill.

Also offering you a fruitless in house regulated complaints process because the problem is in fact misunderstanding and a level of sloppy client expectation management by them. But not work done, time spent and billing to contract.

You might get a tiny "sorry we mismanaged your expectations" discount line item" to go away. They don't want to correspond about 1k.

Shedman

Would that Welsh online conveyancing firm's name sound a bit like a 1970's film about truckers and CB radios starring Kris Kristopherson by any chance?

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6684481/excessive-unexpected-conveyancing-charges

May be easier if your "friend" posts for themselves…

When we did ours with an online conveyancer they gave an initial schedule, the fixed cost of their time, the average cost of the various disbursements and some optional extras (like if the property is leasehold).

Our final bill came out much higher than the initial fixed cost but it reconciled fully to the schedule when you added in the searches, that it was leasehold etc etc.

I agree with the above, the lawyers can only control their side of the equation so yes, if expediated exchange says its extended operating hours, response to emails with X hours etc then they get that fee if they were asked to provide that service and meet what it was supposed to deliver… the fact the other solicitor or even your friend took 5 days to respond to each email cannot be blamed on the lawyer.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82148200#Comment_82148200

They said they got a quote not an estimate… there is a distinction between the two.

tetrarch

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82148682#Comment_82148682

My experience with this firm was absolutely spotless, but that was in 2021

I didn't have any OTT charges and the conveyancer was outstanding

Regards

Tet