Conveyancing Billing

[Graham Richardson]

Morning

Does anyone have a system whereby you cannot transfer monies from client to office without a bill?

If so I wondered if I could ask how people deal with conveyancing bills?

We take funds on account for searches which we’d want to bill, there would be the main bill when completion takes place and then a post completion bill to tidy up and post completion disbursements such as registration fees, so 3 bills throughout the matter would need to be issued.

If you do raise that many bills, do you send them all to the client? I am conscious of complying with rule 4.3 but balancing that with not overloading the client with multiple invoices.

Thanks
Graham

[Claire Mills]

Hi we only issue 2 bills at the most. Searches pre completion are billed, to utilise funds on account of those searches.

Final invoice issued after completion takes place. Any post completion disbursements/expenses are on that final invoice as anticipated.

We always send them out, then transfer the following day as the majority of ours are by email. This always ensures any differences between estimated cost letter and completion statement/s are covered.

[Melanie Ward]

We issue two invoices which are sent out to the clients by accounts using the CMS. The first is pre completion for any searches obtained and paid for and that is of course to assist with cash flow. Any additional searches that are obtained after this are held over for the completion bill, so as not to send out too many bills to the client. We transfer CTO the following day from the money on account.

The fee earners send out a full statement prior to completion which includes all disbursements, paid or not yet incurred.

The final invoice is issued upon completion. We don’t include post completion disbursements on the bill as they are not yet incurred but realistically, these are only the HMLR registration fee and any indemnities agreed but not obtained prior to completion. We then transfer CTO once paid. We don’t consider that a bill is required as there is no liability for VAT and the statement is written notification.

Regardless of how many bills you raise, they should all be sent to the client at the time they are raised and before you transfer the funds.

[Graham Richardson]

Thanks both, I think ideally we’d go down your route Melanie but sadly as there wont be functionality to do the post completion transfer without raising a bill it may have to be three bills. I think they do all need to be sent to the client too. I think we’ll just try and make it clear to the clients at the outset how many bills they will receive and try and make it clear the bills are fully paid and don’t require payment.

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