Quieting a Title

My parents have owned the property in question for over 20 years, and it has been in the family for 2-3 generations. For some reason, some other persons name is on the title (which had to have been done over 50 yrs ago), and they cannot sell the property (its just land now, the house was demolished).

They retained a lawyer for $2500 to subpoena the court about the situation, and the next step supposedly is to do the following:
1. Put an article in the paper in both counties in Florida (where the non-family member is from) and Pennsylvania (where the house is)
2. Also put the same information into the Legal Ledger in PA and FL

If no one responds within 30 days, the court will quiet the title, and then they can sell the property.

The lawyer is now trying to get an additional $10,000 to complete this, which I think is absurd. Can we complete these tasks ourselves, should we look to retain another lawyer, or is it really that costly?

Thanks!

Does their lawyer say why they want another $10,000? Is that a retainer (some of which may be refunded if the action takes less than the anticipated time, e.g. no other party contests the quiet title action), or is it a non-refundable fee?

They can try to do it yourself (or you do it for them). I wouldn't recommend it - you'll need to study up on FL civil procedure and real estate law. You run the risk of screwing something up to the prejudice of their ownership of the house, or practicing law without a license. You could contact another lawyer for an estimate if you think the price is too steep.

2500 should have taken care of everything. They need to see what they signed as a retainer agreement and then they may want to file a complaint witht he state bar.

However, there may be much more to the story.

lwpat said:

2500 should have taken care of everything. They need to see what they signed as a retainer agreement and then they may want to file a complaint witht he state bar.

However, there may be much more to the story.

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the lawyer wants $10,000 more to finish the case. they are saying that it costs like $4000 just to file the articles in the paper, which is ridiculous

i am getting the details of everything soon via fax, with the results of the first court decision. filing a claim with the state bar may be a reasonalble way to get the lawyer to finish the job for what they were already paid

The original setup was $5000 with a $2500 retainer. The lawyer claims to have done $3900 in work so far.

At this point we have an order from the court stating that if we publish the necessary information in 4 papers (2 in PA [legal & general], and 2 in FL [legal & general]) for 30 days and no one responds, then the court will quiet the title.

In order to publish these articles the lawyer is claiming that the articles will cost $4175 in addition to $3250 in lawyer fees.

I don't see any reason to pay that much for this small amount of paper work.

Where can I find a template of what to write in the articles? Once is going in a general paper, and the other into a legal publication.

Thanks!

Publication expenses can be quite horrendous.

Let your lawyers take care of this.