Why my legal fee quotations offered by the firms are differ among themselves? There should be a regulated pricing?

A standard quotations provided by the legal firms consist of 2 major components:

i. Legal fees
ii. Disbursement

Legal fees


Consist of all prices of remuneration or authority's charges which explicitly spelled and calculated, which could be found in the provisions of the Legal Profession Act 1976 and all the rules and regulations made thereunder.

For all governing laws, please refer to: http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/governing_laws/

You can find all the remuneration calculation from the links below:
Solicitors' Remuneration Order 2005
. FIRST SCHEDULE - Sale and Transfer
. SECOND SCHEDULE - Lease and Tenancy
. THIRD SCHEDULE - Charges, Debentures and other Security or Financing Documents
. FOURTH SCHEDULE - Discharge of Charge and Deed of Reassignment
. FIFTH SCHEDULE - Preparing, filing or witnessing miscellaneous documents
. SIXTH SCHEDULE - RULES UNDER THE SIXTH SCHEDULE

Common terms that could be found in this category includes,

1. For purpose of loan documentations: facilities agreement, deed of assignment (DOA), power of attorney (POA), charge, consent to charge, entry of private caveat

2. For purpose of sales & purchase agreement: S&P agreement, deed of assignment, preparing and submission of Form CKHT 2A

Disbursement

Various charges from the authority (ie. Stamp duty) or the legal firm in completing the tasks.

Common terms that could be found in this category includes,

A. For purpose of loan documentations:
1. Stamping of facility agreement (as per regulation)
2. Stamp duty of DOA
3. Stamp duty on POA
4. Stamp duty on Statutory declaration
5. Filing fee on POA at High Court
6. Bankruptcy search
7. Land Search
8. Affirmation fee
9. Developer confirmation fee
10. Purchase of loan documents
11. Printing charges
12. Travelling expenses
13. Miscellaneous charges

B. For purpose of sales & purchase agreement:
1. Stamping of S&P
2. Adjudication of DOA
3. Stamping of DOA
4. Stamp duty of DOA
5. Affirmation fee on Statutory Declaration
6. Developer's confirmation letter
7. Land Search
8. Bankruptcy Search (OA & OR)
9. Travelling Expenses
10. Miscellaneous Charges

** Government Tax of 6% will be charged on the total amount

Reasons for amount deviations in quotations


There are quite some reasons in resulting deviation of amount payable among the quotations provided by the firms, below covers some of the common reasons but in fact, it does not necessary limit to them. Most of the time, chance for legal fee to deviate is less likely than disbursement portion as it is highly regulated. It is advisable to consult your lawyer for explanation if such deviations exist.

i. Inconsistent info provided to the firms
Correct info provided to the firms in getting an accurate quotation is important. For the S&P, this is especially true when it comes to type and status of land title. Freehold/leasehold, land offices, individual/strata/master title, amount of purchasers, etc will result in a huge different in total amount payable as each of them require different documents to be prepared and different amount of stamp duty to be paid.

ii. Duplication of charges
As you could observed, within the disbursement charges for both S&P and loan documentation do have some similarity. Certain charges could be saved by using the same legal firm in preparing S&P and loan docs, ie. bankruptcy search.

iii. Variation of disbursement charges
Some of the legal firms might charge more or less on some minor items which are not regulated like transportation & printing.

iv. Loan document quotations for different bank
Some of the banks might require certain additional security documents to be prepared as well while others might not require. Thus, you have inform the legal firm on which bank is providing the facility to you as well.