solicitor wants extra money on closed property

long story as short as possible:

bought a property off the plans in jan 04. signed contracts etc.

approx jan 05 - letter from new solicitor company - 'your solicitor has retired, we are now your solicitor..' - no problem - new solicitor is a really sound guy.

old solicitor never spoke about the vulgar money.

never heard again from new solicitor. rang new solicitor approx Nov 05 - just for an update. he got worried when i'd no idea of price - sent me a 'sec 68' - said 1900. so far so good.

closed property jan 06 - a week before close - solicitor sent me a final invoice - just over 2K - a few euro over the earlier estimate - no problem - gave him his fees as well as all the other money (i didn't borrow it all - i came up with a few quid to reduce the mortgage)

deal closed. living in property less than five days.

phone call from solicitor - 'i registered your property as a leasehold - it should have been a free hold - my mistake etc - i charged you 91 euro for land reg. fees - it should have been c. 400 - you have to give me 400 quid' - i'm paraphrasing - but thats the kernel of it.

he wants the money now. i've budgeted without factoring this in. i intend to give him the money - as i said, he is a decent bloke. but - how quick do i need to give him this money? could i stall it for a couple of weeks? - i dont have this money really. the deal is closed and i'm in the property so i have the upper hand? i dont want to give him the run around, or have to pay interest - put i dont want to go without food either because something he made a cock up off (the original contract always said free hold - 'farm free agreement' - he had over a year to familiarise himself with my file. should i be worried about getting the money to him pronto?

very long post - apologies. any advice?

Short answer-how you handle your creditors is up to you (I always think "do unto others as they would have them do unto you........"), but If you explain the situation re. your budget etc. and he really is a 'sound guy', then I can't see the problem of paying in 2 weeks time.

Just a point....I'm not a solicitor and I have limited knowledge of this stuff but I would think that registering a property as a leasehold instead of a freehold is a really basic and fundamental mistake for a solicitor to make.

Why should the OP pay for the mistakes of the solicitor?

bond-007 said:

Why should the OP pay for the mistakes of the solicitor?

Click to expand...

Point taken. But it is a genuine mistake so why should solicitor pay the op's outlays? He would have had to pay them anyway.

CCOVICH has the right idea - do unto others............

mf

Vladamir,

My advice is to get the reason for the extra charges in writing from the solicitor, then let him know that you will pay the full amount (which I don't think you can or should avoid doing anyway) but only within a reasonable timeframe that suits your financial position (ie 8 to 10 weeks).

If you wish you can say that the reason you don't have the money now is that the solicitor gave you an incorrect quote in the beginning and you budgeted accordingly. The guy made a mistake, which can happen to all of us, but he can't be expecting his mistakes to happen without consequences

Sound advice. The solicitor should allow the OP to pay over a reasonable timeframe.

cheers for the advice folks.

i'll pay him off over a month or so (i'm not that broke by the way! - the going without food was a bit dramatic.)

I could just use some of the money i'm going to use to pay off my credit card to pay him - and then pay off the credit card over a few weeks - but then i'd pay interest so i'm not bothered with that.

thanks again.