Fees and expenses questions

I'm hoping that someone who has already won their case or maybe even one of our friendly lawyers will be able to answer my queries since my own lawyer is 'reluctant' to answer.

• Why would the solicitors fees be exactly the same as the barrister? (on my invoice the solicitor is charging an amount for the first instance and appeal which the barrister is also charging the same amount for on his separate invoice; this figure has then added to the main solicitor invoice).
• If the solicitor has charged you an amount for doing the work, would it then be usual for them to take a percentage of the interest you're awarded on top?  (our solicitor never mentioned this in advance and also won't tell us how much they're intending to take).
• Is it usual to pay expenses for alcohol purchased by the solicitor/barrister?
• I assume that if there's VAT included on an expense item that VAT can't then be charged again on that item as part of the overall invoice?
• The table explaining costs was posted on here recently although I really didn't understand it! If claiming approx 80,000 euro does fees of around 30,000 sound excessive or about right?

Have tried to ask our solicitor these questions but they're refusing to answer them and I've pretty much been told to go away :-(

Thanks in advance.

Hi joandjez.  We won our case in 2011 against the bank BBVA and got all our deposit back together with interest.  The amount we were claiming was around 40,000 Euros and the amount we paid out in fees was around 8,000 Euros (so slightly less than a quarter of the amount claimed.  I would say your 30,000 Euros seems excessive. Our lawyer certainly did not take a percentage of our interest payment and we certainly did not have to pay any expenses for his alcohol consumption.  Our fees were all agreed in advance (about 6,500 Euros for the lawyer and 1,500 Euros for the Procuredor and Court fees). We only paid money directly to our lawyer so he then paid the Procuredor and the Court out of what we paid him. We used Abolex Abogados.

Hi Jane,

lucky you ...2011!   happy for you.  

BBVA have just last week appealed against the judgement in my case, where the judge ruled in our favour and told the bank to pay back the deposit, interest and legal costs.

could you please tell us if the bank appealed against your first judgement and how many times did they appeal etc? I would really like to know how many times the bank can appeal. can they only appeal once [after the first hearing]?  i'm really worried in case they can appeal not only this time [in the Alicante court] but again to a high court and then again to the supreme court.  sounds like you ended up paying your legal costs.  did the judges make that decision at your very first court hearing or at a subsequent [appeal] hearing?

looking forward to your reply for which i would be very grateful,

all the very best,

John

John,

After the judge decides in your favour they appeal once to the high court and then on to the Supreme Court.  And I think the reason is if they admit liability they are admitting to fraud. It's also designed to scare people off.

You will discover that it is the banks who choose and vote in the judges.

finally the banks have forced the courts to introduce a new law which puts the onus firmly in the hands of the buyer, but only effects new buyers.  We remain under the old laws.

Bottom line is it's a farce.  One case should set a precedent but this appears to be a money making racket that goes unchallenged. Pity it's not like ppi.

good luck, we all need it.

redman.

redman

Having read your latest comments with interest and in particular where you state that Judges are actually chosen by the Banks!  Can you please tell us how you know this to be the case.  In ten years of trying to recover our money from this situation our legal team have never ever mentioned this to be the case. I am still confused if this is true how some people in the same circumstances as ourselves and many others like us are winning their cases against the Banks.  I readily accept that over the last ten years the decisions that have gone against us have been difficult to understand and one can only think that there is a massive distortion of the law by the courts but for a Bank to be able to pick their own Judges must be the ultimate distortion of the law (what chance do we have of a fair and unbiased judgement).

dellew