<p>Best I can find, under Legal Fee Arbitration:
In the event there is no written agreement or engagement letter between the parties concerning fees and expenses as to the particular matter in dispute, the Respondent must bear the burden of proof of an agreement, or other basis for recovery of fees and expenses, and of the reasonableness of those fees and expenses.
[Fee</a> Arbitration Disputes: Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar](<a href=“http://www.mebaroverseers.org/attorney_complaints/fee_complaints.htm]Fee”>http://www.mebaroverseers.org/attorney_complaints/fee_complaints.htm)</p>
<p>Maine- when we lived on a gravel road and had a road maintenance agreement, it was a struggle every year to assess the people and get the donations to pay for the grading and graveling, some people did not want to pay because they wanted the road as bumpy as possible!</p>
<p>One year a neighbor on an adjoining road asked, at our annual meeting, if he could join our group for ingress & egress instead of going out the other way (not part of our RMA) and we agreed to this, with the caveats that he must pay a share and that we had to investigate whether that was okay to do and set any precedents. Within days the crank pot on the road sued us all to stop that neighbor from joining our RMA and we had to pay the legal bills. And we had stated at the meeting that it was temporary whilst we investigated the legalities.</p>
<p>Said crank pot later shot at a woman on a horse (she did not live on the private lane and he had appointed himself road monitor); she happened to be the wife of the county sheriff so we finally got some teeth in the fight against crazy neighbor!</p>
<p>I would give the neighbor a copy of the letter, with the receipts that the attorney itemizes showing what has been paid by you so this attorney doesn’t try to collect twice for said fees. At this point, not clear that this attorney wouldn’t do that.</p>
<p>You & your H are being very nice. Unfortunate that the attorney is making the situation so uncomfortable for everyone.</p>
<p>Any chance you can offer to pay this good will payment at the end of the process, when all is said and done? It would be a shame to pay and then have some other issue surface. Better to pay at the back end. Protects your interests and rights. JMO</p>
<p>Agree with JYM. Best to always protect yourself instead of having your good deed backfire.</p>
<p>OP, I like your last idea, but I think before you pay anything, ask the attorney to retract the bill, and invoice only the fees, if you are going to pay them. </p>
<p>I agree with the posters who have said that they do not think you are responsible. The reasons of lack of contract, ethical conflict etc come to my mind as well. I would be shocked to have gotten such a bill from someone I never contracted with, and when I had my own attorney. In the end a lawyers bill is the attempt to collect on a contract to pay for legal services. I do not see where you have made such a contract from the facts given. I probably would not want good will from such a person, but that’s just me. </p>
<p>For the future, for others out there, if you enter into any similar kind of arrangement where it is mostly for someone else’s benefit, have it spelled out in advance what your responsibility is, what the other person is responsible for etc. Here, I could see all the fees being the responsibility of the neighbor, and having written a letter to that effect at the beginning of the process.</p>
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<p>I get why you would be willing to kick in some cash for this reason. But would you help me understand why the payment should go to the attorney rather than to the neighbor with whom you want to live in peace?</p>
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<p>^^ Definitely! Don’t make a payment until HE acknowledges in writing that this is the end of it.</p>
<p>Thats a great point about having the attorney retract the previous bill and issue a new one. Everything should be in writing, especially with this attorney whose behavior doesn’t pass the smell test. And I would ask him to cc his client (ie your neighbor) as well. Everything should be above board and disclosed to all, IMO. And again, if you are going to pay the “out of pocket” fees (Iv’e forgotten what they are) have that spelled out exactly, and to the penny, and agree to pay at the end, at the conclusion of the completed project. YOU get to call the shots on this one- not the lawyer.</p>
<p>And you certainly don’t want this lawyer giving the original $3k bill to some collection agency down the road who can try to collect from you, and if you have nothing in writing saying you do not owe this debt, you could be responsible, especially if they take you to small claims court and you have no documentation to prove you do not owe this debt. Not saying he would do this to you, but he could. You could turn around and file a complaint againt the attorney and he’d have to prove you signed a contract. But he could prove you paid him something with the payment you do send. Again, not saying any of this would happen, but it could. So much for good will. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.</p>
<p>^How much will the OP’s own attorney charge to sort through this? Did OP note earlier that she wanted to avoid her own atty’s charges if she still owed something to the other lawyer? But, hasn’t all this gotten confusing enough- and risky enough- that the fee for advice would be worth it?</p>
<p>When worried about “worst case” (someone darkening OP’s rep in some way,) you really have to worry about worst case, no? DH could send in his $500, with a certified letter, and it could get recorded as “on account.”</p>
<p>The implication in the arbitration quote is that there are cases where there is no written agreement, no?<br>
Is all this really a DIY decision?</p>
<p>another good suggestion, jym post 124. I suggested that too, many pages ago, but so far, the Op has indicated she wants to pay it and pay it now.</p>
<p>Terrific question, LasMa(post 127) I have asked it a number of times already. 2 things jump at me: 1) if I want friendly neighbor, then I help my neighbor, not my neighbor’s atty
2) If I want to send a goodwill payment toward a debt, I’d send it to the guy that owes the money- the neighbor!</p>
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<p>I suggested this over a hundred posts ago. It seems silly to me to try to handle something this complicated and potentially costly yourself when you’ve already retained counsel to look at initial agreements. It’s seems likely to be a very good example of a situation where one attempts to avoid paying their lawyer but in the long run ends up costing more, in both money and aggravation.</p>
<p>We are not “attempting to avoid paying [our] lawyer.” He isn’t our lawyer. He never was our lawyer. H paid another atty to look over the agreement. We pay our bills.</p>
<p>This IS the end of the process. The process is over. The “swap” has been done, and duly registered. Our HELOCs have been altered to reflect it. THe only thing that can happen now is that the neighbor succeeds in selling the lot, and someone puts a driveway through the ROW. In that case, we will have to keep an eye on that person to make sure they abide by the restrictions in the ROW.</p>
<p>I think that the idea of requiring the atty to retract the original bill and submit one for the itemized costs only is an excellent one. I’ll pass it on to H. Not only that, but I’m thinking we should request a letter from him stating that we have agreed to reimburse him for these costs ONLY as a good will gesture, and that we are not in fact liable for those or any other costs associated with the matter.</p>
<p>We are NOT going to incur more legal fees by getting another lawyer involved in this. Sorry if this annoys some of you. I’m not going to be pushed into a legal arms race where, as is all too often the case, no one profits but the lawyers. His attempt to collect fees from us is baseless, and I’m sure he knows it. For us to choose to reimburse him for the comparatively modest filing fees and the fees charged by our bank is not required, but reasonable in the circumstances, so we will do that. But no more. End of story.</p>
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<p>Because THE ATTY paid the fees out of pocket, NOT the neighbor. We are simply REIMBURSING him for the fees. We are not making a “payment” or putting extra cash in anyone’s pocket. (And the atty is somewhat of a neighbor, too. As I said, I can walk to his office. He lives in town. It’s a small town.) </p>
<p>I don’t think the situation is confusing at all. :)</p>
<p>Not to say I agree with sending their atty any money, but I will pass on advice my atty once gave me. “Write on the back of the check, where the recipient would endorse it, ‘full and final payment’.” My atty explained that is much better than in the memo line for 2 reasons. One is the obvious, that a memo line comment might be added later by someone unscrupulous and two, because theoretically a person endorsing the check cannot overlook the comment, which eliminates the “I didn’t see it” defense a person might try if it was written only in the memo line, and if that person later wanted additional payment.</p>
<p>Consolation, I think you have misunderstood alwaysamom in her post 131.(re: your quote, post 132). Given the context of her post, after the quote she made, I think what she intended to mean was that since you have already retained an atty’s service the cost of asking him to advise you on this issue would be small, and might save you money in the long run.</p>
<p>And I think what people mean here by once this is settled(I know I do) they are not referring to only the recording of the deed. They mean after the bills are paid, THEN it is all settled, and THEN would be the time to make a good will payment. While bills are outstanding, and there is a disagreement on -who may owe what- it isn’t settled yet.</p>
<p>Maybe there is something I am not clear on. I understand their atty may have had o-o-p costs. But, what exactly are “out-of-pocket” fees, that aren’t properly billed to the guy that hired the service? Any costs their atty has are for doing the job they hired him to do. Oop fees don’t just magically appear. I mean, any time or money their atty spent was in order to facilitate the job they hired him to do, right? Why wouldn’t it be proper to bill the guy that hired him for any cost he had completing the service? It seems to me, if I pay for parking so I can go to the courthouse to record a deed, wouldn’t I bill the guy that hired me to record the deed(if I billed anyone). Why would I bill the neighbor of the guy that hired me to record the deed?</p>
<p>Y’hoss- I believe there are cases where simply writing full and final doesn’t excuse an obligation. This used to be a loophole people used in short-paying their legit debts (eg, cred card) and I thought the loophole was closed. I’m just saying this so people check, before assuming. It may apply differently to different situations.</p>
<p>And, yes, we’re talking about going back to the lawyer you did retain to walk you through parts of this. But, the decision is yours. I think we understand you can’t completely influence your husband’s position- we’ve all had cases where we experienced that.</p>
<p>I also think we’d all like to be updated, later, to see how this ends. Good Luck.</p>
<p>We retained a lawyer to review the proposed agreement and give us an opinion on it.</p>
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<p>So was your lawyer retained or not? 
Still don’t understand why if a payment is being considered to stay on good terms with neighbor, why neighbor would not be consulted re: bill.</p>
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<p>You should do that before you pay any money.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading this thread. It is interesting. :)</p>
<p>I would get a lawyer to deal with this.
If I couldn’t afford a lawyer, I would give the money directly to my neighbor to pay the neighbor’s lawyer’s out-of-pocket expenses. I would write on the check exactly what the payment covered. I would do my best to get an email record stating what the payment was to cover and that I wasn’t obligated to this payment but doing it as a gesture of good-will. Or I would hand my neighbor cash and let the agreement be verbal and unverifiable.</p>
<p>I would never, under any circumstances, pay the neighbor’s lawyer. never ever ever
:)</p>
<p>There doesn’t need to be a legal arms race. Sometimes when I consult my lawyer as to how to handle a certain situation, no one ever knows except the lawyer and me. Lawyers really earn their money sometimes and are a good investment imho. There are no lawyers in my family. If there were, I wouldn’t have to hire one. :)</p>
<p>Good Point! I agree “full and final” may not be definitive on its own, in all cases. But I intended this suggestion to go along with the letter the Op has described that she will be sending, explaining that the payment she is sending right after she got a bill is not a payment on the bill. It is a conditional payment- dependent on the understanding and acceptance that the payment is a one-time good will payment that just coincidentally is for the same amout as the oop costs they were billed for. An unscrupulous atty might even claim he’d received the payment, but that no letter explaining conditions was included. Writing the extra on the check is just one more safeguard.</p>
<p>Post 137- you’re preaching to the choir!</p>
<p>one more thought
Is it possible those out-of-pocket bills you want to take care of haven’t actually been paid yet? If so, can you go directly to those billers and pay them? And then let your neighbors know you wanted to take care of those expenses? This is assuming the neighbors aren’t insulted by you taking care of their bills?</p>
<p>In my experience, in addition to retainer agreements, a situation like this would usually include a joint representation agreement signed by both parties to protect against conflicts and spell out exactly who pays what to prevent future misunderstandings.</p>