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I arranged for an attorney to represent me on a house deal in New Jersey for a flat fee of $1000. We never got out of attorney review due to the discovery of an underground oil tank. The attorney did not flag this as a potential liability- I canceled the deal after researching the risk. He wants to charge me $750. He did not do he title search etc, only initial contract and a few calls. Didn't say "boo" regarding the tank issue. Does this seem right? Or am I lucky he's not charging the entire flat fee? Much obliged for any information.
I arranged for an attorney to represent me on a house deal in New Jersey for a flat fee of $1000. We never got out of attorney review due to the discovery of an underground oil tank. The attorney did not flag this as a potential liability- I canceled the deal after researching the risk. He wants to charge me $750. He did not do he title search etc, only initial contract and a few calls. Didn't say "boo" regarding the tank issue. Does this seem right? Or am I lucky he's not charging the entire flat fee? Much obliged for any information.
Regardless of what happened with your house, yes, the attorney is going to charge you work he did, and the time he spent doing it. It can be fairly time consuming to draw up a contract, and we all know attorneys love to charge for phone calls....
He just added three amendments I sent him. The realtor drew up the contract. I was thinking it should be half price, $500, since the work was not too involved. Is it worth trying to negotiate the fee down or is that fee customary? $750 seems steep since the deal was killed early. Am I lucky he didn't hit me with the $1000?
Yeah, as the buyers attorney, the point that you canceled the deal eliminated quite a bit of the work. I'm assuming you used a standard contract from your realtor and he just wrote a letter to the other attorney with the amendments.
I would try to negotiate down to $500. I think that would be fair.
are you planning on buying another house?
if so, i think it's kind of short sighted of the attorney to charge you so much for a deal that fell through so quickly, and risk you not using him/her again.
Tell him if he can't come up with something more reasonable you'll simply use a different attorney on your next offer which I'm guessing isn't far off if this one fell through. Frankly, all they're doing is forwarding standard forms. From what I've heard, most of it (minus the phone calls) is done by the secretaries. How lawyers got themselves ingrained in this process I'll never understand!
My first deal fell through as well even before we got out of attorney review. My attorney just said come back when you find another house. I did. Two days before the closing I was perusing through my HUD and notices rather high attorney fees. I called her up. She said that $500 (I arranged for $950) was for the deal that fell through. I said that I wasn't happy to learn about it right now especially that there isn't any sort of a retainer that would mention this, so she dropped it to $250. As others said, tell him that you would come back and see if he drops it to a reasonable amount.
Also, ask if he would serve as a closing agent. They love to charge exuberant fees for that. In my case $600 for recording the mtg and deed that city clerk charged a total of $60 for. A title company would normally charge in $300~$400 range.
My attorney did not charge me for the deal that fell through. He charged me the regular amount for when the home finally did close. He is a gem though........a wonderful gem to have found in PA.
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