conveyancing (additional fee)

J

john.g

Guest
i am currently in process of purchasing a second hand home.my solicitor quoted me a fee for the house purchase based on good title being shown for property in question.if there were problems with the title etc. it would cost more for additional work.Fair enough !
My solicitor has informed me that good tiltle cannot be shown on property
and has informed vendors solicitor to remedy this and there will be an extra €500 plus vat onto fee for additional work.
My issue is that i presume the onus is on the vendor to show good title
and without knowing the exact details surely their solicitor neglected to
spot this when current owners purchased house.there is obviously a problem with the title and it would have been an issue for them sooner or later anyway.
Because someone else has been negligent in previous conveyancing it costs me an extra €605 to my solicitor.This seems very unjust to me that the client has to burden someone else's mistake.
Do solicitors have insurance for situations like this and is it worth my while following up on it ?
While solicitors correspond between them sorting an issue that a solicitor
neglected to sort out previously i end up paying for it.
Does this seem unfair to anybody else or isit just me?.

Any Advice
JOhn.g
 
Your choices:

A. Buy a different house
B. Ask for a reduction in the price to reflect additional costs. If you like the house enough and they won't budge, you still have a choice.

Things happen. Its not your fault. Its not your solicitors fault. Without knowing the precise issue, its impossible to say whose fault it is.

You employed your solicitor to assist you in buying this house. They told you how much it would cost to do the work. They told you it would cost more if problems arose. Problems arose and now you are responsible for the additional fees.

"Does this seem unfair to anybody else or isit just me?. "

Its the "shurely shomebody elshe should be doing shomething elshe about thish" syndrome.
Things happen in life - there isn't always someone else around to fix it for nothing.

mf
 
I will be paying my solicitor in full not "shomebody elshe"
and dont have a problem with that.
The vendors would have this problem with title anyway until sorted and although "things happen in life" i think accountability should rest at source of error .


Thanks
John.g
 
"Because someone else has been negligent in previous conveyancing............"

Based on the admittedly scant facts given, there is no justification for assuming that previous conveyancing work was negligent.

What, exactly, is the alleged title problem?
 
You could maybe reduce your offer price on the house due to the seller not having things in order and recoup your 500 Euro that way but in the context of buying a house this amount is minor. If their is a next time get a quote for the job in total and not one with opt out clauses.
 
Bronte said:
You could maybe reduce your offer price on the house due to the seller not having things in order and recoup your 500 Euro that way but in the context of buying a house this amount is minor. If their is a next time get a quote for the job in total and not one with opt out clauses.
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It's not an opt out clause. The solicitor here quoted for the work they were going to do. They advised if additional work needed to be done, an additional fee would be payable. It is very clear.
 
Vanilla they didn't tell the OP how much the additional fee would be. That's why I personally think it's an opt out clause. "More for additional work" is not an amount and it's also very open ended and in my opinion unfair on the OP who would in general be inexperienced in the complexities of the work. If they had said it will be fee of 2 K plus extra 500 if title is not ok then it would be a different matter. Another way to do it would be to say fee of 2.5 K and reduction if work is less - but I don't think you'll get many quotes like that for any job legal or otherwise.
 
Maybe I'm reading this all wrong but why does the op have to pay for a problem with the title of the property he is purchasing. Surely this should all be sorted by the people selling the house?


My solicitor has informed me that good tiltle cannot be shown on property
and has informed vendors solicitor to remedy this and there will be an extra €500 plus vat onto fee for additional work.
My issue is that i presume the onus is on the vendor to show good title
Click to expand...

[It's not an opt out clause. The solicitor here quoted for the work they were going to do. They advised if additional work needed to be done, an additional fee would be payable. It is very clear. /QUOTE]

What additional work does the op's solicitor have to do? I would want to know this as surely it should be all sorted by the vendors solicitor, and when this is done op's solicitor is free to continue with the transaction.

I was in a similar situation where the problem was with the title on my property and we had to pay for the additional work, but I know for a fact the person buying my place didn't have to pay anything with relation to this being resolved.
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Bronte said:
Vanilla they didn't tell the OP how much the additional fee would be. That's why I personally think it's an opt out clause. "More for additional work" is not an amount and it's also very open ended and in my opinion unfair on the OP who would in general be inexperienced in the complexities of the work. If they had said it will be fee of 2 K plus extra 500 if title is not ok then it would be a different matter. Another way to do it would be to say fee of 2.5 K and reduction if work is less - but I don't think you'll get many quotes like that for any job legal or otherwise.
Click to expand...

I'm not a solicitor but I know from experience of the conveyancing process that any solicitor would have to include a clause that if there is additional work, it must attract an additional charge.

Consider the following three scenarios: -

(1) John's solicitor completes the conveyance - title is fine - John gets charged as per the original quote.

(2) There's a minor issue with the title of the property. The vendor's solicitor agrees to sort it immediately. John's solicitor still has a small additional amount of work pointing it out in the first place but absorbs the cost for good-will reasons.

(3) There's a major issue with the title of the property. The vendor's solicitor is un-co-operative. John's solicitor has to write many letters and make many phone calls in an effort to resolve it.

Why would John's solicitor get paid the same amount for (3) as (1)? It wouldn't be practical or fair.

That said, I do feel there is some merit in the idea that if the additional work was a result of poor or incomplete work by the vendor's solicitor, the additional cost should be borne by the vendor or solicitor.
 
All work I've gotton done was at the agreed price with my solicitor and I've had scenarios where things were not easy and sales falling through due to problems with the legal title etc. As a customer I want a price for the work not a figure of indeterminate amount half way through. Obviously the rest of you think this is unreasonable of me, but a solicitor could then chose a low figure to get the business and then add on a high supplementary fee.

LD your argument that because another solicitor is unhelpful to your solicitor should be paid for by the purchaser - do you really mean that?
 
"LD your argument that because another solicitor is unhelpful to your solicitor should be paid for by the purchaser - do you really mean that?"

You have to think this through logically. Whose problem is this? Its the OP's. If he was not involved there would be no problem. Who is acting for him? His own solicitor. If the case involves extra work by the solicitor, why should the solicitor work for nothing? Who should pay the solicitor? The client or "shomebody elshe?"

Any experienced solicitor will work this way. I'm happy to work on a fixed fee basis in a straightforward transaction. I am not willing to subsidise my client if things go wrong and issues arise. That is quite simply a risk a client must take when engaging in a potentially complex transaction.

LDF's post is a very good practical summation

mf
 
MF1, if you hire someone to do a job in your house do you not expect them to do the job for the price quoted? Or getting an accountant to do your tax returns, you don't expect them to say the fee is 5K and maybe if it's a bit complex I'll charge you more to be then hit with a bill for 10 K extra. If you received this bill for 15K it would leave you in a position of not being able to negotiate after the fact and you wouldn't be able to get out of it because you had been told it was possible albeit that you were never given a ball park figure of how much it might be. That is the point I'm trying to make. I understand that 500 Euro in relation to property purchase of 300000+ Euro might not seem like a lot extra but to plenty of people it is.

Also if the increased fee is due to an unhelpful solicitor on the other side, I think my solicitor in my interest (after all he is working for me) should complain to the relevant authorities stating that x solicitor is causing this transaction to cost a lot more than it ought to and that x solcitor should bear the cost. Or maybe my solicitor should send a bill to the vendor's solicitor for the extra costs of dealing with this particular matter. No doubt this is off the wall but there you go. I'm not naive and the chances of this happening are zero. I realize MF1 that you are a solicitor but I'm trying to look at this from the customer's point of view.
 
Bronte,

Are you trying to say that the fixed price should cover every scenario? There is no such thing as fixed price for every contingency. The scope of the fixed price was clearly explained to the OP. If a broader scope was required then OP could have sought a fixed price for that broader scope. The scope cannot cover absolutely everything. The Contractor/service provider cannot discuss all scenarios, and cannot anticipate what an 'unexpected' event is likely to cost - because it is an unexpected event, and the amount of work will depend on time associated with that event. For unexpected events you generally face hourly rates. The position is no different for the engagement of professional services.

So, the OP could have agreed in advance an hourly rate for such events and be charged accordingly. In the particular circumstances, it is open to the OP to try to bottom out how much additional work is involved and whether the additional price is fair and reasonable.

I am surprised that you use the Accountant scenario. Personally, I have not found them too willing to bill other than on an hourly basis. If you know the name of a good Accountant who will work on a fixed price all scenario basis please feel free to pm me his/her name. Imo, an Accountant would charge extra for unexpected difficulty in making your tax return. Also, if you know good builders or good tradesmen who will work on a similar basis, I would love to have their names, because my experiences have always been different.
 
my solicitor has since informed me that the problem relates to a missing document known legally as a" Fee Farm Grant" which the person who owned land prior to builder would have been entitled and problem is currently being sorted.
Anyway,I understand that my own solicitor must be paid for their work plus extra for title problem.€500 is not a fortune.
My issue is that i presume that when current vendors purchased house 6 years ago from builder this title problem was not spotted in conveyancing by their solicitor and why should the vendors suffer €500 price reduction in price through no fault of their own.it appears to me that they were unaware of any title issue as they were wondering why sale was not closing on time.
If this is the case ,and vendors solicitor failed to spot this title issue when they purchased house,should they not be accountable for this ?
What is professional indemnity for!
i am obviously not a legal expert but in general should good title not be established by vendor prior to selling?.
in future any offer i make will be subject to good title and although my solicitors extra fee is not excessive in this case im not sure what additional time it cost them at this stage.

Thanks
John.g
ps (hope title issue is not too serious)
 
Bronte said:
Vanilla they didn't tell the OP how much the additional fee would be. That's why I personally think it's an opt out clause. "More for additional work" is not an amount and it's also very open ended and in my opinion unfair on the OP who would in general be inexperienced in the complexities of the work. If they had said it will be fee of 2 K plus extra 500 if title is not ok then it would be a different matter. Another way to do it would be to say fee of 2.5 K and reduction if work is less - but I don't think you'll get many quotes like that for any job legal or otherwise.
Click to expand...

A solicitor can't give a quote in advance for a generic problem with title because the amount of work involved will depend on the type of problem.

Compare this to a mechanic who's doing a service on your car. You bring the car in for a service, he rings you and tells you actually you need something else done to your car, tells you how much this will be, it is then up to you to decide to proceed or not. In a similar way once a solicitor sees there is a problem they will then tell you how much it will cost to sort out, it is then up to you to proceed or not.
 
Bronte said:
LD your argument that because another solicitor is unhelpful to your solicitor should be paid for by the purchaser - do you really mean that?
Click to expand...

No - see the last line of my post.

Do you really think that John G's solicitor should carry out unforeseeable extra work for nothing?

In an ideal world, this situation would not arise because all professionals would be efficient and all conveyances would be completed perfectly, so that there would be no such thing as "bad title".

But it's not an ideal world.

Faced with the following situation where you are buying a property and it turns out that there is a problem with title, which would you prefer: -

(1) Old solicitor carried out conveyance badly and is a belligerent old fool. New solicitor requests that old solicitor fixes the problem. Old solicitor says bugger off. You've told new solicitor that you won't pay him a penny more than the agreed fee so he refuses to do more. You complain to the Law Society about the old solicitor. Their investigation takes quite some time. In the meantime you lose the house to another purchaser.

(2) New solicitor fixes the problem for an additional €500.
 
Bronte said:
MF1, if you hire someone to do a job in your house do you not expect them to do the job for the price quoted?
Click to expand...

If I get a quote for an attic conversion and during the course of the work part of the roof falls in because it wasn't built correctly in the first place, I don't expect my attic conversion man to repair my roof within the same original quote.
 
As MOB correctly pointed out above there is no evidence that the original solicitor who acted for the Vendor was negligent. What was considered perfectly good practice 20 years ago would be frowned on today. There are whole towns in some parts of this country with atrocious title that local solicitors and banks accept but no other solicitor in the country would accept. It's not 'one size fits all'.
 
Vanilla's post prompts me to clarify that all the examples I have used are entirely hypothetical. I have no knowledge of the specifics of John G's case.
 
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