Costs - Printing, Sundries and Fax!

Hey All,

I'm curious, we are in the process of finalising the sale of our property and have received our Solicitors final cost.

In the itemisation, we've been charged $300 for Printing and Facsimile and another $100 for Sundries (Telephone/Post, etc.).

The Sundries I can live with but $300 for Printing and Fax to me appears excessive.

They claim this to print paper contracts, print letters and faxes to communicate and liaise with all relevant parties such as potential purchasers’ solicitors (in the negotiation stages), the purchaser’s solicitor, your agent, your bank, etc.

We're in NSW. Can anybody shed some light? I'm tempted to ask them for a full itemisation or would this just be rude?

FYI, total bill is approx. $3k.

Any input appreciated having this being our first sale.

Cheers.

 

A bit over the top. It should be all build into the price. This is old school.

Who uses faxes these days!

 

What did the $3k investment earn/save you?

If they have done a good job, and you are happy with the service/outcome. Let it be.

They have done this before, and will have all the back ups needed to show you why $300 was what was spent.

Let it go.

Blacky

 

I work in office equipment / solutions and we are setting up a lot of solicitors and accountants with cost recovery software. I agree that $300 is excessive but more and more are moving back to this model with advanced software.

The average cost of a mono print is 2 cents and for colour it is 10 cents. This would include leasing of equipment, toner and paper. They would be charging a lot more than that to their clients.

I would query it, I absolutely think it is excessive and if they are able to monitor client volumes they probably have software that could easily run a report for you.

 

I remember when I was a new lawyer we had to photocopy a brief of evidence. I forget what the per page cost was but the total was around $1000 just to photo copy it.

 

But surely you can't compare a brief of evidence to settlement of a property, in terms of volume?!

 

No, a property settlement would have a few hundred pages at max. But these days everything is electronic so no copying would be needed. Maybe the count scanning too.

 

What did the solicitor quote you? Did they do anything out of the ordinary eg. Service notice to complete, failed sales during cooling off?

Dispute it if you don't agree.

 

Mate, they are having a lend of you.

Professionals need to get with the times, in most businesses these days you cannot charge for things that do not exist or have not been done.

They are killing it even with both of these 2 removed.

 

This was my train of thought also.

Nothing out of the ordinary. A simple, straight forward, prepare a contract, complete the sale.


I've asked them for the itemisation. In all, they have done a good job and I don't want to be fussy but nonetheless I'm curious to see how this cost has been established, as I also agree, it seems excessive.

Keep you posted and thanks for the input!

 

How much is the property? $1200 plus gst plus disbursement is the going rate ... around $1500.

 

In this transaction, I am the vendor. Sold price ~1m+.

I paid $1,250 + GST then another $400 + GST due to the number of prospective buyers they had to negotiate with. Disbursements in addition to this.

 

It's up to you to discuss costs issue with your solicitor.

 

thats why everybody hates lawyers.....except lawyers

 

NSW Solicitors must provide a costs estimates PRIOR to engagement that spells out all these issues incl what disbursements are and when they are charged. They cant agree to do a job for $1,000 and then add disbursements they then inflate. Maybe your costs estimate was not a fixed price engagement where the solicitor allows a standard fee covers a standard set of parameters ? I always seek that sort of engagement rather than a cheap fee with loads of add ons. The add ons have to be spelled out no matter what.

And the scale fee for matters is normally VERY high v's market prices so dont think scale fees are a good idea. Some solicitors actually will tell you like its a benefit.

https://www.lawsociety.com.au/commu...onship/Whatyoursolicitormusttellyou/index.htm

 

3k on a 1m property seems expensive. I paid about 1.8k including gst on 1m

 

Larry said $1500 - less than you paid.

 

Hi All,

They disclosed an estimate of their fees which were articulated as follows:

"our professional costs, provided that there are no unforeseen complications requiring additional work, will be (1) $1250+GST plus disbursements, and (2) the expenses associated with the preparation of the Contract which is payable by you upfront. You are not liable to pay any of our professional costs if the property does not sell."

Final Cost: $1,250 + $400 (Addressing multiple purchasers Contract requests prior to Auction) + $494.36 (Disbursements) + GST.

Contract of Sale: $711 (Disbursements) + GST.

 

Sounds like it is inline with their disclosure.

 

We still use faxes for conditions - handshake from receiving machine leaves a proof of receipt. Email you can request a read receipt but they actually have to say yes to give read receipt. Time of essence in QLD, need to waive satisfy a condition by 5pm or otherside can terminate. Often get instructions at 4:45pm so need to make sure you are not waiting on a human to acknowledge receipt.

Printing and sundries is pretty unusual these days on a conveyance. I don't like that model at all regardless of the area. We just don't do it, although our software is setup to work that way, we turn those functions off. Just like the automatic phone time recording, leave a message and it costs $42.50. It annoys the hell out of clients and there is just no need. You can make a decent profit without it.