1382 Solicitors..the Good the Bad and the Ugly

Okay, I'll start.

Giambrone & Law - Italian's with offices in Turin, Palermo and London. Offer a fixed price service for £1500 + VAT. We also paid extra to give a power of attorney for the signing of the rogito. This cost an extra £300 including a visit to a public notary in London. Overall very professional, extremely prompt at responding to phone calls and emails and very thorough. We had a significant issue with pre-emption (several neighbours and one who was dead!) which they thoroughly pursued with geometra and seller.

Of course, having said all that, if the signing of the rogito in two weeks goes pear-shaped I may come back on with a different story!

Did you have to pay extra for the geometra (and find him yourself), or was that included in the price (and found by them?)? & at what stage did you get them in?
Hope your rogita signing goes well,
Will

[QUOTE=brendangfc]Giambrone & Law - Italian's with offices in Turin, Palermo and London. Offer a fixed price service for £1500 + VAT. [/QUOTE]

Interesting, I've been quoted £1750 + VAT. Prices gone up?

Derek

Hello everyone,

we have also instructed Giambrone & Law International and their service seems very professional and they are also competitive on fees. They were recommended to us by other users of this forum and their name was also supplied by the International department of the Law Society.

I've asked for an email version of our Letter of engagement so that I can copy and paste the section which includes the services provided. Obviously I've also asked permission to publish this information on this forum first. It may be interesting to find out by other forum users what services are included in the fees charged by the other Italian firms in the UK.

To answer some general questions:

1) Will, yes usually the solicitors will find you a suitable surveyor and appoint him on your behalf, and the cost is usually included in the fixed legal fee; it is usually recommended to let the solicitor liaise with the geometra so that they can discuss any problems which may arise with your property. In our case, the solicitors have done all the land registry searches, report on title, handled the pre emption rights issue, issued the notices to the neighbours, and the geometra has done the survey and the accatastamento. this is paid extra but there are some tariffs which the geometra should adhere to and your estate agent should inform you at the outset before the work is even started

2) derek, the fixed fee is either £1500 or £1750 depending on 2 factors: the price of the property which you intend to buy and, mainly, whether the house is completed or is a project, where a lot more work is required by the lawyers.

3) Power of attorney (in Italian and in English) costs £150 per person so if there are 2 buyers, it would cost £300; but I understand that this cost is payable to the public notary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (apostille is called, which is like a tax) and is then passed on to you - therefore it counts as an expense which the solicitors pay for on your behalf and then charge you for.

As soon as I will get confirmation of the services provided by Giambrone & Law, i will post it on this forum. However, I would have no hesitation in recommending this firm to other users of the forum who wish to instruct Italian solicitors to carry out the Conveyancing/Taxation work.

[QUOTE=Laura72]derek, the fixed fee is either £1500 or £1750 depending on 2 factors: the price of the property which you intend to buy and, mainly, whether the house is completed or is a project, where a lot more work is required by the lawyers.[/QUOTE]

Either or; the fees seem very reasonable when you consider how important the services are.

Derek

We went with John Howell and Co. in Covent Garden. The solicitor, an italian lady is called Laura Protti. It was a fixed fee of £1,150. They appointed a surveyor in Italy and the structural survey cost an additional €800 (euro).

John Howell's associates in Florence, JMU-Law Studio, Avv. Giammarco Muzj, travelled to Urbania in Le Marche for the signing, having in advance conducted all of the detailed negotiations with the Notaio concerning contract wording, pre-emption issues, estate agents fees, registrations and translations. There was pressure for an additonal fee for this work from the Florentine which got a bit tiresome but Laura Protti in London sorted it all out. We ended up paying for power of attorney and travelling expenses plus about €500.

All in all it was conducted very efficiently. When the Florentine turned up in Urbania on the appointed day in his huge Merc he looked and performed very, very impressively.

We think we got what we paid for but pleased that that part is over!!!

As for the JMU - Law Studio. We've retained them for the time being as our legal representation in Italia.

We bought back in April this year. Used a local English speaking lawyer in Amandola who was recommended by the estate agent who had found us the property.
Getting a quote out of him proved very difficult - especially getting any costs broken down. He was very efficient and we did have quite a few issues with possible preemptions as the property had strange bits of land attached all over the place so we accepted that he could not give us an exact quote. However he did say '6000-8000' euros which included the geometra providing information and plans but not a survey. My husband got him to agree it would not be more than 6000. He has also organised the set up of bank accounts and standing orders for the utilities for us. This fee included the translations for the Rogito and organising and liaising with the Notaio re 'declared prices' but not the Notaio's fee or any tax.
The purchase went very smoothly and they continue to help us with things like the ICI (which I have yet to pay but am told not to worry) but I still feel I may have been somewhat overcharged. I wish I had found this forum earlier. The fee we paid on the day we signed was €6000 which we paid in cash (of course!) and I am expecting another small bill for the help we have had since but again trying to find out amounts as estimates is proving very difficult. We were purchasing from English owners which may also have added to the bureaucracy. They organised our insurance and got better quotes than we had done from UK cos so have been very helpful - we could not have done it all without him as our Italian is pretty minimal but I have a feeling we paid through the nose.
By the time actual nos were being mentioned the process was so far down the road we were not in a great position to bargain. In addition, the agent only mentioned their fees after we had agreed the house price with the vendor which was also an expensive shock - we had naively assumed agents did not charge buyers as in the UK model.
(again I wish I had found you guys earlier!)
Would be very interested (and probably a little sickened) by other's experiences.
I believe our next move is to have Italian wills drawn up in addition to our English wills to avoid any bureaucratic nightmares in the event of my death (the house is in my name only) and would be very interested in anyone who knows how much this *should* cost...
I have no regrets - I love the house and feel we paid a very reasonable price for it but the costs of doing so were much higher than expected.

Marina

€6000 for legal fees paid in cash to your local solicitor introduced by the estate agent? surely there seems to be something dodgy with this!

Marina, have you checked that this "local lawyer" is indeed a lawyer? the prices quoted are amazingly expensive even for London standards!!

what is the name of this lawyer?

[QUOTE=Marinaw]
Getting a quote out of him proved very difficult - especially getting any costs broken down. He was very efficient and we did have quite a few issues with possible preemptions as the property had strange bits of land attached all over the place so we accepted that he could not give us an exact quote. However he did say '6000-8000' euros which included the geometra providing information and plans but not a survey. My husband got him to agree it would not be more than 6000. He has also organised the set up of bank accounts and standing orders for the utilities for us. This fee included the translations for the Rogito and organising and liaising with the Notaio re 'declared prices' but not the Notaio's fee or any tax.
The purchase went very smoothly and they continue to help us with things like the ICI (which I have yet to pay but am told not to worry) but I still feel I may have been somewhat overcharged. I wish I had found this forum earlier. The fee we paid on the day we signed was €6000 which we paid in cash (of course!) and I am expecting another small bill for the help we have had since but again trying to find out amounts as estimates is proving very difficult. We were purchasing from English owners which may also have added to the bureaucracy. They organised our insurance and got better quotes than we had done from UK cos so have been very helpful - we could not have done it all without him as our Italian is pretty minimal but I have a feeling we paid through the nose.
By the time actual nos were being mentioned the process was so far down the road we were not in a great position to bargain. In addition, the agent only mentioned their fees after we had agreed the house price with the vendor which was also an expensive shock - we had naively assumed agents did not charge buyers as in the UK model.
(again I wish I had found you guys earlier!)
Would be very interested (and probably a little sickened) by other's experiences.
Marina[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Will Bialey]Did you have to pay extra for the geometra (and find him yourself), or was that included in the price (and found by them?)? & at what stage did you get them in?
Hope your rogita signing goes well,
Will[/QUOTE]

Actually the geometra I was referring to is the seller's geometra - as it is a brand new house the sellers had yet to register the house, which their geometra was responsible for. He is also now doing all the chasing up regarding the pre-emption. The other aspects for which we may have needed a geometra were included in the original fee.

[QUOTE=Ian and Sandra]We went with John Howell and Co. in Covent Garden. The solicitor, an italian lady is called Laura Protti. It was a fixed fee of £1,150. They appointed a surveyor in Italy and the structural survey cost an additional €800 (euro).

John Howell's associates in Florence, JMU-Law Studio, Avv. Giammarco Muzj, travelled to Urbania in Le Marche for the signing, having in advance conducted all of the detailed negotiations with the Notaio concerning contract wording, pre-emption issues, estate agents fees, registrations and translations. There was pressure for an additonal fee for this work from the Florentine which got a bit tiresome but Laura Protti in London sorted it all out. We ended up paying for power of attorney and travelling expenses plus about €500..[/QUOTE]

Is it common practice for John Howell to use another Italian firm to do the conveyancing work? how did they justify these duplication of costs? and what did the fixed fee of £1150 to them cover, if the rest of the work was done by the Florence office?

As far as I am aware, the power of attorney can be sorted in England with a Public Notary, and you do not need your solicitor to be in attendance at the signing of the deed before the Italian Notary, as the attorney can usually be someone from within the Notary office who speaks Italian. Maybe the Notaio can clarify this for us? Obviously, having a solicitor travelling miles and miles to sign a document on your behalf must add substantially to the overall costs, I would imagine...... :confused:

How much was your final bill in the end with JHowell-JMU-Law Studio? or did you have to pay 2 sets of fees to each firm?

Hi Italian lover.
Yes he is definately a lawyer - we have been to his (unsurprisingly smart!)offices and seen all the certificates etc when we signed everything. The notaio was definately real too!
I think he deals with many UK buyers through the agent (who is a very reputable agent) so it seems he has a nice liitle business going..
I think we were just very naive and it was all made highly convenient for us as non - Italian speakers. At the time I didn't even know it was possible to use a lawyer in the UK rather than in Italy. I'm not sure it would be appropriate to name him on a public forum as the work he did was good just - I now discover - very expensive.

As Charles mentioned on a related subject there are people who are somewhat overexcited and ignorant who get caught out - reckon that was me to a T.

I cannot see I have any comeback now and I still believe we got a bargain in the house even including all the fees and taxes so I'm not beating myself up about it - you live and learn eh.

I have found that pretty much everyone I encounter in Italy is very keen on cash - estate agents included. Can't think why ;)

M

Lets say i used Gambrione, and I'd found a house I liked, they sent their geometra to survey it and I then found out it had something which put me off. Could i move their services on to another house under the initial fee, or would it cost extra?

It would not cost extra and this is one of the benefits of having a fixed quote at the outset. However, their letter of engagement also states that for "abortive transactions" they will charge you some money for the work undertaken or for any expenses which they have occurred, such as a geometra fee....someone would have to pay for the surveyor and certainly it won't be the solicitors!

[QUOTE=Will Bialey]Lets say i used Gambrione, and I'd found a house I liked, they sent their geometra to survey it and I then found out it had something which put me off. Could i move their services on to another house under the initial fee, or would it cost extra?[/QUOTE]

I have been told that the fees of the solicitors are proportional to the value of the property and to the time they spend on the file. I assume the cost of your house was high, more than 250.000 euros. In the end it is better to have a good lawyer than giving a lot of money to an estate agent that abandons you.

Sabry I agree. Though we paid the agent a lot too but she did not desert us!
The house was much more than 250k so that may be the reason.
I'd definately have shopped around more though too if I hadn't been so excited.

M