Silence is costly

Ms W purchased a property in July 2000 but her solicitors failed to register the transaction. She discovered the position in 2002, when she chose to re-mortgage, and wrote to the solicitors about it.


The law firm ignored her letter. She wrote again with the same result. Eventually, she consulted new solicitors who wrote to the original solicitors, and they too were ignored. A complaint was made to the Law Society and an attempt was made to contact the solicitors. At that point, the solicitor who had had conduct of the matter in 2000 said he was proposing to register 'immediately' and apologised for omitting to do so earlier, saying that, 'our file was not where it should be'.


Despite the solicitor's assurance, no application to register was made, and a further exchange of communication took place. Ultimately, an application was submitted and the firm finally managed to conclude the matter.


As a result of the inordinate delay and the solicitors' failure to respond to Ms W, she had to continue making payments under the terms of a mortgage at a rate higher than she would have been able to enjoy had a re-mortgage taken place. A calculation was produced to the adjudicator showing the difference to be £717.50. The solicitors had been informed of that aspect and had ignored it, as they had ignored a request from Ms W's new solicitors to underwrite additional costs incurred solely as a result of the original service inadequacy.


The adjudicator considered both the solicitors' conduct and the inadequacy of service that had taken place. The alleged misconduct was considered to be sufficiently serious to be referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for determination. In dealing with the distress and inconvenience caused to Ms W by the repeated refusal of the solicitors to attend to registration and in respect of which she had suffered significant anxiety and distress, a compensatory award was made in the sum of £750. In addition, the solicitors were directed to reimburse costs incurred by Ms W in rectifying all the outstanding matters and in respect of the losses sustained by the delay in being able to complete her re-mortgage.


Finally, because the solicitors had failed to complete the original retainer effectively, they were directed to refund part of their original costs on the ground that the inadequacy had reduced the quality of their service by such a degree that a costs limitation direction was justified.


Every case before the adjudication panel is decided on its individual facts. This case study is for illustration only and should not be treated as a precedent