Crazy bill from old conveyancer

[conveyancingwoe]

Afternoon all. I got some brilliant advice here a couple of months ago (can't even remember my name change) about our old conveyancer.

Basically he was trying to charge us £7,500 + VAT, plus outlays for straightforward purchase conveyancing.

This does not include stamp duty or anything else, and is JUST for purchase conveyancing - we weren't selling another property.

We are in Northern Ireland which has one of the cheapest housing markets and usually most reasonable fees.

We changed our solicitors after advice from here, he was very very evasive about the cost issue.

BUT immediately asked us to pay him £750+ VAT for the work already done.

He has very reluctantly given us an invoice for this a few weeks ago, but didn't break down the costs - provided a list of services then just the amount (£750+VAT)

He is now threatening to refer us to a debt recovery business!

We never agreed this amount, he won't break it down into individual costs for us and he is being quite aggressive and evasive at the same time.

What is our recourse? Isn't it standard to properly itemise legal bills if demanded? Should we just pay it, or take it to the Law Society NI to look at?

Help! This is such a horrible situation. Plus, in the work that he's done, I think he's made two errors anyway (well either he has or our new one has, but our new one has about forty years experience of conveyancing in the area).

I hate confrontation and am already finding this house purchase stressful enough, so all advice (even if just to pay it and move on) is welcomed. Thanks.

Is it £750 or £7500?
You've written both in your OP, obviously there's a bit of difference!

Even if it had been the full conveyancing from start to finish that's a ridiculous amount!
Is he completely independent or part of a law firm?

I assume it meant 750 for the work already done, and 7500 was the quote for the full thing. Which is totally bonkers, as I'm being quoted 750 plus VAT for the full legal part!

So you aren't disputing he did some work already? You're just disputing the value of that work? I guess it depends exactly what he did and how much - did it include any disbursements , were searches instructed etc?

IANAL but yes absolutely I'd be wanting to know exaclty what had been done to justify that charge!

readytosell is right - £7500k+VAT+£600disboursements for the full job.

We said, eh WHAT, no thanks, changed solicitors.

He is claiming to have done £750+VAT in the couple of weeks where we were in discussion but before we’d received the quotation.

It’s unheard of here to have that kind of costs for conveyancers. We’ve moved back and forth from england and for various reasons have bought and sold several properties in the last fifteen years between us - the averaged bill from tiny falling down belfast terrace to london house is a fraction of that.

We’re not disputing we owe him something - fair’s fair - but £900 all in seems ridiculous. But he’s refusing to itemise the bill!

Did you sign an engagement letter or instruct the conveyancer to start work? If not, in the UK at least, they'd be on very shaky ground.

If you received an engagement letter/ terms and conditions of business they should lay out the firm's complaints procedure. If you aren't happy with their response, then I expect there will be some body (like the Law Society NI, as you suggest) that you can escalate your complaint to. I expect it is their duty to explain this to you in their response to your complaint.

Oh and they’re a completely big standard small firm, they advertise their conveyancing fees as starting at less than £400!

We didn’t sign anything, but I expect they would say that us discussing the work with them constitutes agreement?

BOG standard not big standard

I’d be contacting the law society! Request an itemised bill again and if he doesn’t provide it than tell him you’ll be consulting the law society for advice. If he didn’t give you a schedule of costs or a billing structure when you engaged him again then I doubt he has much of a leg to stand on.

I agree - contact the Law Society. They should be your first port of call.
I live in Ireland and there is Taxing Master who can assess if a bill is fair and reasonable.
I'm sure there is similar in Northern Ireland.

@conveyancingwoe I think only if your discussion constituted you instructing them to undertake work. If you were giving them information about the purchase in order for them to put together a cost proposal then I would put that in your complaint. If you do think your discussions amount to you instructing them to undertake work then I would make the point that the eventual cost proposal was so much higher than any reasonable person would expect that you can only assume it was made in bad faith as the conveyancer thought they had you "tied in" at that point.

It may be that the Law Society NI will require you to exhaust all your complaint options with the firm before they will intervene. A firmly worded complaint letter might be the end of it though, just make sure they confirm - in writing - that the debt has been written off so they can't come after your credit rating or the money later.

I found myself in a similar situation when scoping out some work with a law firm a few years ago (not conveyancing though) and when I declined to proceed they tried to charge me for a scoping meeting (essentially the meeting we had so they could provide me with a costs proposal). I told them I hadn't signed an engagement letter or instructed them to act for me so I wasn't going to pay, and they swiftly went away. This was a large and legitimate law firm and I was shocked by their behaviour, and the fact they probably try to take advantage of many people in this way.

This is great. My question also is - what exactly is he going to refer to the debt collection agency given he has no contract and seems unable/unwilling to detail what he’s actually done.

To answer a pp, I don’t know if it’s for searches which I would of course pay for, but he won’t itemise the bill!

We have been excruciatingly polite in all our emails with him but I’m wondering if he just doesn’t understand that and we need to be more forceful.

I feel like saying, be our guest re debt collection, in the meantime we are taking legal advice, referring to the law society for their advice. But we’d prepared to settle for half that + VAT, ie around £375, just to make it go away.

@mobear thanks for your response. I think you’re right re the bad faith thing. I have zero problem paying some money for work done but not a crazy amount.

It is a big property by NI standards, but we have previously paid conveyancing through a fancy London firm for a more expensive house and it was definitely much less!

I would write to them, say you provided them with information about the proposed purchase so that they could confirm whether they were able to act and provide their fee estimate. As soon as they provided that fee estimate you decided to use another law firm. You never confirmed (I assume?) that you wanted them to begin actual legal work, never agreed to their proposed fees, and did not enter into any contract with them.

Ask them to confirm in writing by x date that they have written off their suggested fees and cancelled that invoice.

Tell them that if they refuse to do so, you will contact the Law Society of Northern Ireland for determination of reasonable fees. Details are here: www.lawsoc-ni.org/about-your-solicitors-bill

I believe there’s a time limit to query the bill - he may be being evasive in the hope of delaying you so that you can’t use the law society process....

When was the invoice issued? You should have a reasonable amount of time to settle the invoice before debt collectors get involved.

Do you have any draft engagement letter, terms of business, etc from them?

In the first instance I would probably say something along the lines of:

"Notwithstanding the fact that we have not received an itemised or detailed invoice from you, we do not consider that you were instructed to act for us and therefore do not believe the costs set out in your invoice dated [x] are owed.

With this in mind, please could you inform us of your internal complaints procedure, so we can allow your firm the chance to address our complaint before we escalate it to The Law Society? [As we have not received an engagement letter or terms of business from you, we do not have this information available to us.]

We trust that, during this time, no interest will be accrued, nor debt collectors engaged, in relation to the money you claim is owed."

If they refuse to let you know what their complaints procedure is they're digging an even bigger hole for themselves.

I moved into a new house in NI last year (also a big house for NI) and our solicitors bill was £900 on a really complex purchase. When we sold our house in london just before that it was even less - (very straightforward sale). £7500 is insane for anywhere let alone NI where house prices are low. I'd be asking law soc for advice - they'd certainly make him itemise it!

In light of what @OneCalamerra has said, it seems you only three months from the date of the invoice to take it up with the Law Society NI so I would perhaps re-draft that, depending on the date of the invoice, to say that if the matter is not resolved by [x] date you will dispute the invoice directly with the Law Society NI to comply with their time limits.

Due to a mix up my EA sent the sales memorandum to a solicitor I had used in the past, but was not using anymore- I had told the EA of the change but they had not updated their system. So I received from the solicitor the pack of their terms of engagement, the names of the buyers nd their solicitors and the usual cost breakdowns, form to sign to start early engagement and a form to cancel, and a request for finds fir searches. I'm sure a PA or secretary had put it together as a matter of course.
I immediately rang them to say it was a mistake. They said fine and removed the file and I heard nothing more.
Did the solicitor in this case do more than that? I would escalate it to a more senior person in the firm, though the letter as @mobear outlines is very good.

They definitely had done some work, we’d had a few chats. I’m really happy to pay them something, just not £900.

I’m thinking of using a variant of mobear’s excellent letter, saying we’ll escalate the complaint to the firm (which will mean nothing) and to the Law Society (which should matter more, OR, we’ll pay them £350+VAT and consider it done.

I'm in ni. I paid 1500 plus vat for solicitors fees here. Plus 600 for land registry

Sorry meant to say, what do you all think of that?

Surely when you make an enquiry the conveyancer sends you their terms and fees and asks you to return them agreeing to their fees and providing various pieces of information and paying a deposit?

Is it so different in NI?

You've had some good advice. One thing to Add is that if he didn't send you Standard Terms Of Business for you to sign, and his charge schedule then you aren't his client. You don't owe him anything.

Itemised bills are required in England so I assume also in NI.

So far, what you've said suggests you shouldn't pay anything before your complaint is reviewed.

@conveyancingwoe The problem with offering them £350 is it might be taken as an acceptance or indication that you accept that you did instruct them.

Assuming NI law is similar to UK law, if you go down this route you need to make it very clear that you did not instruct them to act on your behalf, sign an engagement letter, etc, but in order to bring this matter to a close - and as you are unable to evaluate their costs without a detailed or itemised narrative - you propose a one-off payment of £350 (be clear as to whether this includes applicable taxes or not) on a without prejudice basis.

Having said that, I wouldn't personally pay them because I think they have a cheek behaving this way in the first place regardless of whether they had done a bit of work on it. You'd be amazed at the amount of money solicitors have to write-off.

Eugh typed a reply and lost it! Hang on, shooing kids into bed.