Legal advice - solicitors

Slimbo

Legal advice - solicitors

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Hi All,

Last November I took out a mortgage on a property, I was charged a fee by my solicitor for this service which I was very happy with.

In January I wanted to put my partners name on the title deeds.
This service was again supplied by the same solicitor, but they have charged me the same amount exactly for this service.

My question is, is this correct practice, should the cost be the same?

Should I be charged for land registry,searches etc all over again when the same solicitor was holding the title already.

Any feeedback would be greatly appreciated.

Slimbo

boomer_ie

Slimbo wrote: »

Legal advice - solicitors

---

Hi All,

Last November I took out a mortgage on a property, I was charged a fee by my solicitor for this service which I was very happy with.

In January I wanted to put my partners name on the title deeds.
This service was again supplied by the same solicitor, but they have charged me the same amount exactly for this service.

My question is, is this correct practice, should the cost be the same?

Should I be charged for land registry,searches etc all over again when the same solicitor was holding the title already.

Any feeedback would be greatly appreciated.

Slimbo

Slimbo

Sounds to me like you were charged an hourly rate and that the work took the same amount of time therfore the invoice is the same

Shane

Slimbo

Hi Shane,

Thanks very much for the reply.

I have queried this and the Solicitor informs me that they charge a flat rate for saleand a flat rate for purchases.

Surely after doing all the searches etc on the original property I should expect some discount as it the same property and my partners name is the only addition and work that needs to be done.

Slimbo

Oryx

Ask for a breakdown of charges. And is this a huge amount of money?

Solicitors and charges seem to be a law unto themselves. (no pun intended). I asked mine once how much it was going to cost for some work I asked him to do. He got deeply offended at being asked such a question, and told me he would not be conning us. But still couldnt or wouldnt set a figure (even a vague one) on the fees. I had no choice but to either stick with him or move to another practice which likely would still not declare a fee upfront.

keefg

KtK wrote: »

Solicitors and charges seem to be a law unto themselves

Yeah, I agree. When I bought my first house I was quoted an all in price by a solicitor (something like 2000 euro), so I got the quote in writing and went ahead with their service.

Bought the house no problems and got bill from solicitor for the exact amount as quoted, so I paid up and got a receipt in the post a few days later.

About 2 months after I'd paid my solicitors fees I got a letter in the post stating that they had "forgotten" to charge me for something or other and they wanted another 200 euro off me and they followed this up with a phone call looking for the money.

I told them where to go as I had paid in full the agreed amount, as far as I was concerned the matter was closed and if they wanted to take it any further I would be happy to go to court.

They told me they would "keep the file open on me" and that the money would still be outstanding on their records. Never heard anything more about it and that was about 6 years ago.

Bloody chancers. :mad:

tricky D

keefg wrote: »

I told them where to go as I had paid in full the agreed amount, as far as I was concerned the matter was closed and if they wanted to take it any further I would be happy to go to court.

They told me they would "keep the file open on me" and that the money would still be outstanding on their records. Never heard anything more about it and that was about 6 years ago.

Bloody chancers. :mad:

You should have asked them if they are actually familiar with some legal stuff called Contract Law. Bloody chancers is right!!

Lizzykins

Funnily enough I too have heard stories of people not being given even a ballpark figure for fees and then being charged what seems like exorbitant fees. Time conveyancing was taken out of solicitors control and done the way they do it in the States. Not sure how it works but it seems to be very inexpensive.

Oryx

As of yet there seem to be no legalities preventing them behaving in this way. Even though if a restaurant, garage, or any other business tried something similar theyd be rapped on the knuckles for it.

Maximilian

Slimbo wrote: »

Legal advice - solicitors

---

Hi All,

Last November I took out a mortgage on a property, I was charged a fee by my solicitor for this service which I was very happy with.

In January I wanted to put my partners name on the title deeds.
This service was again supplied by the same solicitor, but they have charged me the same amount exactly for this service.

My question is, is this correct practice, should the cost be the same?

Should I be charged for land registry,searches etc all over again when the same solicitor was holding the title already.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Slimbo

I wouldn't have thought the price would be the same. There is obviously work involved however, the solicitor would presumably have not needed to investigate the title to the property again, having done so already in the recent past (presumably). Hence, the fee (that is to say the professional fee) should presumably have been less. You don't say what the fee was however, so maybe you were charged an unusually low fee the first time around (unlikely I know )

As for the other outlay like Land Registry fees and searches. Yes those are required I'm afraid.

Scorpio Girl

hi, i'm in the process of building my own house and my solicitor has just rang me to say they have the first payment from the mortgage company. they want to take their fee out of this now. can anyone tell me is that how it works?

Maximilian

Scorpio Girl wrote: »

hi, i'm in the process of building my own house and my solicitor has just rang me to say they have the first payment from the mortgage company. they want to take their fee out of this now. can anyone tell me is that how it works?

What did you agree? There's no hard and fast rule. If it doesn't suit you to pay their fee now, say so.

Scorpio Girl

we didn't agree anything only the fee which will probably change.

thanks for the advice maximilian.

MysticalSoul

OP. Seaches need to be carried out again I'm afraid. If you had, for instance got into bad debt during the year, this would have been taken into account, and your partners history as well. It is standard practice for searches to be carried out again I'm afraid.

Scorpio Girl - it is standard practice for Solicitor's to take their fee out of any money they receive from banks, settlements etc. This ensures that they do get their fees, but you could probably suggest to them that to take a % rather than the full amount. If the payment from the mortgage company is 50% of the total mortage, suggest the equivalent, that you pay 50% now and the rest later IYSWIM.

Scorpio Girl

thanks irishamethyst, the money they've received now is only 25% of the total mortgage so i'll suggest that maybe they just take 25% now.