Solicitor increased fees

starbaby2003 · 03-03-2021 6:45pm #1

Hi All,

We got a quote for a remortgage in October. The was €1000 plus vat. Our loan offer was issued today and the solicitor said her fees have increased to €1500

I am furious as she never mentioned any increase prior to this. We would have immediately switched.

What are our options. She has only received the offer nothing else.
Thanks

Peregrinus · 04-03-2021 3:30am

You can pay your solicitor for any work done to day, terminate her retainer, and find yourself a new solicitor.

Before you make any hasty decisions, though, you might want to ask her why the fee has gone up. It may be that the loan offer has come with conditions that she did not anticipate, and that involve additional work or additional risk for her. If that's the case, then any other solicitor you might go to will face the same issue, and the fees they quote will reflect it.

Tell me how · 04-03-2021 4:07am

Ask her why the increase, when she determined it was warranted and why you weren't told at that point.

There may have been something in your initial agreement that fees could increase if effort went outside that expected so it is worth having a look through that if possible. I'm sure you signed something as the solicitor would have to have had your direction in writing for them to act for you so when they sent you that to sign, the terms and conditions were probably included.

Note, from personal experience, if you find a solicitor who you work well with, it would be worth trying to work out any fee concerns rather than just moving. You'll pay a bad one in the same way but if they mess up, it'll cost you in the long run.

starbaby2003 · 04-03-2021 9:59am

Thanks for the reply’s. I went straight back and asked for clarification. It’s a pretty straightforward switch. We did the same three years ago and the fee was a lot less. To be honest I am very concerned using a solicitor who would just do this. This was sent as a one liner on the bottom of an email. We signed an agreement in November with the original price. The email literally said ‘ I am changing my fee to X’ nothing else about it.
About paying her for work done, to me, this would indicate she had been working on the agreed contract so had no right to up the price. The whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth. She was recommended by a neighbour. I feel like she is trying to gouge us as the process has now started when she had months to communicate a fee change.

JustAThought · 04-03-2021 10:08am

starbaby2003 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply’s. I went straight back and asked for clarification. It’s a pretty straightforward switch. We did the same three years ago and the fee was a lot less. To be honest I am very concerned using a solicitor who would just do this. This was sent as a one liner on the bottom of an email. We signed an agreement in November with the original price. The email literally said ‘ I am changing my fee to X’ nothing else about it.
About paying her for work done, to me, this would indicate she had been working on the agreed contract so had no right to up the price. The whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth. She was recommended by a neighbour. I feel like she is trying to gouge us as the process has now started when she had months to communicate a fee change.

Get onto her again and say what you have said here. Then when you get her reply get onto the law society. They used have a system there where lawyers are supposed to give basically a quite and cannot deviate from it fir good reason - I can’t remember the term for it. Might be useful to arm yourself with. A 50% jump in fees is shocking .

That and the word of mouth recommendation. Of course you can’t say anything defamatory but you can say you will feed back to the woman who recommended her and anyone else you speak to about the % jump from her price that she gave in writing.

Solicitors cannot advertise and a local one may tely on WOM and referrals to do business.

Peregrinus · 04-03-2021 10:18am

starbaby2003 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply’s. I went straight back and asked for clarification. . . .

Either you haven't had a reply to this yet, or you're not telling us what was in the reply. Which is it?

starbaby2003 wrote: »

It’s a pretty straightforward switch. We did the same three years ago and the fee was a lot less. To be honest I am very concerned using a solicitor who would just do this. This was sent as a one liner on the bottom of an email. We signed an agreement in November with the original price. The email literally said ‘ I am changing my fee to X’ nothing else about it. About paying her for work done, to me, this would indicate she had been working on the agreed contract so had no right to up the price. The whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth. She was recommended by a neighbour. I feel like she is trying to gouge us as the process has now started when she had months to communicate a fee change.

Her communication of the fee increase is obviously poor, and you're entitled to be upset about that. It's a bit hasty, though, to conclude that she's a gouger if you still haven't had a reply to your query about the reasons for the increase. You still don't know what caused the fee increase.

Regarding her having no right to up the price, if you go back and reread her initial letter about costs, odds-on you'll find that she does indeed have a right to up the price. Standard form for these letters is along the lines of "Here is the basis on which we charge for work of this type [followed by details of basis of charging]. Based on what you have told us about the transaction, and on what we know about transactions like this, on our standard charging basis we reckon this one is going to come at around €X. If the tranaction turns out to be not as described, or unforeseen developments happen, the eventual cost may differ from this. We'll let you know if we anticipate that this will happen."

Regarding payment for any work already done if you terminate the relationship, you do have to pay her, but of course only on the fee basis outlined in the original letter about costs. And you won't have to pay the whole amount because, obviously, she hasn't done the whole of the work.

04-03-2021 10:22am

Always amazed me how often extra expenses are perfectly round numbers.

starbaby2003 · 04-03-2021 10:26am

Peregrinus wrote: »

Either you haven't had a reply to this yet, or you're not telling us what was in the reply. Which is it?

Her communication of the fee increase is obviously poor, and you're entitled to be upset about that. It's a bit hasty, though, to conclude that she's a gouger if you still haven't had a reply to your query about the reasons for the increase. You still don't know what caused the fee increase.

Regarding her having no right to up the price, if you go back and reread her initial letter about costs, odds-on you'll find that she does indeed have a right to up the price. Standard form for these letters is along the lines of "Here is the basis on which we charge for work of this type [followed by details of basis of charging]. Based on what you have told us about the transaction, and on what we know about transactions like this, on our standard charging basis we reckon this one is going to come at around €X. If the tranaction turns out to be not as described, or unforeseen developments happen, the eventual cost may differ from this. We'll let you know if we anticipate that this will happen."

Regarding payment for any work already done if you terminate the relationship, you do have to pay her, but of course only on the fee basis outlined in the original letter about costs. And you won't have to pay the whole amount because, obviously, she hasn't done the whole of the work.

She has not replied. It was a fixed quote which we agreed and signed.

spaceHopper · 04-03-2021 4:37pm

starbaby2003 wrote: »

She has not replied. It was a fixed quote which we agreed and signed.

If you have a fixed quote, tell her you expect them to honor it. You are already in the house, worst case you tell her to leave it, crap the whole thing and move to another solicitor if it's as straightforward as you say then she won't want that.
Who is paying the 1500, you or the bank?

JustAThought · 05-03-2021 4:50pm

spaceHopper wrote: »

If you have a fixed quote, tell her you expect them to honor it. You are already in the house, worst case you tell her to leave it, crap the whole thing and move to another solicitor if it's as straightforward as you say then she won't want that.
Who is paying the 1500, you or the bank?

it dosn’t matter - the solicitor can’t just rip the piss and charge 50% extra because a bank is paying - she should honour her fixed price agreement.

starbaby2003 · 09-03-2021 3:57pm

Just an update on this. We were straight up with the solicitor about our concerns. To her credit, she was understanding. She agreed to drop the price.

Tell me how · 09-03-2021 4:09pm

starbaby2003 wrote: »

Just an update on this. We were straight up with the solicitor about our concerns. To her credit, she was understanding. She agreed to drop the price.

Very curious if she explained where the increase came from.

She may have felt it was justified but dropped it in good faith as hadn't informed you, or it may have been more conniving.

starbaby2003 · 09-03-2021 4:24pm

Tell me how wrote: »

Very curious if she explained where the increase came from.

She may have felt it was justified but dropped it in good faith as hadn't informed you, or it may have been more conniving.

She said all prices had increased and we didn’t receive the notification as we were not live clients. She accepted we should have been notified and partially waived her fee as an acknowledgment of this. Overall I’m very happy with her response.

Solicitor increased fees

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