solicitor costs for house purchase that fell through

V

viztopia

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I tried to purchase a house last year but it fell through. It wasnt the fault of me or my solicitor. The house purchase wasnt a straightf forward one as it was been sold by a bank. The other sides solicitors seemed to drag it out and I couldnt wait any longer. I wasnt overly impressed with my own solicitor and since then i bought a difefrent house and used a different solicitor for this. I am froma relativley small town so I would be surprised if the original solicitor hasnt heard about this. today 6 months after I pulled out of the original purchase I received a bill from the first solicitor. I had receicved an engageemnt letter at the outset which i never signed and this bill is for more than that. While I do recognise that the original solicitor did work on the job and will get paid for that I am not in agreemtn with what they are looking for. I ntend to go to them and ask them for details of what exactly they did and how they arrived at the final bill amount. I would expect them to get bitter over this as my family have always used them. If they intend to hold out for everything due as per the fee note and pursue this further what can they do i.e.what court would it go to? As I have indicated earlier I do not want to be unreasonable, I just want to be fair
 
Hi viz

As you say, I think it's fair that they get paid. You should call into see them to discuss the bill. They presumably sent you a big bill expecting you to negotiate it down.

From your description of the messy case, they probably did almost all of the work quoted for and probably more besides.

Solicitors will often write off this sort of work, if they bill you for another transaction. But as you went elsewhere, they are right to bill you for it separately.

Brendan
 
The amount that would have been quoted in your engagement letter would have been just the basic fee. You need to add on 23% VAT to this figure plus there are always extra costs including law searches, taking up title documents etc. If you had remained with this firm for the second purchase they would probably have cut that fee in half at least but as you went somewhere else they are entitled to their fee as the transaction was all but completed.
 
I was in a similar position in November in that the sale of the house we were buying fell through very late in the process. I phoned solicitor the next week to settle the bill. It came to 180 including VAT. I didn't get a breakdown but was happy enough with that as it included one face to face meeting, drawing up of contract, a few phone calls between vendors solictors (they were divorcing and had two).
 
Exact same thing 3 years ago.
My solicitor did the entire package upto 'sign' and it's yours.
2 week before close the purchaser bolted.
In fairness the work was all done - searches, title history and all that.
I just paid up.
 
I know what I say is 'horse - stable - has bolted' but this illustrates a simple contract law situation.

The solicitor probably issued a letter of engagement. Maybe he explained it, maybe he didn't.

But many people may reasonably have thought that if the sale fell through, what work exactly had the solicitor done?

Maybe someone would outline generally accepted conveyancing practice to ilustrate where the time and efforts are incurred.
 
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