Excessive legal charges??

Hannaho

I have a very difficult ex parnter, who refuses to negotiate on anything and likes to battle through the courts. We have two children together, agecd 10 and 11.

The kids and I located down the country for a job as there were none near me at the time. When I informed my ex what we were going to do - move 80 miles away for a job - he didn't say anything for 3 weeks, which I assumed was a way of saying that he was ok with it. Then after 3 weeks, he started talking about injunctions to stop us moving. When that didn't work, he was saying he would get custody of the children - his access was every Wednesday afternoon after school, and every second Sunday.

Basically, the leters have been flying between our respective solicitors since then. On one Friday, his solictior send my solictor 3 letters to which my solicitor had to respond.

The proceedings were moved from Districct Court to Circuit Court, because it was felt that I would get a better hearingn in the Circuit Court. There are Circuit Court proceedings in place in relation to access post relocation (he wants me to drive up all the way to bring the chldren to him. There was also an emergency application to Court last week in the Circuit Court re holiday access and initated by him.

So there were two sets of Circuit Court proceedings to draft, as well as copious amounts of letters, including attendance at Court last week re holiday access.

There is also a S.47 being done and the cost of this is to borne by both of us.

However, now I have gotten a bill from my solicitor for e14,000 for the above work since May. I have paid e9,000 on account. They are now looking for another e5000. One barristr is charing e3000 without even stepping into the Court for a day on my case. I was also told via email that they had paid the other barrister out of money I had put on acccount, but now they have told me that this hasn't been done.

Anyway, I think I'm being had - and don't know what quite to do about it. I wasn't given a written quotation at the start, just a letter statinng that the fees depended on the complexity of the case.

Anyway, if any one has ideas what I could do in this situation, I would be very grateful.

ResearchWill

If you are unhappy ask the solicitor to tax the costs. The local county reg will look at the fees and see if they are fair.

Injunctions will always push up the costs as everyone will have to drop everything. It's a huge problem with family law if one side is shall we say problematic then the costs go up for the other side.

Also are you entitled to legal aid.