Solicitor from house move wants £1800 a year later. Just received county court claim form. Help!

[Areyounot]

I am hoping someone can help navigate this rather confusing situation.

We purchased a house 18 months ago and the solicitors and other fees were paid from the proceeds of the previous house sale. I received an invoice on the day of the house sale and confirmed this is the amount we owed.

5 months later I received a call from the solicitors telling me I owed them £1800. They had no idea what this amount was for, except that it is from the mortgage company, so contact them directly.

I did, they told me that it was a mistake and it will be removed, I then told the solicitors what the mortgage company had said, and thought it was settled.

I then received a phone call from them a month later stating we still owed this money and I needed to speak to the mortgage company.

Again, I spoke to them and this time they told me it was for early exit mortgage fees for the old house. I had no idea of these charges as I thought we had ported the mortgage over to the new house. The house sale and purchase was a long process over 10 months.

I asked them to check the phone call recording I had previously made ,as the mortgage company had already confirmed to me it was a mistake. They came back and told me the phone was not recorded as the line dropped and the advisor called me back. They then told me the solicitor was liable as they had not done their due diligence.

I told the solicitor this and let them know I would be sending a letter of complaint. Which I did twice and heard nothing back.

Today I have received a claim form through the post from the county court. They particulars of the claim state “ the claimant settled the amount with the mortgage company at the advice of the claimants governing body” the governing body I presume being the SRA.

Our financial circumstances have dramatically changed in the past year, due to me being diagnosed with lupus and 2 pulmonary embolisms, I have had to cut my hours dramatically (self employed) so have lost one wage and I am in the process of claiming PIP’s.

My husband has also had some health problems and is a contractor so his wage has been up and down whilst he has been waiting for his operation.

Currently our outgoings are more then our incomings and we our living off credit cards as our savings and emergency fund has now disappeared.

So my questions are,

Do we have any chance of fighting this in court?

Do I accept liability, fill in the incoming and outgoings form and offer £10 a month?

Can the £10 a month be rejected from the claimant? If so what then?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much. Sadly it feels that way.
I have spoken to the civil court today and they were extremely helpful. With the advice received them and from here, I feel I have good chance at defending the case. I will keep you updated!

Just received a reply to the 2nd email I sent, requesting a mortgage redemption statement. No mention of this in his reply email, just that “I am walking on thin ice” surely this has got to be a threat?

I literally just asked for this statement.

@Areyounot forward a copy of that and the other emails to the SRA raising a complaint. I seriously cannot believe that someone in a solicitor's office, whether a solicitor or not would send an email like that.

Walking on thin ice statement from a legal representative is very threatening in my book.

Can I ask did they have your email address during the time those four letters allegedly went astray?

I recently used the ombudsman's service for the first time in relation to a solicitor/mortgage dispute and won.

Im dyslexic/ADHD and found it incredibly user friendly, the ombudsman even encouraged me to claim for time wasted, stress and Rheumatoid arthritis symptom flare.

Get all your information together with an online paper trail and good luck.

I’m not legal at all but am horrified by their last communication. In addition to the excellent advice received, I would now be looking up the signatory everywhere I can - Google, LinkedIn etc - to see his or her work history etc. Just to be clear in my own mind about who I am dealing with. And also any others in the firm you may have dealt with.

Others on here may disagree with me.

If these emails are coming from a solicitor then that is very weird.

I don't work in that field but have always known solicitors to keep information concise and factual.

Long emails that are hard to follow and personal attacks probably won't go down well with SRA.

OP, it's definitely time to go on their website and find their compliance manager (usually a lawyer/partner in their own right) and forward on that email. Our compliance manager would be horrified and would tear strips off any lawyer who ever tried to intimidate like that.

Bit of a left field thought, but could this be a scam? You hear nowadays of people impersonating solicitors very convincingly in order to steal house purchase money.

If it's genuine it sounds very out of order. I have no practical advice other than to wish you luck.

I must admit - I wondered the same as mateysmum after reading through - but if you've received official county court documents, that much at least must be real!

When I spoke to the the civil court guy he was also surprised at the email, I gave him a brief overview of the contents of the first one.

He sounds arrogant, but he is also the firms owner, I feel he is trying to scare me, I could be wrong.

No not a scam unfortunately. Same email address as the conveyancer I dealt with, just a different name.

Also looked the guy up and he is the owner, set up the firm in 2017 and deals with personal injury claims. Maybe that’s why he is aggressive in his emails.

Sounds plausible that it’s the actual person then OP. I’ve worked for one of those.

Katie Morley from The Telegraph is excellent at helping readers with this sort of problem. I suggest you contact her.

I am guessing this is a small claims court procedure. It doesn't look like they have gone through the whole process for submitting a small claims court proceeding against you, including not telling you that they plan to do this if they cannot resolve their differences with you. I would imagine that a good letter explaining all of the above very clearly should help you as it is still not at all clear whether this money as ever owed and by whom.

That’s him that’s emailing. He is the owner, hence why I have never dealt with him before.

The man I spoke to at civil court said the pre action letter should have been sent and the judge will not look kindly to a solicitor who has not followed the procedure.

I asked them directly in the first email why they had not sent a pre action letter and they ignored the question, so at least I have proof of that and the fact they won’t provide me with mortgage settlement statement.

My abusive ex's divorce solicitor used a very bullying tone in all of his correspondence during our family court proceedings. Like the sound of this solicitor comments like 'thin ice', it was designed to intimidate me, a proven victim of repeated domestic violence.

Don't stoop to their level or doubt yourself, I've realised that bullies go into all professions, I wish there was a higher standard of behaviour expected but I expect these tactics are more common than they should be.

Follow prhbridge's advice as he is always spot on. Good luck!

SAR is a subject access request. You just write a letter demanding access to all records they hold on you. That way you should be able to see any documents you don't currently have access to.

If you think you do, in all reasonableness, owe this money, then see if you can reach an agreement based on what you can currently afford. E.g. £100 a month for 18 months.

That’s horrific. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.

Thank you for your kind wishes.

That'd be a good call on the compliance manager email. It would be that person or the senior partner/complaints partner who would deal with this. It's the required step before rhe SRA.

I am wondering whether the solicitor responsible has been pulled up for their error in a file review, which needs to be undertaken as part of the management of the firm. Your solicitor may be truing to minimise the impact on the firm at your expense.

Best of luck with everything, and don't let anyone try to bamboozle you with jargon. Nor try to hassle you into a response before you have had time to review and reflect.

Op has said this is the person who they are talking to already.

Yes it’s a really small local firm. I only live in a small town. I think they have 5 solicitors working, including the owner from what I can gather:

Could you afford another solicitor to write to this one?

Are you on any local town Facebook groups? I would put a post on there to see if anyone else has had issues with this solicitor. I doubt this is the first time they've acted like this.

Funny you should say that. There trust pilot reviews (1 of 3) states that they pay to have negative reviews removed.