Bell Lax has successfully recovered losses our clients have suffered through receiving wrong or insufficient legal advice by their previous solicitors. The types of claims we take on include:
- Claims against company solicitors for negligently drafted contracts;
- Claims against Conveyancing solicitors for failing to obtain proper searches, and completing the land or property titles correctly;
- Claims against Personal Injury or Medical Negligence Solicitors for missed limitation dates, failure to follow court directions or under-settling the claim for the clients compensation;
- Claims against a solicitor who has negligently drafted a will, or failed to execute the terms of the will correctly.
Bell Lax Case Study and example
Bell Lax’s client had previously instructed a firm of solicitors to act for her on the purchase of an investment property for her and a friend. Ourtation client had intended their shares in the property to be equal to the proportions in which they had invested in the property (78:22). However, her conveyancing solicitor drafted her transfer documents so that she and her friend were joint tenants with equal shares.
After the two purchased the property, they had a disagreement, and Bell Lax’s client, using other litigation solicitors, brought a claim against the friend with whom she purchased the property, claiming a 78% share in the property, and 78% of any sale proceeds accordingly. The litigation solicitors who she instructed at the time advised that she was likely to have a good argument on this basis until just before trial. At that stage, the litigation solicitors took Counsel’s advice, and Counsel advised that the claim had very low prospects of success. At that point, the litigation solicitors finally advised that her claim was likely to fail. At this point, Bell Lax’s client had incurred significant costs of pursuing her claim, as had her opponent, and our client was liable to pay these.
Her claim for 78% of the property was unsuccessful at trial.
Bell Lax’s client came to the firm with potential claims against both her conveyancing and litigation solicitors. Bell Lax had to consider what loss each of them had caused by their respective negligence, and seek to recover from each of them. This involved looking in detail at what loss flowed from each of the instances of negligence.
Bell Lax settled the professional negligence claims against both the initial conveyancing solicitors and the litigation solicitors on favourable terms for our client.
