Breach of contract? / Debt dispute

[Robb.S]

Hi all,

 

First time signing up but have been lingering for some time, although I do have a problem some may help with regarding a divorce contract.

 

Now, this should be a fairly straightforward divorce as all the paperwork was needed was ready for them

and no dispute from the other half - straight forward divorce.

 

However, as time went on, he realised that some of the work done was duplicated and charging for work that had already been provided to them.

 

I believe in one instance they charged him for work outside the contract which they shouldn't have done.

 

Now once he realised he requested to put the file on hold and send out everything to do with his file so he could review and all the charges.

 

After looking at his file its clear that there are charges for work that isn't on file, duplication of work therefore duplication of charges etc.

 

He then decided to query where all the charges had come from but they have appeared to side step the questions and answer completely differently.

 

He also made a formal complaint to which their complaints policy allowed a 14 day response, in fact took the almost 4 weeks to respond!

 

Nevertheless he has refused to pay anything further until they can provide evidence of the work and also the additional charges and reasons.

 

they have decided to stop the work and pass it onto the debt recovery team.

 

This has been ongoing for over 2 years now and numerous letters have been sent and as of late are now being ignored.

 

He has complained to the Legal Ombudsman but as he was out of time they were not much help

but did hint that if he took it further he was likely to be successful.

 

This is an issue of costs, and he would now like to now recover the cost of the money he has paid so far

due to their ignorance of letters and failure to respond to any of his reasonable questions regarding the charges.

 

Obviously in any event settle the disputed amount and carry on with the contract.

 

It seems like the firm have ballsed this one up and from the start as appears the original file handler is not longer working there after questions were raised!

 

can he do anything about it?

 

I have never come across a case where someone with a debt to a firm/company to take them to court in order to either

settle the disputed debt

or void the contract and return the parties back as they were before the contract was entered into.

 

Obviously mediation may be an option?

 

Could he argue a breach of contract for failing to fulfil it the contract?

 

On the flipside they can argue the contract is not fulfilled due to him owing them money.

 

He does not want to leave it as they have already been paid almost £1,000 and not done very much.

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited June 25, 2014 by honeybee13
Firm nam removed.

[steampowered]

The contract cannot be 'voided' and he won't be able to get any money back, unfortunately. The basic position is that the solicitor is entitled to be paid for work properly done (but probably not for things which are duplicated).

 

Does he have a detailed breakdown of charges? If yes, I would be tempted to go through that in detail, removing items which are not justifiable and offering to pay the rest. I think it would be a good idea to list the specific time entries which he says are not justified and explain why for each unjustified time entry in his letter.

 

1,000 will not cover that much legal work. You can't accept a solicitor to just accept random paperwork handed to them if that paperwork is deficient in some way. It sounds like he has received bad service, but as he has missed both the deadline for complaining to the legal ombudsman and the deadline for having the bill assessed by a court, he may need to compromise.