Not happy with solicitor (to put it mildly)

Hello,

We are trying to buy a house; trying that is as we do not get much further at the moment. Closure would have been last week, but we only discovered then that the contracts we had signed 2 weeks before had not been sent by our sollicitor to seller's solicitor. Our solicitor told us he had sent them earlier! Big escalation and last week our solicitor confirmed to us by email that he had spoken to seller's solicitor and that everything was sorted and that closure would be within 4-5 days.
Today our solicitor suddenly told us that he had not received the cert of compliance yet and that he could not request the loan cheques. Needless to say that we are very disappointed and that we are of the impression that we are not being told the entire truth (as happened earlier). I will not reveal the name of this solicitor yet, but is this a common practice in Ireland, to leave your clients in the dark, make mistake upon mistake and come up with somekind of bs story every time? Would solicitor be liable for extra costs we had to make?

Thanks in advance for your help

Your solicitor was wrong to lie to you and say he had sent out contracts when he had not. This type of thing is common in many businesses, not just legal profession, but that doesn't make it right.
In relation to the certificate of compliance there isn't much your solicitor can do about it since this comes from the Vendors solicitor and it is therefore their delay, although if the form of the cert had been agreed already and it was to be provided on closing your solicitor could go ahead and request the loan cheque on that basis. But there is a risk then that you could be paying out on a mortgage where the sale hadnt closed if the cert wasnt readily available for the expected closing date, so your solicitor may be trying to play it safe for your sake.

As to what you can do about it- complain to your solicitor- don't be agressive about it, just let them know that you are disappointed with the service and why and ask for a discount in fees because of it. They are not obliged to give you a discount and they won't be 'liable for extra costs' but they may give a discount to try to keep a good relationship with you.

Sounds exactly like the situation we found ourselves in. Did you go with the Credit Union Scheme by any chance. We missed a deadline due to the solicitors incompetence and got a fixed interest rate of 4.89% instead of 4.79% if the cheque had been drawn down on the day it should have been.

Nope it has not anything to do with the credit union. At this moment we are just waiting for the sale to close and after that we will have a 'good talk' with our solicitor

If you get no joy you can complain to the Law Society. But that can also be a waste of time as well Solicitors get away a lot and charge you for the privilage.

In purchasing our house two years ago, there were serious delays on our solicitors side. We were advised that everything was done by the other side but that our solicitor was getting our side of things done. We called the office may times over two weeks or so, but no calls were returned. Low and behold, one of the secretaries finally lets slip that the solicitor that we had been dealing with 'went for lunch one day and never came back'. This was weeks before!

Anyway, I advise the practice that I was going to make a complaint to the Law Society. Within hours the managing partner got onto us to apologise profusely. Thankfully everything eventually was resolved.

I had an issue with a supplier of wooden floors at my house. I went to a legal executive I knew of on the advice of a friend. He sent out a legal letter to the supplier. Then the legal executive requested an engineers quotation from me for costs on the damaged wooden floor. He sent this on to the supplier. The supplier then contacted me and we managed to sort it out between us without having to go to court. The problem I have is the Legal Executive now wants €650 for sending two letters to the supplier and keeping my case details on file. He had advised me at the start not to get involved with the supplier directly because as he put it " the whole case would be a mess" but when the supplier was willing to negotiate after receiving the initial letter from the legal executive I said why not. I think €650 is too much by far for the amount of work done. Has anyone an opinnion on this ?

Based on the details you have given it certainly sounds high. Did he give you any estimate of costs at the outset? Is this legal executive working for a firm of solicitors? What qualifications does this person have?

Hi AJE,

Whats a "Legal Executive"? Is it a profession and if so how is the profession regulated?

aj

I got no estimate at the start and to be honest because he is a brother in law of a friend of mine I did not think this situation would arrise. He does work for a firm of solicitors..his fathers business. I would say the qualifications are questionable but he does put Legal Executive after his name. You see when I went in originally to the firm I thought he would introduce me to a solicitor but instead he looked after it himself so I left it go. But I have a major problem with the cost. After all he did very very little in the way of actually dealing with anyone. I did the legwork and e-mailed him the details. I only met him once and I never spoke with him on the phone. He sent one initial letter, a follow up to that and copies of correspondence to me. He then sent another letter advising me not to get involved. I got the impression that he was only interested in the whole thing going to court him being the biggest winner so when the supplier contacted me I did a deal with him.

I don't think the term 'Legal Executive' has any professional/offical standing.

IanDublin said:

Did you go with the Credit Union Scheme by any chance.

Click to expand...

Have to say we went homebuyhomesell through a flyer in the Credit Union and they were really good to deal with, knew what they were at and overall our experience was great - and we couldn' get over how many people told us we would get what we paid for and as they were far cheaper would be crap. ours was great. Please don't tar all of them.

Legal Executives or Legal Clerks are well recognised within the profession. These will often have many years of experience of legal work. They work along with solicitors in many of the middle sized to large firms. As long as the legal executive in question was someone in a solicitors firm then they are subject to the stringent criteria in place and consumer protection afforded by the Law Society. So in this instance they should have given an estimate of costs at the outset. Now while not giving the estimate does not mean they don't have to be paid, it is a disciplinary matter. Also all legal fees can be queried with the law society and the taxing master. If negotiation directly with the firm will not work and you feel the fee is too high, then you should contact the law society and they will help.

Vanilla said:

Legal Executives or Legal Clerks are well recognised within the profession.

Click to expand...

I recognise this Vanilla, but are there any restrictions on calling yourself a Legal Executive, i.e. do you require any exams/qualifications? Or is it merely a title for anynone who is not qualified?

Good question. I'm not aware of any professional qualification or minimum level of experience. I suppose generally though legal executives/clerks are employees in a solicitors firm. I would imagine that no firm would allow one of their staff to call themselves such unless they felt they had the requisite training/experience. Many legal executives nowadays do a legal diploma, though not all, and others will simply have years of experience.