Conveyancing fee guidelines scrapped

Source : Business Times – 23 Sep 2009

Law Society says all fees should be freely negotiated

The Law Society has scrapped its fee guidelines for conveyancing transactions six-and- a-half years after they were introduced.

The guidelines were issued in February 2003 after fixed scale fees were scrapped, to give lawyers some idea of the fair and reasonable fee to charge for conveyancing.

Yesterday, the Council of the Law Society said that as part of an ongoing review, the guidelines will be removed from Oct 1.

That is because they were intended as a transitional measure for lawyers after the abolishment of fixed fees, the Law Society said.

‘The Council believes that all fees should be freely negotiated between solicitors and their clients without guidelines from the Council (other than statutory guidelines).’ There was no reason to treat conveyancing fees differently, the society said in a statement.

Gan Hiang Chye of Rajah & Tann said that ‘by now lawyers have got a keen sense of conveyancing fees and of what is proper to charge. So we don’t actually need the guidelines any more,’ he said.

The Law Society said that despite the scrapping of the guidelines, lawyers still have an obligation to charge fairly and are prohibited from overcharging.

Supporters of guidelines say they prevent overcharging by giving clients a good idea of industry norms. But fee guidelines have been much in the public eye following the enactment of the Competition Act in 2006.

Some associations, including the Singapore Medical Association, scrapped their fee guidelines for fear the competition commission would deem them anti-competitive.

Statutory bodies such as the Law Society are exempt from such rules. But reports say conveyancing fees have been falling for years as the business gets commoditised.