Solicitior took his fee from our last mortgage drawdown - allowed?

skmck

Hi all,
As stated above, our solicitor took his fee from our final mortgage drawdown amount - is he allowed to do this? I know I did not sign any document allowing him to do this but I was told by his office that this was normal practice with solicitors.
Can anyone tell me if this is the case?
Thanks!

Rew

If he did this then would he not have left the vendor/vendors bank short on the price of the house?

When we bought or house we paid the solicitor separately to the mortgage. As part of selling that now our solicitor has made it clear that he would take his fee from the balance after the mortgage is paid off before transferring the remainder to us.

adelcrowsmel

My solicitors took his fee from the mortgage drawdown - all the money/morgage was transferred to my solicitors account - he took his portion and then the remainder was transferred to the vendors solicitors to pay the outstanding balance on the house - I would imagine this is standard practice but your solicitor should have informed you this is the way they were going to do it, mine did.

Rackstar

Rew wrote: »

If he did this then would he not have left the vendor/vendors bank short on the price of the house?

Sounds like a self build mortgage. Drawn down in stages.

KCross

skmck wrote: »

Hi all,
As stated above, our solicitor took his fee from our final mortgage drawdown amount - is he allowed to do this? I know I did not sign any document allowing him to do this but I was told by his office that this was normal practice with solicitors.
Can anyone tell me if this is the case?
Thanks!

It is not normal or allowed unless otherwise agreed with you beforehand. There are strict rules governing how solicitors deal with your money and their invoicing. I'd suggest a quick email to the law society to get confirmation of what is normal/expected behavior.

Was a fully itemised invoice given to you before they took the money? If not, they shouldnt have taken it as it leaves you with no bargaining power if you want to dispute items in the bill as they already have the money!

I suppose it doesnt matter a whole lot if they took the right amount of money, just the principle of it more than anything else.

davo10

If the amount is correct, does it matter? You would have to pay him soon when purchase closed so presumably you had his fee in your bank account, just forward that to the sellers solicitor.

chickenlicken2

There are really strict rules set out under the Solicitors Account Regulations in relation to this. You can find these online.
Was it mentioned in your Section 68 letter or did you receive a bill of costs?