Fees doubling - can I get opinions?

Chieftain said:

We recently sold a house. When we engaged our solicitor she quoted a fee of 1100 euro. This this was fine with me.

This was her breakdown:
Professional Fee: 1,100

Click to expand...

She quoted you €1,100 and that's what she charged.

The other stuff is outlays and VAT which is in addition to the professional conveyancing fee. Some of the outlays are non negotiable (e.g. Land Registry/Registry of Deeds fees, stamp duty etc.). None of the individual charges look totally unreasonable to me.

I have yet to get back to her to voice my displeasure at her 'method' of charging

Click to expand...

This is the standard way of charging - solicitor's professional conveyancing fee, outlays plus VAT. It might be possible to get a better deal elsewhere but ultimately c. €2K is not unreasonable.

Hi Clubman,

Being unaccustomed to engaging the professional services of solicitors I was unaware of exact billing practices. I would agree that 2k is not a bad price.

However the way that she went about collecting her increased fees - was not transparent - and to the unaccustomed - appears very dubious.

Have a read of the many other threads on solicitors' conveyancing fees and you will see that professional fee plus outlays plus VAT is the norm. Are you saying that she never mentioned outlays and VAT at all whatever about putting figures on them in advance?

Some things I might quibble with here:

1. €125 for the CGT cert. This is a fee. If the solicitor already knew when quoting that the house was selling for excess €500k, then she knew that this was needed. In the same circumstances (as a practising solicitor) my fee quote would have been higher but would have included this job as part of the standard work. However, there is no uniformity of practice on this point. Some solicitors tell the client to get their accountant to get the CGT cert, or make it clear when quoting that the quote does not include anything to do with any taxes. If that was done so in this case, and she then took it on as an extra, then fair enough. Or, indeed, if she simply didn't know the house was going to be over €500k.

2. Registration of vesting cert. She has charged a fee of €125. If she already had the deeds when quoting, then she knew this job needed to be done. If she didn't know about this extra work when quoting, then fair enough, it does in my view constitute 'extra' work

3. Declaration re no demand for rent; this seems to be a fee of €25. It is petty, but there is no reason to charge it. It is not by any measure 'extra' work, but is part of the normal expected workload.

4. Declaration re Family Home Protection Act: this seem to be a fee of €25 It is petty, but there is no reason to charge it. It is not by any measure 'extra' work, but is part of the normal expected workload.

5. 'petty outlays' of €150; This is historically common, but is in reality more like a fee. I am ambivalent about it, but my 'petty outlay' figure would rarely be more than €100, and I only use it as a differentiator on files where there has been something extra (travel, lot of extra calls, whatever...) However, it is to some extent dignified by long useage, so perhaps not as readily open to challenge.


To summarise:

the total actual fees charged here are €1,550.
I would have no real quibble about value,
I would have two definite (but admittedly very petty) quibbles about transparency (the 2 x 25) and it is possible that there are other issues, as outlined above.

There is insufficient evidence to make the accusation, but as a practising solicitor, I would hate to think that solicitors are quoting a deliberately low 'headline' fee and then recouping it with sneaky additions to their outlays. To be blunt, it does not seem like a good way to do business. I personally prefer that there be a clear distinction between a fee and an outlay, and I think that this is also in the interest of the consumer. I might have quoted €1400 plus VAT and outlay for this transaction (of course, if it was a big title, or I didn't like the look of Chieftain I might have quoted €1700 plus VAT and outlay) and I would have been rejected as too dear, whereas in fact my total bill could in fact have been less. This does not promote open competition.

MOB thanks for the post!

MOB said:

Some things I might quibble with here:

1. €125 for the CGT cert. This is a fee. If the solicitor already knew when quoting that the house was selling for excess €500k, then she knew that this was needed. In the same circumstances (as a practising solicitor) my fee quote would have been higher but would have included this job as part of the standard work. However, there is no uniformity of practice on this point. Some solicitors tell the client to get their accountant to get the CGT cert, or make it clear when quoting that the quote does not include anything to do with any taxes. If that was done so in this case, and she then took it on as an extra, then fair enough. Or, indeed, if she simply didn't know the house was going to be over €500k.

Click to expand...

In fairness to her - she more than likely did not know the house was quoted above 500k

MOB said:

2. Registration of vesting cert. She has charged a fee of €125. If she already had the deeds when quoting, then she knew this job needed to be done. If she didn't know about this extra work when quoting, then fair enough, it does in my view constitute 'extra' work

Click to expand...

She didn't have the deeds when quoting. So again looks okay

MOB said:

3. Declaration re no demand for rent; this seems to be a fee of €25. It is petty, but there is no reason to charge it. It is not by any measure 'extra' work, but is part of the normal expected workload.

4. Declaration re Family Home Protection Act: this seem to be a fee of €25 It is petty, but there is no reason to charge it. It is not by any measure 'extra' work, but is part of the normal expected workload.

5. 'petty outlays' of €150; This is historically common, but is in reality more like a fee. I am ambivalent about it, but my 'petty outlay' figure would rarely be more than €100, and I only use it as a differentiator on files where there has been something extra (travel, lot of extra calls, whatever...) However, it is to some extent dignified by long useage, so perhaps not as readily open to challenge.

Click to expand...

Your saying - the lemon was squeezed for the last drop

MOB said:

To summarise:

the total actual fees charged here are €1,550.
I would have no real quibble about value,
I would have two definite (but admittedly very petty) quibbles about transparency (the 2 x 25) and it is possible that there are other issues, as outlined above.

Click to expand...

Agreed, the overall cost was not bad.

MOB said:

There is insufficient evidence to make the accusation, but as a practising solicitor, I would hate to think that solicitors are quoting a deliberately low 'headline' fee and then recouping it with sneaky additions to their outlays. To be blunt, it does not seem like a good way to do business. I personally prefer that there be a clear distinction between a fee and an outlay, and I think that this is also in the interest of the consumer.

Click to expand...

I agree completely

While I acknowledge that the charges were generally okay her management of the billing process left a lot to be desired. One phone call to explain the additions to the cost would have kept me as a future customer. Removing what she saw fit without making me aware of it (it was my money) - was very poor customer relations.

Thanks for the advice. It's not as bad as it first seemed, I think I'll bite the tongue & put it down to an experiance learned.

people seem to be obsessed with the 2000 euros or so a solicitor charges, but have no problem with the one and a half plus vat, plus any advertising costs that an auctioneer will charge...for what, showing people around a house and pointing out the kitchen and bathroom!!! A solicitor is signing his/her name to a lot of important documents.

I don't think that Chieftain has betrayed any signs of being obsessed by any figure in particular. S/he asked a reasonable question about charges which has hopefully been answered to some extent at this stage. If you want to let give out about what some people think/assume about solicitors' fees then there's a Letting Off Steam forum for that sort of thing.

bor said:

people seem to be obsessed with the 2000 euros or so a solicitor charges, but have no problem with the one and a half plus vat, plus any advertising costs that an auctioneer will charge...for what, showing people around a house and pointing out the kitchen and bathroom!!! A solicitor is signing his/her name to a lot of important documents.

Click to expand...

In fairness, I think this point was made in general terms, and not directed specifically at Chieftain or anyone else in particular. My own perspective on this is that people are indeed remarkably price-conscious when it comes to solicitor fees for conveyance services, and spectacularly less so on much bigger expenses such as auctioneers fees or indeed solicitor fees for estates etc. Price-awareness is normally very healthy on the part of the consumer but in this case it appears occasionally to be taken to ridiculous lengths. One prominent Dublin solicitor is regularly recommended on these pages as he seems to be the cheapest conveyance operator in the city yet AAM is littered with complaints from users about the poor business manner and quality of service from the same person.

ubiquitous said:

One prominent Dublin solicitor is regularly recommended on these pages as he seems to be the cheapest conveyance operator in the city yet AAM is littered with complaints from users about the poor business manner and quality of service from the same person.

Click to expand...

I thought that he got approximately as much positive as negative feedback myself.

I have no axe to grind against the guy in question but in choosing providers of any professional service I would be inclined to opt for someone with more than a 50% satisfaction rating from previous customers.

I reckon that a 50/50 (or whatever it might be) good/bad rating on AAM is unlikely to be indicative of the general opinion of any service provider no matter how popular some of us might assume AAM to be.

I agree with the general gist though - price is important when it comes to selection of service provider as with anything else but it should not necessarily be the main or final arbiter.

ClubMan said:

I reckon that a 50/50 (or whatever it might be) good/bad rating on AAM is unlikely to be indicative of the general opinion of any service provider no matter how popular some of us might assume AAM to be.

Click to expand...

Indeed, but when a succession of users express similar complaints about a particular person or business at various stages over a number of years, and where there is no suspicion that these people are somehow related and/or running some sort of campaign against this individual, then I think it is reasonable to give at least some weight to their cumulative opinion. This would be enough to make me very wary of using any such service provider or of recommending them to others.