FOUR families have run up legal bills totalling more than £100,000 during a 14-year fight to prove they own the title to their homes, according to experts.
The potential costs faced by the West Lothian householders, who still have no title ownership, do not include the original conveyancing fees for the properties they bought for up to £80,000 in Happy Valley Road, Blackburn.
The families' costs have emerged after their plight was revealed in Monday's Herald.
It has also emerged that the Law Society of Scotland's 'master policy', which covers solicitors against claims for negligence, was at the centre of a row between two law firms in an unreported case, which reached the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal.
In an 18-page complaint to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission three years ago, solicitors Fleming Reid alleged that the law firm representing the policy's principal insurers had "aggravated an already difficult situation" by avoiding appropriate responsibility.
The body passed the complaint to the Law Society of Scotland, which upheld it.
But it was subsequently quashed, on appeal by the solicitor involved, by the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal.
The Law Society of Scotland said it works hard to maintain the highest possible standards within the solicitor profession and ensure robust systems of consumer protection are in place.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article