Conduct and service

Conveyancing costs

Defective costs information often causes problems, particularly in relation to conveyancing matters.

Solicitors who are asked to quote for costs frequently try to cover themselves against matters turning out to involve a lot more work than anticipated by adding a rider to any quotation, reserving the right to increase the given figure.

However, doing so can easily give rise to a complaint if the client is not told of the increase until the bill is rendered.

Similarly, a complaint is more or less inevitable if the matter is abortive yet the bill is out of all proportion to, or even simply higher than, the original quotation.

A recent complaint to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) embodied both elements.

The purchase involved a leasehold property, for which the solicitors had quoted 600 plus VAT and disbursements.

They had also explained, in writing, to the client that if the matter failed to proceed to completion they would charge her on a 'work done' basis at an hourly rate of 110.

As the matter progressed, problems emerged with the title which were going to involve a lot of work.

At about the same time it became clear that a mortgage was involved and the client would therefore also be responsible for the mortgagees' costs.

The solicitors informed her that these would be about 200.

Fairly soon after the difficulties with the title became apparent, the purchaser decided not to proceed.

The solicitors now produced their bill for 1,200.

The client protested, demanding to know why the costs were so much more than what she would have been expecting had the matter been completed.

The solicitors explained it was all to do with the extra work in which they had already been involved because of the title problems.

The client then asked why she had not been told the costs were going to exceed the figure she had been given.

The solicitors said it was because the extra work had been done in a short period of three weeks immediately prior to the matter terminating.

Neither the client nor the OSS was impressed.

The solicitors must have known, as soon as the title problems manifested themselves, that the costs quotation was going to be exceeded.

There was no reason why they could not have warned the client of this four weeks before termination.

Had they done so, the client might have decided to pull out then, thus avoiding further costs.

Every case before the adjudication panel is decided on its individual facts.

This case study is for illustration only and should not be treated as a precedent