solicitor looking for unpaid fees 6 years after house sale

ubiquitous said:
Of course if they were rational enough to demand payment upfront, they would be accused of all sorts of things like "feathering their own nests" and "ripping off" their clients.
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I am sure there is some middle ground between payment upfront , and didn't bother invoicing for 6 years
 
dazza21ie said:
Legal services are quite different from buying a washing machine. You cannot take the legal services back to the shop if someone refuses to pay you.
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As is the case for all services no? eg accountants, doctors, consultants, oven cleaners, washing machine repair etc etc. Solicitors do nothing different to any other service to warrant payment up front.
 
efm said:
As is the case for all services no? eg accountants, doctors, consultants, oven cleaners, washing machine repair etc etc. Solicitors do nothing different to any other service to warrant payment up front.
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Do doctors not expect to be paid before you leave?
 
How would you all feel if OP had posted that she became aware having reviewed her figures that her solicitor had failed to pay her 5K and she had not noticed that at the time. And when she contacted the solicitor he told her that as more than 6 years had passed that he would not be paying her? Would that not be theft?

What is the difference in what OP ( now disappeared and amazed at the reaction to erh post!) posted and the above?

mf
 
efm said:
I don't understand why you consider it rational for solicitors to demand payment upfront; standard business practice is payment on delivery so why should solicitors be different?
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This indeed was standard business practice during the boom years. The post-credit crunch era will see changes to this practice as businesses adapt their procedures to counter growing bad trade debt problems within the wider economy.
 
efm said:
Most do but if you walk out the door they can't take back the diagnosis!
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Or you cant go back to the doctor but i am sure every solicitor in the country has a client that continues to seek legal services from him/her but takes forever to pay outstanding bills.
 
mf1 said:
How would you all feel if OP had posted that she became aware having reviewed her figures that her solicitor had failed to pay her 5K and she had not noticed that at the time. And when she contacted the solicitor he told her that as more than 6 years had passed that he would not be paying her? Would that not be theft?
mf
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Without getting into the legal technicalities of whether you are comparing like with like (ie can a solictor's payment be statute barred as a client doesn't invoice a solicitor) and assuming the same law can be applied, I would say that under Irish Law it was not theft and the OP should have noticed a 5k hole in her accounts, that she was a responsible adult and consider it one of life's lessons.

(And am I not just saying that to support my comments in this thread - I sincerely believe it.)
 
dazza21ie said:
Or you cant go back to the doctor but i am sure every solicitor in the country has a client that continues to seek legal services from him/her but takes forever to pay outstanding bills.
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If that is the case then that is a client management problem on the part of "every solicitor in the country" and my advice to all those solicitors is refuse to do any further work until all outstanding amounts are settled.

If any agrieved clients come and post on AAM I will be the first to tell them to pay up if they have been invoiced.
 
efm said:
Without getting into the legal technicalities of whether you are comparing like with like (ie can a solictor's payment be statute barred as a client doesn't invoice a solicitor) and assuming the same law can be applied, I would say that under Irish Law it was not theft and the OP should have noticed a 5k hole in her accounts, that she was a responsible adult and consider it one of life's lessons.
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I would expect the Law Society to take the opposite view, if only on ethical grounds. Anything otherwise would be a charter for systematic ripoff of consumers.
 
Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, "The lawyer should always get some of his fee in advance from the client. This way the client knows he has a lawyer and the lawyer knows he has a client."

I don't think Irish clients are well adjusted to the idea of money up front for a solicitor. I have never sought it, though I would be better than some colleagues at getting interim payments.

Many solicitors are quite poor at billing. My own view on the matter is that while prompt and efficient billing is obviously far better than erratic and late billing, the crucial trick is not to get better at billing but to get better at picking clients. If a solicitor makes a habit of terminating dealings with can't\won't pay clients, then over time the quality of the solicitor's client base is constantly improving. If a client won't pay, it is almost never worth while suing - just stop dealing with them.
 
I agree with MOB that we need to be more discerning in choosing clients. It can't be a matter of everyone who comes in the door.

However I am appalled at the attitude of some of the posters to unpaid bills. Morals have everything to do with it. If you owe money to someone, and they can't sue you for whatever reason (e.g. they can't afford to pay for the litigation) that doesn't take away your debt.

Also, if everything the op said was true, it's very possible that the solicitor tried to contact her a number of times over the years.

Personally, if I were the solicitor involved I would probably let it go and put it down to experience. That does not excuse the op's behaviour.
 
it sounds hazy that a bill would appear unannounced after so long. in our line of business, if there are staged payments, then this would be made clear upon agreement to take on the job. If outstanding payments were owed, the client would be made aware of them at the start.

I would never send a bill unannounced to a client if they were unaware of it's arrival. Was the OP aware more payment was owed or had they thought they had settled it?
 
I'm confused. If the bill was in punts - surely it was issued some time ago (at least 6 years ago ). Why would a firm issue a bill in punts in 2008. Was not the invoice dated. Sounds like the OP has only discovered the bill. Perhaps a previous tenant had flung it somewhere. Anyway, still think it a bit scammy to avoid paying for a service which you dont deny you've received. No fan or connection with the legal gang BTW... just believe in paying for what I get.
 
No legal person on here has answered my point about what advice they would give to a client if a plumber sent a bill for unpaid work from more than six years ago?
In relation to the point that if a client noticed six years later that a solicitor had overcharged and should the solicitor pay. Well yes I think they should because they have a higher duty of care, I'm sure there must be rules from the Law Society on this......... the onus is on the solicitor to see that everything is in order.
I don't understand that bills are not sent out promptly, surely within the month should be normal? Do guidelines not exist that bills should be sent out quickly. I mean do you guys make so much money that you can wait a couple of years to start sending out invoices? I've never heard of such a thing. It's different if you sent out an invoice and didn't get paid and send reminders, but why after the second strongly worded reminder would one not sue for the debt?
 
If a plumber did work for me, didn't invoice me and came looking for payment 6 years later ( or more than) I would pay him. Then again I doubt if I would overlook the fact that I hadn't paid him. I was always told by my father that a man has to be paid for his work and that extends to every type of work or service.

Most solicitors offices deal with hundreds of files daily. There are also staff changes now and then. Combine the two and there is always the possibility of a file being overlooked. Particularly if documents for eg have been sent for registration and it has been known for this to take up to 5 or 6 years where there have been extraordinary backlogs in the Property Registration Authority and mapping problems. I can see how a solicitor could potentially overlook one file and on completion of registration and examining the account ready to close it discover it was never invoiced.

I think every one will appreciate that this can happen in any busy business albeit very infrequently because after all, it is a business and we wouldn't survive very long if we weren't recieving fees on files.

Of course 6 years is a ridiculous amount of time to lapse before billing a client and maybe the client is within their legal rights not to pay ( depending on the circumstances of when the 6 years started to run). After that it is up to themself.

Edit: I'm reminded by Ubi's post that the file was billed but payment not received and again can see why this overlooked.
 
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