Solicitor's Fees - Payment up front?

Mattyupnorth

Hi all

I'm selling a flat, and my solicitor who i've just appointed has asked for £250 of his total fee (£350+VAT+disbursements ) up front.

Is that normal and should I be worried?

Thanks in advance!

Richard_Webster

Your solicitor will have to pay out to a managing agent to obtain information about your flat (copies of service charge accounts and statements, copy insurance policy and premium receipt.) Some of these managing agents charge over £200 for supplying these packs of documents so your solcitor might well want the money to cover this kind of cost - it will be one of the disbursements in your final statement.

Mattyupnorth

Thanks, Richard
I don't think my management company charges much if anything for this.

Assuming there's no charge, is the £250 reasonable given no work has been undertaken at all yet (other than sending me this bill)?

Keen to hear from others for a balanced view!
Thanks

Cazza

Sounds fairly normal and average to me!

LillyJ

I had to pay £270 up front for searches etc, and then paid the rest upon exchange.

EDIT sorry I was buying, not selling, didn't read your post properly.

Richard_Webster

Thanks, Richard
I don't think my management company charges much if anything for this.

Assuming there's no charge, is the £250 reasonable given no work has been undertaken at all yet (other than sending me this bill)?

Two points:

1. Solicitors won't know about your management company - they will have to allow for the nasty ones and have a standard figure they always ask for.(If the money isn't used it will show as a credit item on your final statement and you would be sent back that much more on completion); and
2. The fee quoted is fairly low for selling a flat. Maybe the solicitor wants to make sure he gets paid and wants to minimise the correspondence etc over fees later.

spykey_uk

I work for a solicitors firm and it is quite normal to ask for fees upfront. This is unfortunately due to the small minority of people who fail to settle their invoices, leaving the solicitor out of pocket for hundreds of hours of work.

It is a shame that these non-payers have to ruin it for everyone else, but most solicitors ask for fees upfront to prevent their fees not being paid at all.

Hope this helps

PasturesNew

If they didn't ask for the fee up front they'd have people pulling out of deals and never paying them. And the cost of chasing bills.

I'd pay up front without a qualm. These are solicitors and will be trusted with £000s of transaction sums shortly.