Bought a house roughly this time last year just recieved a Bill form our solicitor for over £100 to cover a Short fall in Registary fees and other stuff.

Isn't there some rule about not having to pay if over a certain time or is this just urban myth?

Thanks in advance

(I Know CAB etc but won't get chance for the next 4 Days)

Statute of limitations gives you 6 years to present a bill.

I think the urban myth is the length of time the Police have to charge you,bills live forever.

Statute of limitations gives you 6 years to present a bill.

You can always present a bill. Question is whether it's enforceable.

just query it

If they can take a year to present it, how long have you got to pay it?

If the bill is valid pay it. If its not then dont pay it. Or do you just want to avoid paying for a service you have recieved? Simples

As a solicitor, I would tell them, politely but firmly, to suck it up, and that they should have checked their bill before they sent it to me a year ago.

If they pushed, I might delicately enquire whether there was anything else that they forgot to do when dealing with the purchase. But if I actually got court papers served I'd pay it like a shot. 🙂

hobo has a valid point.

how much is it for??

where i used to work i had to chase a lot of people for money they owed us as we had cocked up and forgot to charge them.the thing is if its not much and you drag your heels and ignore it for a while they may well right it off (but they wont tell you) it cost way more in time and money to start court proceedings etc etc.

Murder them all, and burn their offices down, thus removing any evidence of this debt.

Problem solved! 😀

It's For just over £100, as far as I was concerned I paid my fees in full By a Large deposit before hand and then a small top up after the house purchase. The Letter I got basically says that whilst putting my file into long term storage it was noted that 2 item's cost slightly more than quoted for and was not noticed untill this filing process. If i could pay at my earliest conveiniance I would be appreciated.

I am aware that things can cost more than quoted and bugeted for this but a year after the event is taking the Michael and it is not convienient for me to pay as my forks need a service

Punk_Drummer – Member
I am aware that things can cost more than quoted and bugeted for this but a year after the event is taking the Michael and it is not convienient for me to pay as my forks need a service [quote]

PD like it, add it to your letter, "if you cant convince them, confuss them" Thats my motto.

As others have said, ignore it, drag your feet, they want to get rid of the file, they will "write it off" not worth the agro to persue you for a ton.

Get the forks tuned, enjoy the dusty trails 8)

They gave you a quote and you paid based on that?

They c*cked up and expect you to pay up? sorry but no; their mistake, their loss.

wait another year and then pay it.

A quote's not an estimate.

If i could pay at my earliest conveiniance I would be appreciated.

I got a letter like that once. it wasn't ever going to be convenient for me to give them money. I never paid, I never heard anymore.

They quoted you a price. You paid the price they quoted. If, later on, they find they missquoted or something turned out to be more expensive then that's their problem, not yours.

Do you still have your copies of the original paperwork? Usually a written quote tells you how much a job is going to cost, i.e. what you'll need to pay when it's finished, whereas an estimate tells you how much it might cost, depending on various unknowns, and you'll get a final actual cost at the end of the job. Which did you get? And did you receive confirmation of the land registry update from them? If not, you may not have a choice in this!

I'm a trainee solicitor. You should threaten to report them to the Solicitors' Regulation Authority and/or the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal for failure to comply with the Solicitors' Regulation Authority Code of Conduct, Rule 1.05 (Core Duty: provide a good standard of service to client); and Rule 2.04(1) (duty to provide client with information about cost at the outset and when appropriate). Google SRA Code, it's the first thing to come up.

When I looked this up, I expected to see a clear rule in the Code saying an invoice has to be sent within a reasonable time. The Code doesn't have this, but it does refer you to Law Society guidance which says invoices have to be sent within a reasonable period of time. My firm's internal guidance also says this. I've seen much larger amounts get written off when it's not been billed for a few months, so I'm very surprised they're chasing you for £100.

However, the fact is that I've no idea what would happen if it went to the SRA/SDT because the SRA Code doesn't have a clear rule on it. You'd be relying on a wider duty of good client service/reasonable conduct, which is much more wooly. To bill you a year late seems extraordinary though.

Also, the fact that they've taken a year to bill you indicates that they may not have proper accounting procedures. They might be in breach of the Solicitors' Accounts Rules. You might therefore threaten to blow the whistle on them to the SRA for this, too.

Also your letter of engagement from the firm should have a clause stating the basis on which you will be billed, how frequently bills will be issued, etc. (and I very much doubt it's "annually" – most firms say "regularly"). If your contract with the firm had no such clause, that in itself is likely to be a breach of the SRA Code.

Bugger. Just reminded me that someone still owes me a few quid from some work I did for them last year. 🙁

Shit. Worth sending an invoice out now? I don't think it's for much more than what the OP 'owes'.

Advice from some other lawyers – a mixed bag:

"would not expect to pay a bill which came a year late."

"Erm…are you fvcking kidding me?"

"£100?! Call them to try to negotiate it down. BUt don't be a fvcking tight bastard."

"oversight. prolly cost the solly more to process the bill than the bill is worth. i imagine the authorities would be sympathetic to the lawyer. did the client ask for the bill?"

"If you are in receipt of the bill, write back and explain that you do not consider it acceptable to bill a year after the work has been done."

'"i imagine the authorities would be sympathetic to the lawyer." On what basis? That a professional has screwed up the issuing of a bill against an individual, such that a year has passed?"

"Does the contract with the solicitor not set out dates for invoicing etc.?"

"Tell them to go **** themselves, in a nice way."

"You have had value for the service. Did you think you were going to escape payment? Pay up and be pleased that the firm allowed you all that time to pay."

"It mightn't be the best business practice, but a bill's a bill. Until the statute of limitations expires, they're entitled to sue for their fees and it's a legitimate invoice.

FFS, writing off 100 quid is not much for A&O or CC, but if you're a small firm watching your cash flow, you'd be reluctant to do so unless you had to."

"brings to mind Calvin Coolidge, arguing against WWI debt forgiveness – "they hired the money, didn't they?"

In this case, "they instructed the solicitor, didn't they?""

"Absolutely. However, if they pushed the matter, and this was a personal matter (i.e. rather than someone I'd engaged for work purposes, in which case I'd be pleased the bill was just £100), I'd speak with whichever of the Law Society or the SRA deals with such matters, expressing my disappointment in the conduct of such a firm."

jhw – at a guess – you're at a big law firm, right?

My bet is that SRA/SDT won't be interested in this. All over the country solicitors with egg-stained kipper ties are losing files, maladministering estates, forgetting to call witnesses and failing to perform conveyances properly. Sending a bill late doesn't rate up there.

IMO it's cheeky, and possibly a wee end of year revenue raising exercise. How do you know they haven't sent a £100 bill to all of last years clients, thinking a fair few will just pay up to save hassle ?

I'd be tempted to send it back saying "no longer at this address". Or at the very least make them outline precisely, and to the penny, what the extra bill is for. Then claim for at least a year that you paid it already…