Lawyer not providing final costings after completion.

Hi,

Can anyone advise us,

We completed on our apartment in March.

The Lawyer gave us an estimation of the final costs for completion.

We sent the funds requested, plus another 3,000 euros over to cover mortgage payments and bills for a few months. 

After completion we sent numerous emails to the Lawyer, asking her for the final costings, we got no response from her.

When we were in Almeria last month, we called into Banco Pastor to arrange an on-line bank account,. We asked for a balance and were shocked to find that we only had a balance of 100 euros.

We asked the Bank to go through where all the money had gone and whilst we could understand many of the transactions ie, electricty, set up fees, money to the Developer etc... There were two withdrawals Provision of funds, the bank said that one for 3,000 euros was fot the Notary costs, the other was for for 1,700 euros, we are not sure what this was for!!

.Also the Lawyer had withdrawn more  fees than she put on the estimated breakdown. We have paid nearly 5,000 euros to this Lawyer in total and her service does not reflect these fees.

We have continued to request an answer from our Lawyer and cannot get her to respond.

Can anyone give us advice as to what rights we have to getting a final costings.

We also found through the Bank that our requested mortgage for 106,000 euros, was now a mortgage for 93,000 euros for the apartment and the remainder had been paid via a loan from the Bank for 13,000 euros, we are also wanting to know the reason why it was done this way instead of the one mortgage we thought we were getting.

My experience when buying was that there is no definitive final fee. Our lawyer gave us an estmated breakdown of costs including any money held back by the mortgage holding bank in case the mortgage isn't cleared! We ended up with a €1000 refund from the mortgage company and another €400 in unused notary fees. The fees payable to your solicitor are something else though. If you had a fixed price for conveyancing, that is all they should have taken and not a cent more.

Mark

Hi John,

The provision of funds that your lawyer provided should have sufficient costs broken down for completion.  These can be overstated and as Mark said in his post, many times there is a refund due once the property has been through the registry process. The retention that Mark refers to is only applicable when you take an independant mortgage as a provsion of fee to cancel the developers mortgage if neccessary.    You should receive a final conclusive breakdown of costs and you have every right to know where every penny of your funds have been spent.   Of couse if they will not communicate with you then it is going to be difficult, are they in the Almeria region and have an office near to your property that you can go to in person?

The bank can and should tell you where the €1,700 was paid to all payments are traceable, if this amount went to your lawyer then the bank will not be able to tell you what they further did with this money.

For the mortgage issue, did you not receive a written offer (in any way shape or form!) from either the bank direct or the lawyer? It seems to me that there has been a shortfall and they have apportioned the amount without your knowledge/permission. Again, the bank should have explained this to you as I am sure you are paying more interest on the loan element!   

Regarding the Lawyer: Corresponding Bar Association

Regarding the Bank: Bank´s defensor of the client. Bank of Spain.