Solicitor mistake 40,000 held for 2 years after house sale/ purchase

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cmalone

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Relative was using a solicitor to sell/ purchase home and received letter from same last week advising that solicitor's accountant had discovered that 40k held in error in client's account over 2 years after transactions complete.

Is this typical? Our relative thinks only 'found' by solicitor as she had complianed to Law Society re. same solicitor some weeks ago re. other smaller financial/ legal irregularities
 

No this is definitely not typical!! As a solicitor, in any firm I have worked in that amount would be noticed very quickly! Without naming names how big a firm(a one man/two/three/larger) are we talking about?

Also how much were properties bought/sold for? The mind boggles as to how €40,000 could be found after 2 years! In fact how could your relative not have been aware of being down €40,000 for two years? Most clients I have dealt with would notice €40.00 never mind .
 
She sold her old house for c. 250 and new one was 400k. The firm has 4 solicitors i think. They are arranging to repay her. What extra can she look for?
 
What was the outcome of the Law Society complaint other than jogging the solicitor's memory about the "missing" €40K? Does the Law Society complaints process not provide for any sort of client compensation in this sort of situation? She should at least make sure to get a reasonable rate of interest on the money for the two years in question. That €40K could have earned c. 5% p.a. over that period (or even more if drip feed into a c. 7% regular saver account) which would be worth between €4K and €5K gross for example...
 
Her complaint to Law Society was only submitted a few weeks ago and noted other irregularities and not this amount- it related to overcharging, number of years solicitor was qualified- (as solicitor had stated they were long established for x no. of years, etc)
 
It all sounds very odd and if the complaints stack up and the money was "resting in their account" all this time then it certainly merits further investigation. I wonder if engaging another solicitor to look into this would help? Would another solicitor take on such a case "against" another solicitor (not digging at solicitors here - just asking!)? Could the issue of the missing money be added to the the Law Society complaint or at least logged as relevant?
 
Why would that lady need another solicitor- do the Law Society not have a Complaints Section?
 
"Would another solicitor take on such a case "against" another solicitor (not digging at solicitors here - just asking!)? "

The Law Society has a panel of solicitors who will take action against other solicitors. It's not fun, but there is a recognition that someone has to represent people with a grievance.

"Why would that lady need another solicitor- do the Law Society not have a Complaints Section? "

In this case, the facts seem clear cut and the Law Society should indeed be able to handle the matter. However, some complaints against solicitors are, in essence, not a complaint that rules were breached, but simply that the solicitor was not up to scratch on the job - i.e. negligence. Like everybody else, a solicitor accused of negligence is entitled to defend the allegation. The Law Society does not generally adjudicate on these claims (though they will, I think look at 'inadeqate service' but this is more about complaints that a solicitor is simply not dealing with the work). So if you want to claim that a solicitor has been negligent in handling your business, you will certainly need to retain another solicitor.

Negligence claims have to go through the courts, in the same way as negligence claims against any service provider. Were the situation otherwise, the accusation of 'self regulation' which is unfairly levelled at the solicitors profession, would have more of a ring of truth about it.
 
Its pretty bad for a solicitor to hold onto 40K for two years!

But I look at these situations and the original post with the jaundiced eye of a many years qualified jaded practitioner. I'd wonder how on earth a client would not notice ( I'm not excusing - I'm just wondering if there was something else going on in the background? was there a significant dispute about anything), what were the other complaints ( how long someone was qualified?) and particularly, when I see " what extra can she look for"?
A very significant amount of complaints about solicitors are, in fact, because of personality clashes and are unwarranted and a lot of clients use the Law Society as a serious stick to beat their solicitor with out of malice. Many cases are absolutely valid and are dealt with, with serious repercussions for the solicitors involved.

mf
 
In a reasonably sized firm doing a lot of conveyancing there would be several hundred thousand going through client accounts on a weekly basis, particularly over the past few years. Mortgage drawdowns, deposits, etc, then you would ahev fees, settlement cheques going through as well.

It would actually be easy enough not to notice that 40k was sitting to the credit of one particular client although i think on a yearly basis the auditors should be querying significant credit balances over a long term.
 
Solicitors do handle very significant volumes of money. I am a one man outfit. Money held for clients in the past 6 months would at any given time vary from maybe €1m to over €5m. Bear in mind that a conveyancing solicitor needs to close perhaps three transactions per week to stay afloat - so that is probably close enough to €1m per week going through the account. The book-keeping overhead is very significant. With modern computerised accounting systems and monthly bank reconciliations, it is very difficult to see how €40k could remain undetected. But with older, manual systems (there are still quite a few out there) it is I suppose possible.

In any event, I don't think we are talking about the money being undetected in the sense of not knowing it was there: more likely a case that there was a client ledger (one of hundreds, remember) showing a balance of €40k, and whoever saw it (somebody must have seen it) wrongly assumed that it was there for a reason and did not investigate further. This could easily happen, even with perfect book-keeping. And I share MF1's doubts about whether we have all the facts.
 
MOB said:
And I share MF1's doubts about whether we have all the facts.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that the original poster can clarify on these points?
 
MOB said:
...And I share MF1's doubts about whether we have all the facts.
Click to expand...

I suspect we may be missing some key information as well.

One of the most useful pieces of work in "closing out" conveyencing / inheritance work my solicitors have done is the final statement of account, a simple double-entry accounting of all monies received and paid out.

I don't know if this is common practice or something my guys do off their own bat, but surely this would highlight any funds not accounted for, in this case the 40k apparently due to the client but not paid.

Is it possible that this is one of the oversights in this case?
 

It is common practice which is why I wonder was there something else going on?

I had a recent property sale where the Vendor was a non -resident and there was a CGT liability. I agreed with the client that a certain balance ( in excess of the potential CGT liability) would be retained until CGT was calculated, paid and receipted. Because Revenue will come looking to me for that liability if my non resident client does not pay it.

mf
 
Thanks for replies- as i understand it- there was no personality clash or otherwise as the woman has previously carried out business etc with the firm. It was only when she complained that the solicitor became annoyed and wrote agressive letters- stating her qualifications etc and that secretary had no permission to issue quotes etc for conveyancing (which were much lower than the final figures charged).

My friend did indeed notice problems with monies she paid as deposits etc (not being correctly accounted for) for the family law matter as well as house sale/ purchase. In addition, she was particularly scared that the solicitor had power to delay or refuse to progress the transactions and therefore she had to wait until Autumn 2007 before she could complain properly.
 
I am curious about the whole solicitor having a problem taking a case another solicitor idea. I will start a new thread.
One good thing is if compensation is forthcoming, it should be better than if she had invested that money in the stock market or in another property at the time where it would probably be worth far less by now.
 
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