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Hi, my name is Dave and I live outside of the UK, however my elderly mother lives in the UK. She's had progressive Parkinson's Disease for years and has been slowly deteriorating, so early last year my sister, who also lives in the UK, moved in with her to become her full-time carer, and her and I decided to see about getting Lasting Power of Attorney (both the Health and Wellfare LPA and the Financial LPA) set-up so that we could step in and make decisions on her behalf when things got too much for her. When we first started looking into this we contacted a number of solicitors in the UK for quotes on setting up LPA, and my mother asked her own solicitor (who she had used previously to draw up her will) to also provide a quote. This was all happening around Feb-March 2019. In the end we found the quotes all very expensive, but I researched the application process myself and concluded that it was achievable to apply for LPA by using the online application tool on the Office of Public Guardian website. My sister is less capable of navigating the complexities of this type of thing, but I was happy to take the lead in getting this stuff set up, and as I was already planning to come to the UK for a family visit in April 2019 I decided that I would get all the logistics sorted with my mother signing the forms in the presence of her GP as Certificate Provider and Witness, and my sister and I becoming attorneys for the Health/Wellfare LPA and Financial LPA respectively. Anyway, the applications went through and were approved and the certified LPA forms were received from the Office of the Public Guardian. All sorted, or so we thought.
Then out of the blue about a month ago my mother's solicitor rang my mother's house to say they had her LPA paper work still waiting for her to come and sign and that she owed them £440 pounds for it. My mother was confused and agitated by the phone call, my sister had stepped out to the shops when the call came in, but when she came back and learned what had happened she rang the solicitors back to find out what was going on. She was informed by the solicitors that, in April 2019, they had called my mother back after being approached for the quote, and had been instructed by my mother to prepare the LPA forms and were still awaiting payment. My sister argued back that if it had been some 15 months since my mother had had any contact with them then why had they suddenly made contact after absolute silence over that time, but she went further by arguing to them that it was highly dubious that they had been given a clear instruction from my mother to prepare the LPA forms as I, her son, had already explained to her on numerous occasions in the weeks/months prior to that (i.e. prior to April 2019) that I was going to apply for the LPA forms directly through the Office of Public Guardian website to save money, and that we had already obtained the forms by these means. My sister went even further and put it to the solicitor that they could very well have asked a series of leading questions to a vulnerable, easily confused old lady and should not have proceeded to undertake work that would incur a £440 pound fee without either ensuring that a support person was also present with my mother to help ensure she understood the situation, or that they should have sent a contract to be signed by my mother before undertaking the work and locking in the fee. The solicitor said they would have to consult with their boss in the legal firm and would get back in touch.
Anyway, nearly a month went by with no contact from the solicitor's, then a couple of days ago an envelope arrived at my mother's house. In the envelope was a typed bill asking for £220 pounds and a sentence saying that the bill had been reduced on the basis of the telephone call last month. Interestingly there was also in incomplete sentence in the document, so it did'nt even look very professional. What was particularly galling was that they had only allowed 7 days for the bill to be paid, and a couple of those days had already elapsed in the actual postage and conveyance of the letter.
So after this latest correspondence from the solicitor my sister rang them back and informed them that she believes their behaviour is unreasonable and that she is considering reporting them to the Legal Ombudsman (she had already been contemplating that after speaking with me a few days prior).
My question, to anybody who can offer advice, is does the scenario I have described sound like unconscionable conduct on the part of the solicitor's? Does it sound like grounds for a formal letter of complaint and escalating up to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman?
Thanks in advance.
Dave
Then out of the blue about a month ago my mother's solicitor rang my mother's house to say they had her LPA paper work still waiting for her to come and sign and that she owed them £440 pounds for it. My mother was confused and agitated by the phone call, my sister had stepped out to the shops when the call came in, but when she came back and learned what had happened she rang the solicitors back to find out what was going on. She was informed by the solicitors that, in April 2019, they had called my mother back after being approached for the quote, and had been instructed by my mother to prepare the LPA forms and were still awaiting payment. My sister argued back that if it had been some 15 months since my mother had had any contact with them then why had they suddenly made contact after absolute silence over that time, but she went further by arguing to them that it was highly dubious that they had been given a clear instruction from my mother to prepare the LPA forms as I, her son, had already explained to her on numerous occasions in the weeks/months prior to that (i.e. prior to April 2019) that I was going to apply for the LPA forms directly through the Office of Public Guardian website to save money, and that we had already obtained the forms by these means. My sister went even further and put it to the solicitor that they could very well have asked a series of leading questions to a vulnerable, easily confused old lady and should not have proceeded to undertake work that would incur a £440 pound fee without either ensuring that a support person was also present with my mother to help ensure she understood the situation, or that they should have sent a contract to be signed by my mother before undertaking the work and locking in the fee. The solicitor said they would have to consult with their boss in the legal firm and would get back in touch.
Anyway, nearly a month went by with no contact from the solicitor's, then a couple of days ago an envelope arrived at my mother's house. In the envelope was a typed bill asking for £220 pounds and a sentence saying that the bill had been reduced on the basis of the telephone call last month. Interestingly there was also in incomplete sentence in the document, so it did'nt even look very professional. What was particularly galling was that they had only allowed 7 days for the bill to be paid, and a couple of those days had already elapsed in the actual postage and conveyance of the letter.
So after this latest correspondence from the solicitor my sister rang them back and informed them that she believes their behaviour is unreasonable and that she is considering reporting them to the Legal Ombudsman (she had already been contemplating that after speaking with me a few days prior).
My question, to anybody who can offer advice, is does the scenario I have described sound like unconscionable conduct on the part of the solicitor's? Does it sound like grounds for a formal letter of complaint and escalating up to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman?
Thanks in advance.
Dave
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