Did the lawyers stuff up this?

[Mil]

Hello everybody!

I have recently purchased a unit in Southport, QLD. Before signing the contract, I asked to see the Disclosure Statement in order to check out the Body corporate fees. It said $38 per week. Fair enough.
This Disclosure statement was included in the Contract, which I signed and delivered to my sloicitor for coneyancing purposes, ofcourse. The solicitor said that their fees should be under $800. O.K.

Finally, the Setlement date arrives. All goes smooth until I received the Setlement statement in the mail.

Guess what? Body corporate fees are actually $45 per week!!!!
I called the solicitor to see what's going on. She said the she checked the body corporate fees with the stata managing agent, who quoted $45 per week. When I asked her whether she has checked the Disclosure Statement in the Contract, she said that she didn't have to check that, but she went with strata agent's quote.
Later I found out that the seller of the propery supplied an old Disclosure Statement which reflected an old price of $38 p/w, which was valid up until 01/03/03.

The sad and wrong thing (in my opinion) is that the solicitor failed to discover the body corporate fee discrepancy. Ofcourse, one more thing! She charged me OVER $800 for her fees.
Tricked twice!

Can I do anything about the solicitor's failure to to read the Contract properly and warn me about the higher body corporate fee before the setlement date?

Thanks,

Mil

 

[Aceyducey]

Mil,

First talk to the solicitor and point out the error - they may spontaneously choose to reimburse you somehow (it doesn't happen often, but it does happen).

If this doesn't work, if your solicitor works for a practice, write a letter to the practice owner specifying how unhappy you are with the poor performance of your solicitor and detailing what you want to rectify the situation.

Emphasising that you are a property investor and will be buying many other properties may help - depends on their business sense.

You could also speak to the state law society (whatever it's called), but they're generally pretty bad at customer service & are unlikely to help.

After this options begin to become a little more expensive...and you need to decide how much time, cash & effort you are willing to put into this claim and what you expect back.

If this $7 per week makes the entire purchase untenable for you, you'll probably want to go further than if it is swallowable & you can write it off as a learning mistake (you'll know what to check personally next time).

Cheers,

Aceyducey

 

[Savanna100]

She should have read the contract in full. However, she did check with the Strata Managing Agent and found the correct fee.

What she should have then done (had she read the contract and seen the discrpancy) was to raise it with you and inform you of the higher fee. This all demonstrates a failure to communicate because, has she taken the trouble to read the contract, she would have twigged that you would probably only be in possession of the lower figure.

What would have been worse would be if she failed to check with the Strata Managing Agent at all and you went through settlement BOTH thinking the fee was lower.

Vote with your feet and don't engage her again....a lawyer who doesn't check things is a dangerous lawyer !!!!

 

[Elysium-M]

Forget the law society - go straight to the legal practice board if the lawyer tries to stonewall you!

You might be able to make a claim against the seller as well, for providing misleading information in the disclosure statement. If the seller tells you to stuff of, you might need to get legal advice on your chances of success before taking it any further (although you might want to go to another law firm!)

As for fees - unless there was extra work done in addition to the standard settlement process, there's a contract in place between you and the lawyer regarding the fees. If they aren't cooperative, threaten to get their bill taxed! I don't know where in Australia you're in, but this usually makes lawyers a lot more flexible about their bills.

However, you are only talking about an extra $364 per year. Is this really worth wasting too much of your time and energy over? You could say you want to pursue this as a matter of "principle", but it's my experience that most people who do so, and don't know when to just write it off as a bad experience, are the ones who suffer most - financially and emotionally.