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It should be absolutely, irrevocably, unconditionally illegal for any agent, lawyer, manager, or service provider of any kind to deduct his or her fees directly from any property owned by the person for whom they are performing a service. And that goes triple for lawyers. And agents. And managers.
Lawyers, and bankers, you see, are not like you and me.
If you hire a lawyer to manage your purchase of a home, they do not do the work for you like a plumber, a dentist, a doctor, a mechanic, or a carpenter, and then, once you have agreed that the work has been performed in a satisfactory way, submit his or her bill for you to pay, with approval. (I grant that it would not be unreasonable for them to ask for a fair "up front" fee to begin the work). No. The lawyer decides how much to pay him or herself and then takes it right out of your bank account. If you, later on, realize that the lawyer made up imaginery services and imaginary expertise and charged you large sums of money for them, and you did not ever agree to pay these surprise fees and charges-- good luck getting your money back. You will never see a penny. Unless you hire .... a lawyer.
Yes, this happened to me. A lawyer added close to $800 to my bill for certain services. I demanded to know what the charge was for and he could not tell me. He just muttered something about something that was "required" and how impertinent of you to question a lawyer about whether or not you need to pay him lots of money.
Other businesses would love to be in on this arrangement, which is why I am always a bit leery of providing my credit card data to places like my domain registrar, or the New York Times website.
Just imagine your plumber came in to do some work. Instead of giving you a quote and then doing the work and then showing you a bill and then accepting your payment-- once you are sure he did the work he promised to do-- suppose he just demanded your bank card and your pin number. And when he was done, he just went down to the bank and withdraw as much money as he thought he deserved."
I fully expect that a lawyer reading this would say that I have no idea how many people would hire a lawyer, make use of his services, and then not pay for the services. It would be intolerable for a professional to have to put up with that kind of rip-off. In other words, it would be intolerable for lawyers to have to live in the same real world as plumbers and mechanics and carpenters.
I believe it should be enshrined in law: any professional who deducts his or her own fees from any transaction is committing theft-- even if they say they were owed the fees. If they are really owed the fees and the customer refused to pay them, let them hire lawyers and try to obtain their money through the courts like everyone else.
It is absolutely epidemic in the world of entertainment and sports. Agents and managers receive the money, deduct their own fees and expenses, and the let the rest go into the athlete or performer's bank account. And we hear, over and over and over again, how some incredibly successful star athlete or musician is now bankrupt because they didn't pay attention and their managers bled them dry while charging every expense, no matter how minor, to the performers' accounts.
Not good enough for you? Not easy enough? Not convenient? Suck it up: that's why everyone else expects to have to do if there is a dispute over fees and services and you are not entitled to magical powers just because you say so.