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My real estate lawyer has lied to both me & his firm. I don't want to continue working with him . His Associate insists I do.
Anonymous1 views4 answers
I'm a senior who recently sold my family home for 3x what I pd for it to a developer who wants to build apts. Started working with a lawyer referred to me by the same firm that has been working on a rear end accident case that has been awarded to me days ago. I received a bill for $3800 from the real estate lawyer for his work so far.Closing can be as early as April 2015 or as late as October 2015 because of town requirements .I sent an email to the lawyer terminating his service because I never agreed to an hourly rate only a flat fee of $2000 which was verbal because I never even met him.
He went to my accident Attorneys & complained. They told me pay the $2000 now and continue working with this guy. They would use part of the accident money to pay him . I feel threaten & helpless .
You have a right to change lawyers at any time. In fact, I posted a link to your rights as a client below. As Mr. Rothstein said, New York State law requires a written retainer for all transactions between attorneys and clients where the fee is over $3,000.00. You also have a right to engage in fee dispute resolution overseen by the New York State Courts (see the link below). I would suggest you have a chat with your accident attorneys about this issue. Depending on what's at stake in your accident case, you may want to suggest that if they keep guiding you toward using this attorney under these circumstances, then you'll pull your accident case from them and find different counsel for this and the real estate matter, and file a grievance against them. A grievance is a big step to take, and you can probably resolve all this without going that far, but this is a basic outline of most of your rights.
OK, so there's a billing dispute. I take it you thought there was a "verbal" deal for a $2000 flat fee for the property closing, the attorney apparently thought otherwise and issued an hourly bill for almost double that way prior to the closing, assuming more work was needed. So, I take it he's backed off the hourly rate and rescinded the bill, and the only issue is whether you pay now or at the closing? As a "rough justice" matter, I'd say that in many instances, I'd be concerned if a client who's paid nothing so far wouldn't pay out of the accident settlement, but here, if the property closes, the attorney will get the flat fee out if the closing proceeds and there won't be an issue of the client stiffing the attorney for the work. So, what's the chance of this not closing? And if it doesn't close, would you agree to sign a note making you indebted for the flat fee, whether or not it closes? Why don't you suggest that. I also don't really see how you are harmed if the lawyer having caved on the open ended hourly rate wants to get paid now out of the accident settlement, FWIW and might be justifiably nervous about you stiffing him if you're making a big deal out of not paying the flat fee up front.
