In this week’s diary entry the Secret High Street Conveyancer talks about a subject close to their heart. As they dealt with a client over email, the question of fees arose….
In the middle of this last week, I received an email:
“Hi
You have been recommended to me by my good friends, X and Y, as you recently acted for them in the sale of their house, and they were really pleased with the service they received. I would like you to act for me in the sale of my apartment and as I am moving abroad, I need it to complete quickly. ”
Being an old fashioned solicitor, I emailed the potential new client saying I would be happy to discuss this further and whether I could have a telephone number to call him on?
I had a lot of questions about the leasehold element and wanted to flush out potential issues before providing any figures.
During the course of the conversation; I was told that I clearly knew what I was talking about (!) as I explained, that due to the fact that the lease had a doubling ground rent every five years (yes, I downloaded a copy of the lease as we were chatting) it was likely that further documents would be needed, and because the ground rent and service charge were paid to two different companies, then two Leasehold Information Packs would be needed .
I worked out my figures, sent them over and within the space of an hour, I received the following:
“Thank you for your costings; however, you are far too expensive and we have decided to go with [insert name of firm as you feel fit!] as they are three times cheaper than you and they have not said anything about the extra work in their online quote.”
Well we all know how that is going to end.
There will be the extra work, and in all likelihood, the firm will end up charging more than I would have once they realise the extent of work needed. Or they will be in a position where they cannot charge extra and will run the case at a loss.
I know I go on about fees a lot of the time, but it is a subject so close to my heart.
I think that if firms considered charging more for what is an incredibly difficult task, pulling together different strands of the spider’s web where the conveyancer sits in the middle, we could earn more respect.
With all of the increased obligations, we could charge more – and be proud to do so.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
4 responses
Firms should charge more, but only if they have the service to back it up. Our firm was one of the most expensive in our area and is known for providing an exemplary service. However, now everyone else has put their fees up and they are not providing a good service. Their fees might be £50 – £100 or so lower than ours now, but it still grates every time we lose a client on fees because we know that the other firms are not going to provide anywhere near the service that we offer. We could put our fees up again, but eventually the competition catch up. We are happy with the level of our fees as we do not need to win that much work to make a profit.
Unfortunately there are a lot of firms who are not particularly upfront about their fees. They think they can get the clients in on a low up front cost (take £600 as an example) and then continually add on additional fees until they have got up to somewhere around the £2000 mark. It is misleading and dishonest in my book. I came across one quote where they didn’t have the searches on the purchase (they are £600 inc vat!) so of course they were much cheaper. I doubt these type of firms care too much about the client either. Get them in, get them signed up to the T&C’s and get them out. When the client complains about costs they just refer to the T&C’s. The regulatory bodies are either blind to or do not care about this type of behaviour. I say good luck to the clients whose only interest is price. Don’t come crying to the decent firms for help when you have deliberately made that decision.
One of the biggest problems we all have at the moment is referrals. There are seemingly more estate agent’s than ever all fighting over a smaller share of the market. They’re trying to earn referrals from all over the place (Solicitor’s, brokers, surveyors). As the market is somewhat tricky, I am seeing more and more agent’s get aggressive with referrals and making sure their clients use a recommended (some agent’s business plan is based on referrals). Further, they are seeking out referral agreements where they stand a better chance of gaining that referral i.e. those with the lower fees (or seemingly lower fees at the outset). We can do all the advertising we want and we can be as good as we want but a lot of the good firms who charge properly are losing a lot of work via this corrupt system of referrals. The Law Society and the CLC MUST wake up to this fact. With times as hard as they are, it is not about customer service anymore and proper charging. It is about whoever can win the instruction for the lowest sum. Those firms charging £600 and then adding on another £1200 of additional extras (you know who you are) would struggle to compete in a world where referrals were banned. Instead they are quite happy giving £300-£550 + VAT per matter to an agent. No wonder why the PI Insurance is so high with business practices such as this being allowed by the CLC and Law Society.
I think there is an aspect to consider here, ie that a lot of firms whether they charge less, or whether they estimate less
and ultimately charge more upon completion may not, in fact, do all the work which you or I would do. As we know,
conveyancing to do it properly involves a lot of crossing t´s and dotting i´s, hence a lot of firms which work on volume
sidestep a lot of that. In addition, we would give an element of “after sales service” ie dealing with phone calls or some
correspondence from the client or whoever following completion.
Another way to deal with costing could be to give a range of costs from the outset ie say 600 to 1000 just as an example and to explain to the client that their ultimate costs are expected to fall within this range. Costs can depend ie if there is or is not a mortgage, if there is money gifted from a family member, if advice re property shares is required, etc. etc.
A problem with conveyancing can be if your work is not time costed then you cannot necessarily say with confidence just how much time you have spent on a file, whereas if a costing process does take place then there is evidence there.
Yes referrals can often be the problem and referrals to us may not be good matters, because the referrer may give unrealistic ideas to the client. What is ideal is if following excellent service the client themselves refer you to a family member or friends, work colleagues. What can also help is the area in which the conveyancer is practising as there may
be more or less good fish in the sea to pick up and to whom you can show great service to those who will appreciate it.