Fees on inheritance

I agree and accept that my carelessness is what cost me here, I should have made sure of the charges in advance. But the Law Society places the onus on the solicitor, not on me. It is a legal obligation for the solicitor to make the charges clear in advance, and you can bet your life I would have either negotiated, or tried to do it myself if I had known the bill.

We foolishly trusted the solicitor, (I haven't heard any scandals), but I will certainly be challenging this as hard as I can.

Clare said:

We foolishly trusted the solicitor

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As far as I can see, this is the main mistake made by most people.

"I'll use the family soliciitor"

"We used them before"

"We used them to buy the house"

What I have learnt: ALWAYS get a quote / estimate of fees.

I would expect to pay 250 for a day's work, maybe 400 pd when you include overheads.

On a 1m estate, maybe 1 house plus several bank accounts plus managed funds, I expect to pay 1000 max + VAT.

I am planning to find out who is the executor on my parents will.

If it is the local sol, I will plead with them to change.

He already has a massive house, and a very expensive car, I don't want to add to that.

Bronte said:

Anyone who thinks that a solicitor is going to charge the same amount of money on an inheritance for an estate of 200,000 versus 2 million even if the work is equal needs to get their head examined...

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Do you mean that people are mad to take the view that solicitors should base their fees on the amount of work they do?

Padraigb said:

Do you mean that people are mad to take the view that solicitors should base their fees on the amount of work they do?

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Well the Law Society does say that solicitors can base their fees on the value of the transaction but like I say, that is contradictory with the concept of fees being reasonable and reflective of the work done.

Maybe it is acceptable to take some amount based on the size of the inheritance but to base his entire professional fee on a set scale, like the solicitor in Trev's case seems to have done, is just ludicrous.

Protocol said:

As far as I can see, this is the main mistake made by most people.

"I'll use the family soliciitor"

"We used them before"

"We used them to buy the house"

What I have learnt: ALWAYS get a quote / estimate of fees.

I would expect to pay 250 for a day's work, maybe 400 pd when you include overheads.

On a 1m estate, maybe 1 house plus several bank accounts plus managed funds, I expect to pay 1000 max + VAT.

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I fully accept that the main reason I am in this jam is because we didn't ask in advance about the fees. But that takes me back to my previous point. Common sense would suggest that I find out the fees beforehand, but THE LAW states that he must make me aware. Surely this puts us in the driving seat to contest the charges because he failed to do so, thereby denying us the right to negotiate?

"On a 1m estate, maybe 1 house plus several bank accounts plus managed funds, I expect to pay 1000 max + VAT. "

Frankly, no chance. Our Professional Indemnity plus membership fees are huge expenses before we pay staff, utilities, rent etc.,etc. These are costs that have to be recouped to enable us to provide a service, even before we provide the service and have to be factored in.

If that is all you expect to pay, you should save yourself the money and do it yourself.

"Common sense would suggest that I find out the fees beforehand, but THE LAW states that he must make me aware. Surely this puts us in the driving seat to contest the charges because he failed to do so, thereby denying us the right to negotiate?"

And to the OP, you are unhappy with the fees, ask for a breakdown, ask for a reduction, complain to the Law Society ( who are very good in situations like this) but do remember that he did provide a service and he is entitled to be paid a proper fee. Failure to provide what is called a Section 68 letter ( an indication of likely fees) is poor but is not a bar to recovery of a professional fee. And you are in a position now to negotiate.

mf

mf1 said:

"Common sense would suggest that I find out the fees beforehand, but THE LAW states that he must make me aware. Surely this puts us in the driving seat to contest the charges because he failed to do so, thereby denying us the right to negotiate?"

And to the OP, you are unhappy with the fees, ask for a breakdown, ask for a reduction, complain to the Law Society ( who are very good in situations like this) but do remember that he did provide a service and he is entitled to be paid a proper fee. Failure to provide what is called a Section 68 letter ( an indication of likely fees) is poor but is not a bar to recovery of a professional fee. And you are in a position now to negotiate.

mf

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Thanks for the reply. I'm not in any way trying to deny the solicitor a proper fee, everyone has a right to be sufficiently paid for their work. But I really don't think that €30,000 for a very quickly and easily processed, (as far as I can see) will is an appropriate fee. If it was simply the case that this was a very difficult and time consuming process which took him a lot of time, I would understand a bigger than expected fee. I would still be unhappy that he didn't give me the correct indications, (section 68) but I would accept that it is a bigger job than I had imagined.

However I don't think that this is a reasonable fee at all for the work carried out and I think that his reluctance (so far) to provide an adequate breakdown is maybe an indication that he knows this himself. We have received something similar to Trev from the previous page. A basic breakdown of the fees percentage wise, but have had to send a second letter asking again for a breakdown of the actual work carried out.

I know from your post that you are a solicitor, so I understand that it may be awkward to criticise a fellow professional, but in your opinion, are we likely to get anywhere with an appeal to him? I mean if I ask him for a reduction, how much is that likely to gain? To be honest, I would consider anything over about €10,000 - €15,000 max as just about acceptable. I wonder if I do go back and ask for a reduction based on the fact that it is unreasonable and due to the fact that we didn't get notification of fees, he may just drop it to €27,500 or something and think that he's being generous! I will contact the Law Society for an opinion before we go back to him but I would appreciate your thoughts.

If you were in his position, what sort of negotiation would you give? Feel free to send a PM if you don't want to take sides publicly!

Clare

PS, I do stress that my main issue is the failure to inform us. If he had given these indications at the start and even if we had negotiated him down to €15,000, we would still have likely done the work ourselves. If mf1 and the Law Society both come back and say that €30,000 is perfectly fair for the work required, I'll be surprised, but I will still challenge the bill because the solicitor failed to inform us, which cost us the opportunity to choose to go it alone.

Just to update, it's been a week since we asked the solicitor for details of what work he actually did and as yet no response. When we asked for the bill, it arrived in 2 days!

the solicitor is oblidged to send you a written notification of his fee before he commences work for you .they love probate work.its like money in the bank for them. negotiate a fee weith them .

Everyone would be happy if such work was done under a reasonable hourly rate.

Therefore a complex job would pay more than a simple job and rightly so.