Purchase Aborted Solicitor still charging

Anoymous

Dear All
I had recently put an offer to buy a house. I then appointed a solicitor. After sometime i had to back out due to loss of my job. This was communicated to EA, Seller, Mortgage broker. At this stage no contract was signed, not exchanged. I had paid 250 to solicitor for searches. When i checked with them no searches were carried out. They said they will hold my 250 with them for their costs and if i appointed them next time for purchase they will adjust this against the fee. Uptill this time all was okay. After few days i received letter from them that i owe them full fee 1000 less 250 = 750 pounds. Is it fair on their part to charge this fee when the only work they did was to send me a contract for signing. What should i do? Whom should i approach? Any advice please.
Thanks.

chuckles1066

Anoymous wrote: »

Dear All
I had recently put an offer to buy a house. I then appointed a solicitor. After sometime i had to back out due to loss of my job. This was communicated to EA, Seller, Mortgage broker. At this stage no contract was signed, not exchanged. I had paid 250 to solicitor for searches. When i checked with them no searches were carried out. They said they will hold my 250 with them for their costs and if i appointed them next time for purchase they will adjust this against the fee. Uptill this time all was okay. After few days i received letter from them that i owe them full fee 1000 less 250 = 750 pounds. Is it fair on their part to charge this fee when the only work they did was to send me a contract for signing. What should i do? Whom should i approach? Any advice please.
Thanks.

Tell them you're going to refer their charges to the Law Society for their consideration.

Anoymous

chuckles1066 wrote: »

Tell them you're going to refer their charges to the Law Society for their consideration.

Thanks chuckles1066. What is a law society? Are they sort of ombudsman? The solicitor is quite well known so by saying this will they soften up? I have already lost 650 on the aborted purchase and really worried.

Hippychick

The firm should have sent you either a copy of their terms and conditions when you instructed them or alternatively details in their initial client care letter to you of what they would charge should the case fall through.

Have a dig through your old paperwork and see what it says first, I would then query the fee with the solicitor first rather than going to the authorities, if you get nowhere then go the solicitors regulation authority, they have taken over from the law society and now monitor solicitors practices.

Anoymous

Hippychick wrote: »

The firm should have sent you either a copy of their terms and conditions when you instructed them or alternatively details in their initial client care letter to you of what they would charge should the case fall through.

Have a dig through your old paperwork and see what it says first, I would then query the fee with the solicitor first rather than going to the authorities, if you get nowhere then go the solicitors regulation authority, they have taken over from the law society and now monitor solicitors practices.

Thanks Hippychick. As suggested i checked their first letter. It mentions that they are entitled for full fee if i decide to withdraw. This is mention in their general leaflet which i guess will be send to all. In my case, the contract documentation was not even signed by me and they themselves mentioned that no searches was carried out. I can understand that if they had paid 3rd party or external costs. Are they still entitled to full fee?
Can anyone lists for me the kind of activities a solicitors does, so that i can check with them as to what activity they have done? or am i asking for too much here?
Help please....

palmeras69

There is usually A LOT of work before you get to the pint of exchanging contracts. However:

1. £1000 sounds a lot in any event and

2. If they hadn't made the searches you wouldn't (or shouldn't) be exchanging contracts anyway.

Something doesn't smell right here.

Most solicitors still charge if a matter goes abortive which is quite right - the solicitor has still done the work. But this doesn't sound right to me. I've been doing this for over 20 years and we are not all bad (but I do come across a lot of bad lawyers).

You need to question this with the firm before going any further and don't let them fob you off.

Anoymous

Dear all

Following are the break up of charges which solicitors had provided.
Can someone guide as to what would solicitors have paid for my aborted work.
To refresh they had not carried out searches, this price includes introduction fee to mortgage broker and contract document was prepared, sent to us for signing which we did not sign.

Legal and admin fee
Bank transfer fee
Stamp duty Land tax form
Search Fee
Land registry fees
Temporary Building insurance

As i don't understand the above work in details any information whether above work is done or not would be useful.

Thanks

merlinthehappypig

If they hadn't done searches then obviously the search fees wouldn't be payable, though they may well have done the searches if you were any way into the purchase - you need to double check this.

The bank transfer fee is for the mortgage advance so that wouldn't have been done.

Land registry fees are payable when the new ownership is registered (I think) so that won't have been done or payable.

The temporary building insurance would only kick in when you exchanged contracts.

I'm not sure about the stamp duty form - I'd assume that only needed completing when the stamp duty was payable, which is on completion, so you may not have incurred that either.

It seems fair and reasonable that they would charge you for any admin work up until the point that you pulled out, but it does seem that they have charged you for everything. Are you certain that there wasn't a clause saying that everything would be payable even if you didn't complete?

I can't see any reputable solicitor doing this, but there are plenty of 'cut-price' outfits who might.

Anoymous

merlinthehappypig wrote: »

If they hadn't done searches then obviously the search fees wouldn't be payable, though they may well have done the searches if you were any way into the purchase - you need to double check this.

The bank transfer fee is for the mortgage advance so that wouldn't have been done.

Land registry fees are payable when the new ownership is registered (I think) so that won't have been done or payable.

The temporary building insurance would only kick in when you exchanged contracts.

I'm not sure about the stamp duty form - I'd assume that only needed completing when the stamp duty was payable, which is on completion, so you may not have incurred that either.

It seems fair and reasonable that they would charge you for any admin work up until the point that you pulled out, but it does seem that they have charged you for everything. Are you certain that there wasn't a clause saying that everything would be payable even if you didn't complete?

I can't see any reputable solicitor doing this, but there are plenty of 'cut-price' outfits who might.

Thanks for responding.
They said they may charge full fee incase i cancel in the first letter.
In the letters demanding outstanding balance because of costs / expenses incurred. Surely they have not done all of above work for which they are charging full fee.

kunekune

It is still worth querying it if the effective fee is unreasonable. As it may well be if they are charging a fee based not on what THEY have done but on what outside organisations, eg, land registry, are charging them. Which is what the fee information you quoted sounded like. And then they tried to charge it even though they clearly have not paid those disbursments. I suspect the law soc would take a dim view of this too.They have not paid out those sums, so there is no reason why you should have to pay them. That's profiteering.

I agree with the people who say you should complain.

ShelleyC_2

I've recently withdrawn from buying a house after a bad survey & valuation. I was expecting to pay nearly the full £1000 I'd been quoted seeing as I'd been pushing for things to move & asked for searches to be done etc (I really did NOT see the survey being an issue) But much to my surprise I've been charged a mere £80 for "abortive" fees and the cost of the searches that had taken place.

Would definitely challenge them over what work they're charging you for