Solicitors final bill much higher

[Kay2705]

So we are in the process of buying our new home and we received a quote from direction law solicitors at the start which was around £1,300. We complete in a few days and we just got a bill of outstanding payment of almost £1,700. We even paid £250 deposit at the start which means the final bill is around £1950.

Is this normal practice? What can I do about this? Any advise I'll be grateful

Our solicitors came in under their initial quote. Was it straightforward or did you have lots of unexpected problems/ask for extra searches etc?

A quote should be binding shouldn't it ? An Estimate can change though - does it say quote or estimate on your agreement ?

No I wouldn't say that's normal, we paid what was quoted, did you opt for extra searches? Has Stamp duty been applied? (Albeit quite cheap SD!)

Compare the quote you got to your completion statement. What things have been added on?

I work for a licensed conveyancers. We change extra for certain things that we might not have been aware needed doing when we gave the quote. However, it's all in our Terms and Conditions and we tell clients as soon as we realise. Direct Law should be doing that too.

It's a new build property and help to buy so many an extra charge for help the buy but he bill has a lot more stuff not in the quote.

The developer of the property paid for the stamp duty.

On the quotation it says it's a quote but then it also says it's an estimate. There's other stuff we were advised but that was the help to buy and it says it's £50 plus vat.

Their fees also went up from 595 plus 119 car to 996. :/.

The rent charge they probably weren't aware of so I can understand that one but I now don't understand how their fee went up from the quote

What does the fees invoice say? Is there anything added on to the £595 (aside from vat) there?

Hang on, the "Other Charges" on your second post would be in the "Our fees as per invoice" on the first. I've not got a calculator on me but that should account for it.

Now you mention it my mum is moving and she has had a really difficult time comparing quotes because few actually said it'll cost THIS much, many had extras in the small print. Yes HTB is usually an extra cost although they should have been able to tell you that at the start.

Hi @MinnieMountain this is what the fee bills says. The last three item there was no mention of it in the quote when I read it. They weren't even my lender so now I'm confused

Yes @notanothernam you are right they should be able to tell. As they knew I was doing htb from the start.

I've read the bill better now with all your response and I'm starting to understand it but they really should have been upfront as there is lots of additional fees which should have been explained better

The last three items on your invoice are listed as Other Charges at the bottom of your estimate. They match.

However, they are cheeky buggers for charging extra for completing the SDLT return (which is essential) and dealing with your mortgage (which most people have).

Our solicitors got our stamp duty wrong and kindly informed us after exchange that it wouldn't be £2200 as agreed but £9700. We always win at solicitor crap trumps when these conversations come up 😫

You can complain to the Legal Ombudsman about the fees once you have complained to the firm.

It always amazes me though how little people want to pay for the (usually) most expensive transaction of their lives.

@PresentImperfect it's not about the cost to pay it's more about the quotation we received and assumed that what we were going to pay. If all the fees were listed up front we would have had a better understanding

Oh wow grinch I can't even imagine that how could they get that wrong. If I only had £2200 assigned I'd be pulling my hair out 😭😭

The thing is OP, aside from the fee for the rent charge document, which you have acknowledged they couldn't have know about at the start, the fees were listed up front.

As far as I can see, the difference between the fee estimate and the final bill is the rentcharge work - the rest of it is fees payable to the Land Registry, etc.

It's not cheeky to charge for submitting the stamp duty return - you can do it yourself and save £50.

Ever had a client do that wowfudge?

All the fees are listed up front, look at the estimate. It's all detailed in there and all matches.

Minnie - we submitted our own. Our solicitors gave us the option of doing so or paying them £45.

The difference seems to be dealing with the rent charge deed, which I'm guessing wasn't know when they quoted?

Yes Minnie I've don't the sdlt form myself both times, the first time the solicitor forgot and filled it in anyway, I'd already prepared my responses and they'd made 3 errors including the amount payable. When i pointed them out they changed the amount to another incorrect amount and said one of the other things was definitely correct already, and they only agreed to change it as it would be my signature on the form.
Just because they're solicitors didn't mean they don't get things wrong, they just have insurance for any big mistakes.