Solicitors want more money after closing property purchase

W

Will

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I closed on a property I purchased a couple of months ago. I received a letter from my solicitor saying that they acknowledged that the sale was now closed and payment received in full etc. Then about a month ago I received another letter from them saying that they forgot to charge me for the land registry costs and now want me to fork out another €600+. Since this is a mistake on their part and I have emails from them confirming the amount I owed to them prior to payment would I have a case for not paying them?
 
Land Registry fees are usually around the €600 mark or more nowadays, since the registration of a house purchase over €385000 is €625 alone, and add on to that a fee of €125 for a mortgage...
 
Payment was made in full, not your problem they forgot. Tell them to stuff it, i doubt they'll go hungry. (No i'm NOT a solicitor ;) )
 
This comes down to your own opinion. I think you got a service you should pay for it. The fees go to the government , not the solicitor.
 
You paid the bill issued you. If a shop incorrectly prices a jacket would you want it at the lable price? I would. It is a mistake they can learn from - as my mam says "sense bought is better than sense taught"!
 
"You paid the bill issued you".

And it was a mistake. I'm with Vanilla on this one - pay up. And yes I also am a solicitor.

I am a great believer in the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

What goes round, comes round.


mf
 
Really.

The same thing happened to me but it took then 6 yes 6 years to discover their error. Same thing letter demanding money to complete the registration.

Made a swift complaint to the law society and the matter was resolved to my satasfaction without having to pay the money at all.
 
I think it is more likely that the complaint made by Bond was upheld on the basis of the delay in registration rather than the attempted collection of a fee rightly due to the government. At the end of the day you can listen to all ( what we call in Kerry) the bar counter legal advisers or you can have a bit of common sense.
 
As someone said, it was for a service you received, so pay up ( nope, I'm not a solicitor)

The same thing happened to me. I paid the solicitor , and they came back later with an adjusted bill ( becuase they had forgotten to bill me for something). I paid it.

If they had overcharged you, I'm sure you wouldn't say to them: " it's in the past, I have paid it , so i agreed with the price, so I don't want it back"
 
Blinder said:
As someone said, it was for a service you received, so pay up ( nope, I'm not a solicitor)

The same thing happened to me. I paid the solicitor , and they came back later with an adjusted bill ( becuase they had forgotten to bill me for something). I paid it.

If they had overcharged you, I'm sure you wouldn't say to them: " it's in the past, I have paid it , so i agreed with the price, so I don't want it back"
Click to expand...

Would they have come looking to give it back to you though?
 
well, I had a landlord who was a solicitor once and 6 months after I'd moved out I got a cheque from him for something small that we'd overpaid. I presume he would have the same attitude in all his business dealings
 
This happened to me also earlier in the year. The solicitors added up the bill wrong and did not include the land registry fee (€500 in my case). So I have a statement that was signed by them "paid in full" but they still persisted. Not only that but they refused to register the land deeds until i handed over the money.

Is this a new way of sucking in clients now? Understate the original bill so you use them and then say "oh! sorry we made a mistake, pay up or we will withhold your legal documentation because --- guess what --- we certainly know the law when it comes to getting paid (don't we boys!)".

If solicitors engaged proper staff and used spreadsheets and accounting packages then this sort of nonsense would never happen. Instead they choose to use elderly "dependable" staff who are not IT-savy while all the time looking if they are "just sooooo busy" to sort it out.

It would be very interesting to see exactly how many people have been caught in the trap ...... makes perfect business sense doesn't it ...... under quote but once the client has committed there is nothing they can do......scam?

However they are not the only "profession" scamming believe me. Maybe we should start a thread "How Irish professional scam the public".

Any support out there?

EddieT
 
I have the opposite situation - recently sold house and am dealing with the solicitor i used when buying the house 5.5 years ago. During the course of a conversation he mentions that there is still some money left in my client account and he can offset that against my bill!!!!! First i have heard of it. Was so shocked never asked how much so am about to call him now and find out. I have heard that money is kept in client accounts for a period of time just in case any unforseen bills arrive however 5 and a half years seems a very long time.
 
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