Solicitor closed before house purchase completed

[SASSYB]

Hi hopefully someone here can offer me some advice. I recieved a letter from the law society the other day to inform me that the solicitor dealing with the purchase of my home (and sale of previous) had closed and they were now holding my files. The letter stated

"We have carried out a review of your file and note that your title deeds are still on your file. These deeds should have been returned to the Bank of Ireland together with a Certificate of Title from your solicitor. It will now be necessary for you to nominate a new solicitor to take up your file and complete this outstanding work on you behalf.

We inclose herewith schedule of title deeds on your file for your assistance.

We note that we are also holding your file in relation to the sale of XXXX. There is a vacated mortgage on this file which should have been forwarded to XXXXXXXXX solicitor for purchasers of (previous home) XXXXX."

We bought this house over 2 years ago and of course expected all work in realation to the purchase and sale to have been completed which has obviously not been done. My question is

1) How much work is involved in completing the above and therefore how much can I expect to pay fot this to be done? Obviously its a priority as it concerns my home.

2) If its only a small amount of money to do the above i'll chalk it up to experiance but if we're talking lot is there any comeback on the monies I have already paid for this to be done as I can't afford to needlessly (IMO) pay twice for legal fees?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer me!

 

[mathepac]

I had a similar (not identical) experience when a solicitor I was using ran into difficulties. The replacement solicitor was able to complete all the outstanding work at no additional cost to me as I had paid my final bill and was able to prove this (cheque stubs, bank statements, etc.) It took a few weeks to sort but the outcome was OK. If you have paid, you won't be asked to pay again. Check the letter you got from the Law Society, it should (as best I can recollect) mention not paying again.

 

[SASSYB]

Thanks for that Mathepac. The letter from the Law Society didn't say anything about not paying again so I will ring them tomorrow and see what they have to say.

I don't have bank statements as such to prove I paid as when I sold my previous home I took some of the equity from it i.e. Sold and made 200K in profit.
Used 150K as a deposit on the new house.
Used 30K for Stamp Duty Costs
A cheque was made out to me for the remainder less the solicitors costs. i.e.20K less of 3.5K so 16.5K

I have the statement of costs (invoice) which details all these costs and also have the bank statement to show the remaining monies lodged into my account which tallies with the above statement. Hope this will suffice?

I'll ring the Law society as I said and if for some reason I do have to pay for this to be completed I'll see if they can advise me of how much I should expect to pay.

Again thanks for the advice!

 

[mathepac]

... I have the statement of costs (invoice) which details all these costs and also have the bank statement to show the remaining monies lodged into my account which tallies with the above statement. Hope this will suffice?...

Hopefully that will satisfy their requirements.

I can't believe that work paid for but uncompleted would have to be paid for again. Best of luck for a satisfactory outcome.

 

[Bronte]

I can't believe that work paid for but uncompleted would have to be paid for again.

But if a new solicitor does the work who is going to pay him for that work? Surely no solicitor is going to take on work that is non paying. Maybe the costs come from the Law Society from the compensation fund. In any case their letter to the OP should have been clear on that point.

 

[mathepac]

... Maybe the costs come from the Law Society from the compensation fund...

... The replacement solicitor was able to complete all the outstanding work at no additional cost to me as I had paid my final bill and was able to prove this (cheque stubs, bank statements, etc.) ...

Correct, which is why I suggested OP review the Law Society letter.