Solicitor Divorce Fee

[enuffisenuff]

Hi All, I'm looking for some advice...

I've recently got divorced and I'm currently awaiting on an agreed settlement payment from my partner for 20,000 euro. However 10,000 euro has only been paid so far which my solicitor has lodged into into her bank account and is saying that shes keeping it to settle my outstanding divorce fees. Can she do this? This was not our agreement and currently many agreements made in court as part of the settlement by my partner remain unfulfilled...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

rgds
D

 

[WizardDr]

There ought to have been a letter of engagement and how fees were to be calculated.

What do you have?

 

[enuffisenuff]

There ought to have been a letter of engagement and how fees were to be calculated.

What do you have?

Hi there, thanks for replying...

No there was no letter, its was just a word of mouth arrangement with the understanding that when everything was finally settled that my solicitor would get paid, which I have no problem with and fully intend to pay (I have managed to pay over 6k so far of the eventual final bill) its just the fact that my solicitor decided off her own bat to lodge this payment of 10k (which was intended/earmarked for our daughters future) into her own account without even consulting me and with many outstanding issues that were agreed between myself and my former husband still not settled...but were agreed in court as part of the final divorce settlement....

In a nutshell can my solicitor take this money and lodge it into her account without my prior agreement in either written or verbal form?

 

[mf1]

She should have discussed it with you, raised a fee note and asked you to discharge that fee note before taking the fees.

Mind you, if you are at the tail end of a contested Divorce, and there are still many outstanding issues not settled, it will have cost quite a bit in fees and I know, if I was in her shoes, I'd be looking for more funds.

You should take it up with her and , if you are unhappy, report her to the Law Society. They are very keen that client's funds are properly dealt with and that Section 68 letters ( the how much is this going to cost you letter) are issued.

mf