Any solicitors on the forum?

[Post and beam]

I have been talking to 2 solicitors about my Leasehold to Freehold enfranchisement. Already rejected a couple of others due to geography or other things.

One has quoted £1600 and the other about £9500. I am not the sort of person that would usually gravitate towards the cheaper option in any scenario. But the difference here is huge.

For any solicitors that might be reading this...

#1 Is this gulf common?

# Do solicitors respond well to a haggle

# If the figure is based on a formula that is open to the customer how are the numbers derived.

# I thought there was another question. It'll come back to me

[Mr Punter]

I saw these people the other day: https://anthonygold.co.uk/service/leaseholders-and-freeholders/conversion-to-freehold-enfranchisement/

May be worth another quote.  Are the other leaseholders on board?

[Post and beam]

13 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

Are the other leaseholders on board?

There are no other leaseholders.

The land on which i built our house has been an Orchard for at least the past 125 years. It is a 'lost leaseholder'  status piece of land.

The status of the land is not at issue. The massive difference in Fee's is.

[-rick-]

I'm surprised you haven't had more contributions on this thread. There have been in the past some people on here who might be able to answer but I guess they aren't around ATM.

 

Not a lawyer but I think in general the bigger, better reputation, firms charge more. If they are a bigger firm they can handle bigger cases and therefore people with bigger wallets and thus don't want to lower their fees for smaller stuff.

 

Going to a smaller firm (even one man band) might not be a detriment if you are dealing with someone who has fairly specialised knowledge in your area of concern. But if they are more of a generalist and you need a specialist then you would be at a disadvantage.

 

So question is does this describe the difference between the firms? Have you asked the more expensive firm why their price is so much higher? (Not haggling, but asking them to justify the price). In terms of the £1600, that sounds about as low as is reasonable given this job is maybe a little unusual.

 

Doubt the above is anything you haven't already thought about but maybe it triggers some more useful conversation?

[Alan Ambrose]

Solicitors are a whole new playing field. £500 for a local firm to write a simple letter seems to be par.

 

in principle, quotes for work like this are based on no of hours expected x (outrageous) hourly rate. Things that bump the rate significantly are (a) specialist work that not many lawyers understand and therefore can do, (b) critical advice on high ticket items, (c) practice brand name recognition. An easy ask is ‘what’s the process’ and ‘how many hours do you think it would take’ (+ ‘what’s your billing rate’). They will be very open about their billing rate. Also, what skills they have.

 

It’s unusual to just get a fixed number unless that’s what you asked for or the work is so standard (e.g. conveyancing) everyone knows how long it usually takes. Maybe the £9.5K number means ‘we’ve never done this before and we’re not particularly interested in finding out how unless you make us a stupid offer’.