THE FACTS
Elias Mabuza from Joburg said he had instructed an attorney to assist him with a legal matter and they got a default judgement against a dealership on 7 November 2016.
The judgement was for the principal debt, interest plus costs. The dealership paid him the capital sum but failed to pay the interest and costs. He advised the attorney of this and the attorney sent a bill to the Taxing Master showing that an amount of R1 834.84 was due to him.
However, the attorney has submitted a bill of R4 000 to the taxing master when he had actually paid the attorney around R30 000. He wants to know what he can do to recover the interest that is owed to him as well as the correct costs that he paid to the attorney.
He has already reported the attorney to the Law Society for failing to enforce the whole judgement and for the issue with the costs but has not received a result.
WHAT I DID
I got professional legal advice from SCORPION LEGAL PROTECTION Services to see how Elias can be helped.
SOLUTION
A Senior Advisor at Scorpion indicated that a Taxing Master can only grant the costs that the attorney can prove and which are necessary so only R1 834.84 was allowed.
If Elias or the attorney was aggrieved by the decision of the Taxing Master the decision can be reviewed. The problem seems to be that the attorney overcharged Elias, seeing that the matter did not even proceed to trial to justify paying the attorney R30 000.
The Law Society, being responsible for oversight of the legal profession, including dealing with complaints against attorneys, will look at Elias’ complaint and deal with it. He must follow up with the Law Society.
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