How do lawyers get away with their charging?

Aloreth

Aloreth

Aloreth

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Joined
16 Aug 2005
Posts
1,372
So I am mortgaging my flat and am moving from Barclays to Nationwide. As part of this remortgage, Nationwide advertise that they will cover all standard legal fees. The lawyers are charging me the following “extraordinary costs”:

1) £20 for transferring the mortgage funds
2) £40 for supplying copy of title deeds
3) £20 electronic identity checks
4) £25 for sending me a letter which asks me to confirm that I will continue to pay off my credit card every month.

In the grand scheme of things I don’t really care about £105 but it annoys me when I think that people are taking the ****. I have questioned this with the lawyers who point me at Nationwide and Nationwide tell me to ask the lawyers.

I work in financial services and if anyone regulated by the PRA tried to do this to their clients they would be shot! How is it that lawyers can levy unreasonable charges?

Anyway….have a nice Friday all!
 
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Its man hours. If sending you that letter takes them 6 minutes, and they charge £250 an hour, that's a £25 fee.
 
Regulated crooks. The worst thing about moving house is that you have two deal with two of the most crooked unscrupulous 'professions' you are ever forced to deal with. Estage Agents and Solicitors.
 
Having audited a few solicitors, and in case it makes you feel any better, I can tell you that they pretty much make bugger-all from conveyancing, given the time that goes into it.
 
Freakbro said:
You do wonder how they can justify charging hundreds of pounds an hour...
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They don't

I paid about £400 (plus VAT) for conveyancing fees when I bought my house. No way did they get it all done in a couple of hours. I mean - I was on the phone to them for about an hour, in total.
 
PapaLazaru said:
Regulated crooks. The worst thing about moving house is that you have two deal with two of the most crooked unscrupulous 'professions' you are ever forced to deal with. Estage Agents and Solicitors.
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Agreed, although you missed letting agencies off the list.
 
I've been working in the legal sector for a little over 10 years now. And I too find the amount of money they charge for some of the tasks they carryout amazing lol.

But hey... I guess if you want a job done right then you need to be prepared to pay up... Thats professional services for ya!
 
I guess 4) might not be 'standard' as it won't be required every time you get a mortgage. But everything else seems to be standard for buying a property with a mortgage? Cheeky, and if you were directed to this particular solicitor by Nationwide, I'd write them a letter!
 
PapaLazaru said:
Regulated crooks. The worst thing about moving house is that you have two deal with two of the most crooked unscrupulous 'professions' you are ever forced to deal with. Estage Agents and Solicitors.
Click to expand...

You can do it all yourself if you know what to check and look out for. The law doesn't actually say you need a solicitor to buy a house.
 
Raymond Lin said:
You can do it all yourself if you know what to check and look out for. The law doesn't actually say you need a solicitor to buy a house.
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I wanted to do half the forms myself seen as some related to stamp duty and they flat out refused telling me my mortgage provider wouldn't accept the documents. Don't think stamp duty has anything to do with the mortgage provider but they insisted.
 
One of the few lessons I didn't have to learn the hard way when dealing with house transactions was always to choose your own solicitor after confirming with them that they will do the whole job for one agreed fee, regardless of the number of letters, telephone calls etc they have to make.

Shame about all the lessons I did learn the hard way, such as always get a full structural survey... I'm still paying for that mistake.
 
Welcome to the world of buying & selling houses :)

During my last house purchase I had to pay £20 to 'swear' that I wasn't the same person that had been declared bankrupt in London (same name as me). This took about 20 seconds, that's £3,600 per hour !!!
 
Probably similar to me. In a lawyers office, the fee earners are the solicitors or conveyancy clerks who charge fees. The overheads, other staff, property costs, IT etc. are all paid out of these fees.

A lawyer may earn 150k per annum gross salary and work 1500 hours in a year so is paid £100ph effective for that time. £200ph fees is not too unreasonable therefore, IMO.

As an engineer, I am more reasonable. My fees are set by the company as £85ph, I probably earn 1/3 of what the above lawyer earns in salary so it is relative.
 
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