I have received a very short and sweet letter this morning from the solicitor as follows:- "It is counter-productive for us to continue with this line of correspondence and I would rather write this off as an unfortunate and thankfully, an isolated esperience." So whilst the Solicitor hasn't admitted that he was in the wrong, at least my dad won't have to part with £378 for nothing! Many thanks to everyone who took the time to offer me advice. I have learnt a valuable lesson about dealing with Solicitors.

I have exchanged a couple of letters so far, the most recent of which I replied to this weekend & directed him to the firm's own website & the ombudsman's view of costs suggested by Foxmorris. Both state that fees should have been advised to us in advance. I have heard that this firm doesn't hang around with regards to chasing unpaid bills through the County Court, but surely they have no defence so their claim wouldn't be successful anyway. Thank you for Ombudsman link. I shall get in touch with them today.

I was advised last week when I dropped the letter in that the Solicitor we saw was a Senior one...hence the high hourly rate. BUT shouldn't we have been told at the time that we would be charged.

My mum sadly passed away in October and my Dad as Executor needs to sort out Probate. Dad is 88 and has never had to do anything like this before. I therefore suggested that we speak to the Solicitor who drew up their will 8 years ago to see how much it would cost for him to do it. I duly made the appointment and we attended a meeting with him before Christmas. The Solicitor who had drawn up the original will has since died, so one of the other partners dealt with our inquiry. In total the meeting took 90mins and it wasn't until the end the 90mins the Solicitor advised how much it would cost for him to deal with Probate (approx £3500). I nearly fell off my chair and asked him how much he charged per hour and he advised £210 + Vat.. Dad pretty much told him there and then that there was no way he could afford that so we would probably have to do it ourselves. Dad suggested that we would probably get a bill from him for his time for that meeting, I thought we wouldn't because we had gone there for a quote which I didn't think would be chargeable. I was wrong....Dad was right and he received a bill a couple of weeks ago for £378 including VAT. Dad wanted to pay it (despite the fact that he's struggling on a pension), because he doesn't want any ill feeling and this Practice still has the original Will which we need. Myself and the rest of the family suggested that he shouldn't pay and he eventually, reluctantly agreed. I duly dropped in a letter to the Practice last week advising that we were surprised to receive a bill. The reply that has since come back from the Solicitor is very emotive, quite curt and uses an analogy along the lines of: - if you went along to a dentist for an examination, why would you expect not to pay?? I thought we were going to get a quote for his services. If I called in a builder to give me a quote for a new extension, I wouldn't be charged for his time to visit the site compile the quote etc so what is the difference?? If I go to a dentist for an examination, I know I am going to be charged because I know I'm receiving treatment. At no time were we ever advised that we would be charged for the time we were in his office and we weren't advised of his hourly rate until the end of the meeting. As Dad has also pointed out, if he pays the bill, approx £30 of it was time spent when the Solicitor chatted about his lovely family!!! There is also a note on the invoice about late payments being charged 8% interest which is a bit scary. Any payment Dad does make is obviously late now. So, my questions to anyone who may be able to advise are:- 1) Is this bill payable (bearing in mind we were never told that we were being charged for his time or were advised his hourly rate until the end of the meeting) 2) If Dad does have to pay it, is the 8% liable even though he has disputed it within their time scales. Dad and I both feel that the 90 minutes we spent in his office was excessive. I agree we gained some interesting information about dealing with Probate but we never asked for it and would happily have done without it had we known that every minute we were there talking/listening was costing £4.20!!!! I'm in unknown territory here so any advice or information would be very gratefully received. Are we being naive thinking we shouldn't be charged?? If he has to pay it, then so be it, but the rest of us think the Solicitor is acting very unprofessionally. Thank you for reading my post.

Thank you Tomtubby. This is an option I think I will have to consider. I gather it will give me a better idea of this financial situation. Thanks to everyone for your advice. I will try and remember to report back here hopefully with good news when the situation is resolved.

I've considered the option of freezing his bank account. The debt is from when he was trading as a sole trader but he's a ltd company now. My guess is that he will be an employee of his own company and probably appears to pay himself a very small salary. I need to find out about drawing on a Directors Account etc to see if that's how he lives. I know that I can ask for him to go to court to answer questions re his finances. That may be the best option at the moment.

Thank you for your swift replies. That's all very interesting and informative. I hadn't thought about the lack of log book/key reducing the value of the car and I'm not convinced that 25% price guide will be enough to clear the debt. I may have to consider other options.

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum and am in need of a bit of advice. A local businessman owes our business some money. He can pay he just won't pay. I took him to court and he didn't dispute the debt so a CCJ was given to him. I've not had any money. He drives a very nice car and I've carried out an HPI check on it and discovered that it's bought on Finance. The Finance is due to be paid up in the next few months. I am considering referring the debt to the High Court so that the car can be seized on paper at least, then we could just wait until he is the legal owner and take the car if he still doesn't pay. The car would more than pay off the debt to us. But, someone told me the other evening that if he defaults on his last few payments, the Finance company probably won't re-possess the car. Instead they are more likely to give him longer to pay the remaining balance. That in turn means that we will have to wait longer for the debt to re-paid. Could he string it out until the car is too old and not worth enough to cover our debt?? Is this true?? But, if the car has been seized on paper by the High Court, is this not sufficient leverage for the car to be re-possessed?? He's a slippery character who I have since found out, owes money to other local businesses and indivduals as well, but continues to live the high life at our expense. I hope he doesn't see this post as I may have given him a good idea (although I suspect he already knows this trick if it's true)!! Thank you.