Solicitor Fees - Opinions

LegalEagle1776

Hi, so I recently came across a property myself and my wife were interested in purchasing. After reading over the details and meeting with the seller, we were a little bit concerned about some aspects of the property sale. I contacted a solicitor for some brief advice on the specific element of concern and he replied with a document outlining a brief 2 page analysis of the property. It seemed somewhat templated (a lot of the paragraphs were irrelevant to the property in question) but it did address my one specific concern that I asked about.

I had expected a small fee for this, given it was just a short query, but I was hit with a bill for €1300. He had charged us a rate of €500 an hour and claims that it took approximately 2 and a half hours of work to analyze the document and produce the report.

Is this the industry standard? I feel completely ripped off. We are a young couple trying to buy a property and wanted to make sure we did everything by the book, but this is seriously putting us under stress. I was given no warning about this in advance, and would certainly not have agreed to it. Furthermore, I only really wanted a short query answered, not an entire report from him. All I did was send an email with a question, and now I'm suddenly in a legally binding contract to pay him €1300?

Claw Hammer

Surely you went to a recommended solicitor?

Tow

You learned a hard lession about solicitors. They should have provided with a Section 150 letter, formally a Section 68. Detailing their charges.

wingnut

I think he is chancing his arm, I certainly wouldn't be paying him €1300 as that is not too far off what a 'fixed fee' standard conveyancing would cost - a lot of firms will do the full sale for under €2k including whatever emails etc are needed.

By law, your solicitor must give you information about your legal charges – the money you must pay them for their services. The law that deals with this matter is section 150 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015.

If you send him an email and he replied with a report he clearly hasn't done this. If the information was useful maybe a compromise I would offer something but no way I would pay.

complain to the Complaints and Client Relations Section of the Law Society, telephone (01) 672 4800;