Solicitor fees from 30 years ago

K

keanocar

Guest
My mother is trying to get her deceased parents' cottage in her name. The house was in her father's name who died over 30 years ago.

She discovered recently that her mother tried to get the house in her own name after her husband died some 30 years ago but never went ahead with any action but the solicitor bill was never paid.

My mother's current solicitor is telling her that the fee which will have to be paid to the solicitor of 30 years ago is a fee of todays market.

We thought it would be a small fee of a couple of hundred euro at the most as fees would have been so much lower back then.

Is she being ripped off or will she have to pay the fee at todays rate?
 
1. Big mess.
2. Original solicitors bill is now statute barred so they could not sue for it.
3. Original solicitor may still have necessary paperwork which they may not be inclined to release.

Is she being ripped off? Well, perhaps if she had actually dealt with the problem at the time it arose, this entire situation would not now have arisen. You need to establish what the situation is, ask for actual figures and then decide if, to get matters resolved, she is willing to do what it takes to get this mess sorted.

mf
 
As stated the claim is statute barred. However, solicitor may have files etc. that you require and are claiming a lien over this info.

The question should be asked about why did your mother not pay the bill. Was a bill even raised and did the firm attempt to recover payment at the time.

I would suggest getting as much information as you can and update your post here then write a letter to the Law Society.

Personally I think a bill being raised 30 years later smells unless for some reason you can honestly say that you know for a fact that your mother never paid for these services.
 
Thanks for your help anyway. She only discovered recently that her mother had went to a solicitor some 30 odd years ago to start the process of getting it in her name. But her mother must not have continued with the process and so the matter was said to have "died" as no bill was sent from the solicitors either.

Presently she is waiting for her solicitor to get back to her with the fee from the other solicitors which must be paid for those documents to be released. My mother never realised 6 months ago that there was going to be any of this hassle and if it was going to cost so much she may have reconsidered it. We just can't believe that the solicitors will charge a fee at todays cost which our solicitor said would probably happen.
 
keanocar said:
Thanks for your help anyway. She only discovered recently that her mother had went to a solicitor some 30 odd years ago to start the process of getting it in her name. But her mother must not have continued with the process and so the matter was said to have "died" as no bill was sent from the solicitors either.

Presently she is waiting for her solicitor to get back to her with the fee from the other solicitors which must be paid for those documents to be released. My mother never realised 6 months ago that there was going to be any of this hassle and if it was going to cost so much she may have reconsidered it. We just can't believe that the solicitors will charge a fee at todays cost which our solicitor said would probably happen.
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So. You don't actually know what the bill is?

Maybe you should wait and find out what it is, before asking if she is being ripped off?

Just a thought.

mf
 
mf1 said:
So. You don't actually know what the bill is?

Maybe you should wait and find out what it is, before asking if she is being ripped off?

Just a thought.

mf
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She is being billed for work that was not completed and if it was worth invoicing they should have raised a bill 30 years ago.
 
keanocar said:
We just can't believe that the solicitors will charge a fee at todays cost which our solicitor said would probably happen.
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It may not seem fair - but it is. A fee which was paid 30 years ago would have been charged at the rates then applicable - but your family has had 30 years' credit on this. It would make no sense to charge at the rates applicable 30 years ago.

That said, if the job was started but not finished, and consisted solely of getting a property registered with good title in your father's name over into your mother's name, then even at today's rates it should not be a total shocker of a bill.

Obviously, if the reason that the work was not finished is that the solicitor didn't bother doing it, this is significant. But if your mother took the thing a certain distance and didn't bother going back to the solicitor, or failed to provide necessary info etc., then clearly the solicitor should be praised rather than criticised for the fact that he\she did not close the file and issue a bill to your mother for the work done.

If the house was not actually in your father's name either, or if there were title problems, of course the fees due may be substantial.
 
I may be missing something here but how can the OP's mother be responsible for her deceased mother's outstanding bill.... regardless of the time elapsed.
 
She isn't.

It appears that the 'old' solicitor has a file of papers, which the OP and the 'new' solicitor need in order to finish this job. A solicitor has what is called a 'lien' on a file - i.e. the solicitor is not obliged to hand over the papers without getting paid for work done. If it were practical to simply leave the old file of papers with the old solicitor and deal with the matter afresh, then there is little or nothing the old solicitor could do about it ( not that this would necessarily be fair or proper - but certainly I have seen it happen).
 
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The OP's mother's ex solicitor should release the files forthwith. They have absolutely no grounds to hold onto the files. What they are doing is blackmailing by holding onto the files based on a 30 year old bill that may or may not have been paid and work that may or may not have been started or completed. These ex solicitors are not doing any work other than releasing files. They are certainly not entitled to have the bill paid, and they and other solicitors on here know this very well.

What kind of shoddy practice would bring up a 30 year old bill? I don't believe the Law Society would view this kindly. The fact that the new solicitor thinks it is perfectly normal should send alarm bells ringing about their practices.

Seperately to this if title has not been transferred then it will have to be done now by the new solicitor at today's prices.
 
Hi Bronte,

I don't think we are talking about a 30 year old bill, but 30 year old work in progress.

Clearly if this file was previously billed and the bill was not paid, that bill is long since statute barred - though I suspect that this does not stop them from issuing a new bill before handing over the work product which they hold. But what is often (and in this case likely) the situation is that the solicitor said to the client "get me dates of death for x, y and z; we will have to serve notice on your sister in law" etc. etc. and perhaps the mother decided to leave things sit. There are loads of reasons why a title application might stall or founder, some of which include delay by solicitor but many of which don't. For example, suppose one of the notice parties to an application is in a home and suffering from Alzheimers - notice cannot be served on that person and - short of very expensive court applications - the matter cannot proceed while he\she is alive. I actually have such a file that is going on since 1978.

The better practice would be for the solicitor to bill for work to date, then put the file on hold. But if the solicitor didn't bill, then he\she\the firm is perfectly entitled to be paid for the work before handing over that work; and at today's rates. And even if he\she did bill, I think it wuite likely that he\she is entitled to issue a fresh bill before handing over the work product.

Maybe an analogy will help illustrate why I regard this as no more than basic fairness: Let us suppose that the mother had commissioned a boat to be built and the boat builder had started the job 30 years ago, but never finished it. To keep the analogy more comparable, let us assume that the mother was supplying all materials, and the builder was providing labour only; let us suppose that the mother wanted custom teak decking which she was going to source herself, but she never got around to it and the partly finished boat has been in storage with the builder ever since..

Would it be fair for the daughter to call around to the boat builder and say to him "I have got another boat builder; you can hand over the 60%-finished boat now and we only expect to pay 60% of the price that you agreed 30 years ago"

[or, to take a more extreme view, she might say that the boat builder's entitlement to be paid is statute barred.and he can swing for it.... for this is exactly what is being suggested for the poor oul' solicitor........].

I just can't see the fairness in this. Why should the boat builder be expected to act on such a request? Why should a solicitor be treated any differently than the hypothetical boat builder?

I should say, by the way, that -just like the solicitor - the boat builder would have a lien (it is called "the mechanics lien" ) on the unfinished boat.

People seem to accept without question that garages can hold on to a car until they are paid for the work done on it, but to resent the fact that a solicitor can do the same thing with paper. The reality is that solicitors are in general much slower about taking action to recover money than almost any other business ( I don't know any other business that would store work product for 30 years without getting paid). This is not something for the lawyers to be ashamed of.
 
That's a very good story MOB. But we are surely not talking Bleak House here?

Let's put it a different way. Original solicitor did some work 30 years ago and was not paid at that time. 29 years and no work later the OP wants their files. But there is a catch, the solicitor who did some work (or no work) that was billed for then (or may not have been billed for) and was not paid (or may have been paid) has now come up with a bill that is apparently unpaid.

What's in the files belongs to the OP, the fact that the solicitor didn't get paid is their own fault and they should take the loss. That's the story I see.

Incidentally I wasn't aware that solicitor's were charging for storage.
 
Bronte, your proposition boils down to this: once a solicitor has delayed long enough in charging for (or collecting payment for) work, not only does he\she lose the right to sue for payment ( which is fair enough - it's the same for everybody) but also that work must be handed over for free if requested. I just can't agree with this second aspect.

I think we are going to have to agree to differ on the rights and wrongs of this.
 
MOB said:
Bronte, your proposition boils down to this: once a solicitor has delayed long enough in charging for (or collecting payment for) work, not only does he\she lose the right to sue for payment ( which is fair enough - it's the same for everybody) but also that work must be handed over for free if requested. I just can't agree with this second aspect.

I think we are going to have to agree to differ on the rights and wrongs of this.
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I agree, if I was the boat builder and works stopped for a long period of time I would be raising an interim bill for works completed to date and not be waiting 30 years!
 
What a shame that so many posters on this thread don't take the time to read the OP properly. It seems,that in their haste to see their clever assertions in print,they're
getting the mother and grandmother mixed up
 
The solicitor hasn't even raised a bill yet. I would expect it to be nominal. Wait and see as MF1 said. It is an interesting insight into people's mentality though that they get up on their high horse and curse the other solicitor before they have even asked for a penny.
 
Bronte said:
What's in the files belongs to the OP, the fact that the solicitor didn't get paid is their own fault and they should take the loss. That's the story I see.
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jack2009 said:
...if I was the boat builder and works stopped for a long period of time I would be raising an interim bill for works completed to date and not be waiting 30 years!
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+1 to both of the above.

MOB said:
but also that work must be handed over for free if requested. I just can't agree with this second aspect.
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Fair enough, but that seems like ransom to me. If the bill for work carried out wasn't issued or paid for 30 years, then surely they have no right to use the Lien as a substitute now. Morally anyway, probably not legally though, and so it is all semantics. The solicitor (or the boatbuilder) will get paid, one way or the other.
 
Screw that bill! Tell em you'll pay the costs to date, and do it yourself. Ring the Property Registration Authority (1890 333002) and do it yourself. If your unhappy with the bill, send it to taxation...be warned though, it could end up being more expensive than the original bill. If all your doing is changing the name on the property from a deceased person, to a living person.....simple
 
maybemaybe said:
Screw that bill! Tell em you'll pay the costs to date, and do it yourself. Ring the Property Registration Authority (1890 333002) and do it yourself. If your unhappy with the bill, send it to taxation...be warned though, it could end up being more expensive than the original bill. If all your doing is changing the name on the property from a deceased person, to a living person.....simple
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If it just as simple as that we would all be out of business!!

Basically OP if the work was not completed 30 years ago then it will have to be done now and todays price will apply. If the work was done 30 years ago then the invoice should reflect this.
 
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