inflated Solicitors Fees? - they have issued a claim form - help!!

[steampowered]

Hi Steampowered, In answer to your questions, I think that the charges do not reflect the work done and I was never given a full breakdown of the fees until the case was almost concluded! I believe that I do not owe the full amount as they failed to inform me of what I was being charged for and after making my official complaint they agreed that they had not followed correct procedure!

Hi BP,

I had a look at the documents and it seems you were quoted 3,000 (with no reference to VAT) in early January for a Without Notice order and subsequent hearing. I assume this was the Prohibited Steps Order and Residence Order restraining your wife from taking the child out of the jurisdiction. This was granted in December.

 

There were then some harassment problems and you asked the sols to act in relation to a Molestation Injunction Order. I assume both applicatinos were heard at the hearing on 6 January 2012. On 20 January you were quoted 5,000 to 6,000 plus VAT for this, though the quote followed the event. In total there were three hearings.

 

 

The bit I don't quite understand is the sequence of events - they say you instructed them on 4 January in relation to the NMO but the narratives for the assistant solicitor dated 22.12.11 refers to a statement C4 which normally involves allegations of harm and domestic violence.

 

Is my understanding of events correct? If it is, unfortunately I think their charges are reasonable and probably will be enforced by the court. The initial quote for 3000 seems to cover only the Prohibited Steps Order. It does not seem to cover the Non-Molestation Order, so I can see how 3000 for the initial work and a bit more for the Non-Molestation Injunction reaches 4969.50.

 

The only thing you might be able to hang your hat on is the fact that, in the initial engagement letter, they omitted to mention that the 3000 quote did not include VAT, so the quote will be deemed to include VAT. The difficulty is separating out which work relates to the PSO and which relates to the NMO, I haven't crunched the numbers here but it may be possible to try and restrict them to 3000 inc. VAT for the PSO and a bit more for the NMO.

 

I'm finding it difficult to grasp the exact details of what you think they did wrong. Why are you unhappy about not getting a full breakdown until they billed you on 20 January 2012? What do you mean when you say the charges don't reflect the work done? In what way did they fail to follow the correct procedure?

[bigphil61]

Hi Steampowered, Thanks for taking the time to look into this issue for me. In answer to your questions regarding what I think they did wrong, it would probably be better for me to post up their response to my official complaint and some of the notes used in court (which they apparently spent chargable time on) which I will do when I get home later. You will probably tell me I'm being a little nieve, but my main issue is, I was not given any idea of what I was expected to pay for before hand, if that makes sence, for example it was never explained to me that the court fees were not included in their charge, that all waiting time at court would be charged to me, basically I feel that I was not given a true picture of court processes! BP

[andydd]

Ive only had a quick peep at this, but it does appear to me that the charges are not unreasonable, hiring solicitors can be a very expensive business. And it does appear that you were quoted roughly 3k and then further on its made cllear that the cost could be approx double that.

 

Im not sure that the sol really has to explain about waiting time, court fees, etc. He clearly gave you a list of his costs, court fees would (to most people) clearly be extra, perhaps a comparison could be drawn with a garage who would clearly charge extra for parts.

 

In my experience final bills fropm Sol's can be a bit of a shock, perhaps thats why I steer clear and do it myself.

 

Whilst you may be able to get some small amounts reduced, I believe that the bulk of the cost is indeed payable.

 

Andy

[bigphil61]

Hi Andy, Steampowered, I accept your advice and would like to get this matter sorted out asap. Please note, I have tried in the past to make arrangements with the Solcitors to make payments to them at a rate I could afford, but they refused to accept my offer at that time! I have a couple of question, is it best to let the court make the decision on how much the monthly payment should be and will that decision be based on my income and outgoings? Which one of the forms should I fill in to send back to the courts if as Steampowered alluded to above the VAT was not part of the initial aggreement? Thanks in advance....BP

[steampowered]

Hi,

 

The letter dated 5 January 2012 says that you will be charged for waiting time on page 4 and for the court fee on page 5. In any event, both of these items are quite small compared to the rest of the costs so I don't think this argument helps you.

 

One strategy might be to fill in a defence in which you admit liability for the bulk of the costs but dispute liability for some of the costs. This would be on the basis of the fixed fee of £3000 you were quoted for the PSO in the 5 January letter. If this is a route you want to go down you need to clearly refer to the fixed fee quote in your defence. You would also need to crunch the numbers and say exactly how much you think they are entitled to claim and how much you are disputing.

 

The difficulty with relying on the fixed fee quote is that it only covered work on the PSO. The scope of work expanded when you asked them to deal with the molestation injunction. As both applications were heard at the same hearing it will be difficult to say what should be included in the quote for the PSO and what was additional work on the molestation injunction. If you wanted to go down this route you would need to crunch the numbers and come up with some sensible way to allocate costs between the PSO and NMO. For example, you might assume that half the time spent at hearings in which both orders were considered relates to the PSO and the other half relates to the NMO. This would then give you a basis for saying that part of the costs should be unrecoverable as falling within the fixed fee for the PSO. You need to state exactly what the number is, the court will not do the maths and work it out for you. To be perfectly honest I think this is quite a weak defence, but it may work to reduce the amount a bit if you plead it carefully and come up with a sensible and clear calculation.

 

The stuff about monthly payments is a bit outside my expertise I'm afraid hopefully someone else can help. Have a browse on the forums as there are many others who have dealt with the problem of being unable to pay their creditors and needing court ordered monthly repayments. Even if they rejected your initial offer there is nothing to stop you making another offer, covering both the total amount and the monthly repayments you can afford.

[bigphil61]

Hi Steampowered, I think the only way forward for me, as I really do not want to put in a weak defense, is to admit I owe the money but ask for the courts to set the monthly payment based on my income and outgoings! Thank you very much for your advice and I will try to find other threads that give an indication on how to go about asking the courts to set payments up! BP

[steampowered]

No worries, good luck!