This firm provided a service of no value and charged more than they advised...
Ms S lived alone. She had a disability and received home care from a local company.
Social services instructed the firm to prepare a lasting power of attorney (LPA) for Ms S and to act as her power of attorney. The firm were also required to deal with other matters, including handling Ms S’s ongoing affairs and preparing her will.
Ms S said the firm had not dealt with her affairs appropriately and complained. After approximately ten months Ms S ended the retainer and appointed a friend as her power of attorney.
Ms S then sadly passed away, so her complaints were brought to the Legal Ombudsman by her sibling who was executor of her estate. Ms S’s complaints were that:
We concluded that the firm’s service was unreasonable for both complaints.
For complaint one, the evidence showed that the firm provided estimates for all the matters they were dealing with. They estimated their costs to be approximately £2,000 including VAT in total, however Ms S was charged approximately five times more than this.
We would expect a service provider to give updated cost information during the retainer. We would also expect a service provider to send bills on a regular basis and in line with any agreements made at the start of the retainer. The firm failed to do this, which meant that their service had been unreasonable.
For complaint two, there was evidence to show that the home care providers were regularly issuing invoices to the firm, but the firm did not pay them. As power of attorney this should have been a priority for the firm. Ms S was vulnerable due to her disability and the fact that she was reliant upon the firm to ensure her needs were met. The home care provider said that they would terminate their services if they did not receive payment, however the firm did not take any action.
The firm also delayed in removing themselves as power of attorney and had Ms S’s banking documents so neither her, nor her friend, could access her bank account to pay the fees. We concluded that the firm had failed to fulfil their duties in this respect and found their service to be unreasonable.
We decided that the firm’s work in acting as power of attorney for Ms S and handling her ongoing affairs had been of no value to her. For that reason, we proposed that their fees for that retainer should be refunded to her estate.
We also recognised that Ms S would have experienced significant distress during the retainer. She was unaware of what was happening regarding the costs as she had not been provided with any updates. Ms S had also expressed concern about the costs owed to her home care provider and was worried about losing the care that she was reliant upon.
This was worsened by the fact that Ms S could not access her funds for months after she ended the retainer due to the firm’s delays. The poor service took place over a long period of time so we proposed that payment within our significant category of £750 should also be made to Ms S’s estate, to acknowledge the emotional impact she experienced.
