Ombudsman's casebook

A monthly column of examples from the files of the Legal Services OmbudsmanIn her July 2001 casebook, the ombudsman observed that solicitors continue to miss basic principles of client care - so even the most routine everyday legal transactions can be fraught with difficulty for the unsuspecting client, resulting in heartache and disappointment for all concerned.

The following cases are further examples of what can go wrong.

Dissatisfaction guaranteedMr N purchased a newly built house which was apparently covered by a ten-year National House-Building Council (NHBC) guarantee.After completion, his solicitors delayed in returning the relevant documents to Mr N and so he called into their offices some four and a half months after completion to find out what was happening.

When Mr N went through his papers, he found two unopened letters from the NHBC containing documents which should have been filled in by the solicitors and returned before completion.The documentation included an underlined note that the solicitors should not delay.

The result of all this was that Mr N was without cover for almost five months - and worse was to come.

For when the NHBC sent the complainant his guarantee certificate, it predated completion by ten months - running instead from a date when the property was first built.The NHBC explained that, if it had been asked to re-inspect the house within two months of completion, it would have postponed the start of the cover until Mr N became the owner.

Needless to say, Mr N was not impressed with the service provided by his solicitor and complained to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS).Following an investigation lasting 19 months, the OSS decided that the solicitors had provided an adequate service because the problems with NHBC cover lay at the door of either the NHBC or the builder, whose responsibility it had been to advise aboutre-inspection.The ombudsman was asked by Mr N to review the OSS investigation.

She concluded that, in spite of Mr N's best efforts to steer the OSS in the right direction, it had failed to grasp what had gone wrong in what should have been a routine conveyancing transaction.

It was the failure by the solicitors to deal adequately with documentation, which lay at the heart of Mr N's complaint, but this seemed to have escaped the OSS.

The ombudsman decided that the OSS should reinvestigate Mr N's complaint and also pay him 250 compensation for their delay.

Breach of dutyMr H instructed solicitors in the purchase of a house.

In their initial letter to him, the solicitors told their client that he would have to pay stamp duty of 70.

However, by the time the solicitors sent Mr H a completion statement, the stamp duty payable had turned into 710 - which came as quite a shock to Mr H.He complained to the OSS, which asked the solicitors to attempt to resolve the complaint under Law Society practice rule 15.

It turned out that the solicitors had made a mistake in their initial letter and the stamp duty payable was 710.

The solicitors offered to contribute 100 as an acknowledgement of their error.

Mr H rejected the offer, so the OSS proceeded to carry out a full investigation.

It concluded that the correct stamp duty figure appeared in the report on title produced before exchange of contracts, that the solicitors' error did not remove Mr H's liability to pay the tax and that 100 was adequate redress.

Mr H disagreed with the decision and complained to the ombudsman.

The ombudsman decided that the solicitors should not be held responsible for all of the additional stamp duty - they had included the correct figure in the report on title and 100 was probably adequate redress for the inconvenience suffered by Mr H as a result of the solicitors' failings.

Nonetheless, she decided to refer the case back to the OSS for reconsideration.She said that, in the absence of a conciliated settlement, the OSS should have made a formal finding on the adequacy of the solicitors' service, ensuring that Mr H could obtain the redress it considered appropriate.

As it was, the solicitors' original offer of 100 was withdrawn and matters were left unresolved.

The ombudsman asked the OSS to finish what it had started.ConclusionBoth cases highlight the limitations of current redress mechanisms for dissatisfied clients.

In both cases the solicitors were responsible for errors which left their clients dissatisfied.Neither solicitor was found to be at fault by the OSS, and both clients came away still feeling aggrieved.

It will be interesting to see whether the Law Society's new 'client-focused' complaints redress scheme will offer any more imaginative solutions to such problems in future - a mediation facility, for example.