Episode 18 Rip Off Britain

We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling ripped off

and you contacted us in your thousands.

You've told us about the companies you think get it wrong

and the customer service that simply is not up to scratch.

People should expect more when they pay for something.

Everything you buy, I just think we're getting ripped off.

You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money

and investigate the extra charges you say are unfair.

We rely on them giving you a fair price for something.

You can't always rely on that.

You don't want more hassle.

You want them to honour their agreement with you.

And, when you've lost out but no-one else is to blame,

you've come to us to stop others falling into the same trap.

That is disgusting!

So, whether it's a blatant rip-off or a genuine mistake...

We're here to find out why you're out of pocket,

and what you can do about it.

Your stories, your money. This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello, and welcome once again to the Rip-Off Britain office

where you can see, as ever, the team is busy reading

some of the thousands of letters and e-mails you very kindly send us,

and, by the way, we're very grateful for every single one

and we read every single one.

But while many of those letters are about subjects we've heard about,

or even investigated in the past, some stand out

as they're unlike any experience we've ever heard of before.

It's some of those unique and, in some cases, quite extraordinary

stories that we'll try to get to the bottom of today.

And while each one of them truly is a one-off,

there IS something that each of them has in common.

They're all situations that aren't clear-cut,

where it's not easy to pin down who is at fault.

And that may be because there's been some sort of circumstance

or even coincidence that, quite frankly, no-one saw coming.

But equally it could be because according to the rules,

or even, indeed, the letter of the law,

no-one has actually done anything wrong.

Which means that, however desperate the situation,

it's been really difficult to find a way of putting it right.

So we're going to be seeing

whether or not we can help find a way to move things forward.

Coming up, two churches hoping to make pennies from heaven

thanks to solar panels.

So why has one of them had no return on its investment?

If we'd known the problems we were going to have when we started,

we wouldn't have done this.

And how the wrong advice meant making a complaint

cost this man tens of thousands of pounds.

The consequence is that I may end up losing my house here,

given that the amount of money that I now owe is something like 86,000.

Next, how a community building with its roots in the past,

but definitely an eye to the future, has ended up losing out

to the tune of thousands of pounds

thanks to quite an extraordinary disagreement over a question

that, when you hear it, you might think someone really

should have been able to come up with a definitive answer.

People may like to think of Britain as somewhere damp and rainy.

But, as you know, the sun shines rather a lot sometimes

and over half a million households and public buildings in the UK

have now decided to cash in on that sunshine by installing solar panels.

The power they generate is fed into the national grid and,

in turn, homeowners are paid for the electricity their panels produce,

meaning they can be something of a money-spinner.

TILL RINGS

These two churches both have plenty of roof space to put to good use

generating power with solar panels.

And because they're both in Devon, a county that gets

one of the highest numbers of sunshine hours in the country,

they were keen to tap into some of that sunny money action.

For Reverend Paul Booth of Culm Valley Methodist church,

it's been a great experience.

We're generating around £1,600 worth of electricity.

It's a no-brainer, really.

We'll have paid off the cost of putting it in, in a very short time,

and then continue to receive money to help the church.

Culm Valley got their solar panels in 2011

and have been earning money from them ever since.

Back then, the whole process was pretty straightforward.

CONGREGATION SINGS

But an hour down the road,

Kingsbridge Church has found their experience a lot less simple.

They took out a loan for £25,000 to pay for solar panels

in the summer of 2012,

confident in the belief that the money they generated

would cover the monthly loan repayments

AND leave some cash to put back into the church.

For Church Treasurer, David, it seemed as though these panels

might be the answer to his prayers.

# Praise to the Lord... #

The day came, the firm installed them,

a meter was placed in the church

so we could record how many units of electricity we were generating.

At first, there was a little bit of excitement

to see how much was being generated.

But the excitement was premature.

Before they could start earning anything back

from their energy supplier EDF,

they had to have a formal application approved.

But that approval seemed to be taking a very long time to arrive.

We heard nothing for four months, and then when we contacted

EDF Energy, they told us there was a problem,

that we would not get the money we expected

because we needed an Energy Performance Certificate.

An Energy Performance Certificate, or EPC,

rates the energy efficiency of a building.

But before the panels were installed here an independent inspector

had told David that churches don't need to have one.

When we went back to EDF Energy

and OFGEM to say that we were told we didn't need a certificate

and churches were exempt,

they said they had classified us as a day centre

and said we needed an Energy Performance Certificate.

That seemed quite ridiculous

and we pointed out we were a place of worship and proud of it

and no way were we a day centre,

but they wouldn't shift their position.

For the four months it had taken

to find out that they needed an energy certificate,

the solar panels WERE generating power and feeding it

back into the National Grid,

but the church wasn't seeing a penny for it.

David decided to go back to the original assessor

to see if he could help.

When I went back to the independent assessor to tell him that,

after four months, they were telling us we needed an EPC,

he was quite angry.

He felt that they were questioning his professional ability.

The assessor checked his facts,

but was adamant his original decision was correct.

He then said he would issue a certificate at that stage,

with a caveat to say he still felt we didn't need one,

just to get us over the question of the finance.

The certificate being issued DID mean that the application

would finally be processed by EDF,

but the church's battle was far from over.

EDF Energy refused to accept that as being submitted on the day

the application went in.

They were saying it was four months late,

although that four months was due to their inefficiency

and nothing to do with ourselves.

The church had been expecting the highest of three standard rates

set by the Government called Feed In Tariffs.

That would have seen the power generated by the panels

bought by EDF for 16.8 pence per kilowatt hour.

But that rate is only paid for applications sent

with one of those Energy Performance Certificates.

Those made without an EPC, as Kingsbridge's was,

are paid a much lower rate, 9p per kilowatt hour.

And the fact the church did now have an EPC

made no difference whatsoever

because once an application is submitted it cannot be changed.

As a result, the money the church would earn would be much less

than they'd banked on and might not even pay off the £25,000

they'd borrowed to install the panels in the first place.

We weren't able to accept that.

They've offered a couple of even lower tariffs

if we didn't sign up in full and final settlement immediately,

which, of course, we haven't been able to do.

So now, it's stalemate!

The contract for the Feed In Tariff remains unsigned,

and all the time the church's solar panels are generating energy

that they're not being paid for.

I don't know quite how we're going to resolve it.

I've done my best to negotiate a solution,

only to find that the next e-mail or the next telephone call

shatters that opportunity.

But remember the Culm Valley Methodist church

on the other side of the county?

Well, THEY didn't need an energy certificate

when they had their panels installed back in 2011.

But while that sounds like they've been treated differently,

in fact they had applied before a change in the rules,

which is why they continue benefitting from those higher rates.

Luckily, we didn't need an Energy Performance Certificate

because that regulation only came in on the 1st April, 2012.

So, our paperwork and progress to getting the solar panels in place

was a lot easier than for many other places.

Meanwhile, the team at Kingsbridge Methodist Church are still

paying off the loan they took out to have the panels installed,

but not making a single penny from them.

When we spoke to EDF, the company told us...

It's sorry for the "distress or inconvenience" that the problem

has caused, but that under Feed in Tariff legislation,

if a building doesn't have an Energy Performance Certificate rating of

level D or above by the time solar panels are installed, customers

"will receive a lower rate for the electricity they generate."

EDF reiterated that the church was informed incorrectly,

that a certificate wasn't needed and it's not possible to

increase the rate now that one has been provided because

there is no discretion under the legislation to amend the tariff.

The company added that if and when the church signs the agreement,

it'll backdate payments to cover power generated right back to

when the panels were installed, albeit at the lower rate of 9p.

Both EDF and the regulator Ofgem are adamant that the church

always required the vital energy certificate that caused all

this bother in the first place, so we also spoke to the independent

energy assessor, who'd said one wasn't required.

He maintained that he had acted in accordance with both industry

guidelines and advice from his own certificating body,

which state that churches should not be issued with an EPC.

But as far as David's concerned, it doesn't feel right that the

church has lost out because of confusion over this one point.

The situation that we find ourselves in has been really quite

strange because we were wanting to support environmental projects,

yet if we'd known the problems we were going to have when we started,

we wouldn't have done this.

Not all the situations you write to us about can be resolved easily,

because although it might seem pretty obvious that something

has happened, it's not at all clear how it's happened or,

more importantly, who's in a position to put things right.

And that's very much the case in our next story,

which has rumbled on now for several years.

The couple who're at the heart of it all

absolutely dread even the slightest threat of rain

because they say that puts their home at serious risk.

It rains one day out of every three in the UK

and most rainwater goes into drains, or seeps into the ground

without causing a problem.

But when heavy rain falls around Alan Scott's home in Bedford,

the water doesn't seep away.

It's all flooded down here.

When we called round at Alan's house, it had been quite dry.

But even so, there were still signs of the problem.

This is where most of the damage happens because the

water flows down from the back of the garden,

all the way down here.

The garden is completely ruined.

But the garden isn't the worst of it

because the water doesn't just collect outside Alan's home.

We found the water seeping up through the parquet

flooring down here, so I had to remove the floorboards

and cut the carpet away and then the mould and the damp was

rising in this area down here and it absolutely stinks in this cupboard.

As Alan's home video shows, heavy rainstorms have been leaving

his home and garden much wetter than you'd expect

for the past eight years.

The garden and the ground beneath the house can be

sodden for weeks after a storm, and when things are really bad,

pools of water can be found under the floorboards.

Two and a half, three inches deep now it's getting.

Alan and Pat are adamant none of this happened

in the first seven years of living here.

It's built on the ground near our property.

They say all this only started after a large area

of land near their house was chosen to become a new community forest.

And the access to that forest was to run along the side

of their house, by upgrading an old dirt track.

Work began in January, 2006,

and the charity behind the project, the Marston Vale Trust,

installed drains alongside the track to take away excess rainwater.

But a few months after the work was finished, Alan made the discovery

that has had huge repercussions for the couple ever since.

I came downstairs and I saw the garden was flooded.

Shortly afterwards, the water began coming up

through the flooring in the hallway.

Lifting the floorboards to investigate,

they found the timbers were soaking wet.

Well, we felt really frightened when it first happened.

I mean, if you have water in a large void under your house,

where's it going to go to?

The only reason they could come up with was

the new access track through the field next to their house.

They wondered if perhaps the rain water that used to seep

through the old dirt track was now running into their land instead.

Worried, they went to see the farmer who owned the field.

He said that the fields always had drainage problems,

but we have got photographs showing what it was like prior to the track.

Yes, there was water that used to lay on the surface,

but it never used to come into the garden,

so there was something different happening

since the track was put down.

The landowner said that it was nothing to do with him,

it wasn't his responsibility,

and for us to speak to The Forest of Marston Vale.

So, Alan did just that.

As a gesture of goodwill, the charity upgraded its drainage system

and at the same time also dug a trench alongside the back and side

of Alan's property...

but it didn't stop the water coming in.

And the Trust told Alan that there was no evidence the track

definitely was the cause of their flooding.

Over the following months and years,

Alan and Pat have tried to get that proof,

but further surveys haven't been able to establish any

definite connection between the track and the flooding.

We were absolutely devastated because we were worried

about the ongoing damage to the house

and what we were going to do.

We wouldn't be able to sell the house.

So, to see if we can shed any light on what's going on,

we asked independent chartered surveyor Roger Southam

to inspect the damage.

-Morning.

-Good morning. How are you?

-Very well.

Roger's been in the business for more than 30 years

and over that time, his expertise has been called on by everyone

from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors,

to the City of London and the Bank of England.

The first thing that was evident when I opened the door was

the smell of damp that just hit you straight in the nostrils.

Having now put the damp meter into the timbers, there is clearly

a major problem going on in this house.

Those timbers to be as damp as they are for a period

that hasn't been that wet and, certainly since February,

we haven't seen a huge amount of rain in this area.

There are other tell tale signs of damp that Roger doesn't need

special equipment to examine.

It looks like it's all the same cause, because it's coming

in on this side of the property, it looks like it's emanating from

outside in the amount of water that's making its way into the house,

causing the issue with the timbers, causing the mould on the wallpaper.

Clearly a major problem and we've got to find a solution for it.

Outside, he tries to look for a probable cause.

Standing in the garden, I notice two things.

Firstly, there's a drainage channel

on the outside of the fence that's going to be having no effect

or impact in terms of removing the water.

The second thing I see is there's one heck of a slope on this

garden from the front to the back and on the adjoining land.

Just like the rainwater, the ball's running straight

down towards the house.

After three hours surveying the damage,

Roger is confident about what he thinks is responsible.

He believes that the drain that's added behind the house,

isn't draining water, it's collecting it.

And when it's full, it overflows into Alan and Pat's garden

and from there, into the house,

presenting a real risk to their home.

Well, the most extreme situation with the property,

Alan's going to be facing wet rot, leading to dry rot,

leading to structural integrity problems with the property.

If Alan left the house and did absolutely nothing,

then ultimately, of course, the house could well fall down.

If I were to be put on the spot in terms of responsibility,

it certainly seems to be underpinned

by that roadway that's been installed.

The heavy-duty nature of the road way, and the foundations

that must be sitting beneath it, seem to be acting as a dam.

Even if the flooding is stopped, Roger estimates that Alan

and Pat would need to spend tens of thousands of pounds

on repairing the damage.

Looking at Alan's house, certainly it can be fixed

and it can be solved, but it's wanting to make sure

that you're dealing with the outside parts first

because otherwise it's like putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg.

When we spoke to the Marston Vale Trust about all this,

it told us that though sympathetic to Alan and Pat's problem,

and keen to help resolve it, it doesn't agree that

the construction of the track is connected to the flooding.

The Trust said it has gone out of its way to help,

for example, by installing new drainage channels not because

of any responsibility to do so,

but to help a neighbouring landowner.

And it reiterated that if Alan could prove that construction of the track

caused the flooding, then either their insurance, or the landowner's

will deal with the matter.

The representative of the landowner agreed with that,

making it clear that Alan needs to prove, in engineering terms,

how the track could possibly have caused the flooding.

They point out that various reports have found no evidence

of this and that the opinions of the expert we sent aren't

the way to deal properly with such a technical matter.

They added they have been happy to assist Alan and have

remained open minded and ready to consider any case put to them,

but they maintain no such case has been put forward.

But Alan and Pat simply can't afford the kind of detailed

engineering report they hope could settle this once and for all.

-It just gets you down, doesn't it?

-It gets you down,

but you keep your spirits up. That's all you can do, isn't it?

We've got to live here, we can't move.

With all conscience, you couldn't sell it and pretend

there's nothing wrong with it because

it's obvious with the damp creeping up the walls.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain, why this designer thinks

the similarities between her T-shirts

and those from a big name store aren't just a coincidence.

I was really disappointed to find out that something similar

to our own original design was available in the high street.

We're so delighted that so many people have

decided to join us at our pop up shop here in the West Midlands.

What I like more than anything else is actually meeting everybody

face to face and hearing about their consumer issues.

I agreed to do that, so I ended up paying a total of £299.

And do you know what I like even better?

The fact that our team of experts solve them.

Bernie Eddisford called in for legal advice from Gary Rycroft

after realising she could no longer contact the solicitors

who held her will and the deeds to her house.

I had to change my executors and when I went to do that,

I discovered that the company had gone into liquidation and I couldn't

trace my will or my deeds.

-How long ago did this happen?

-About two years ago.

And you've been trying to track down where your will is

and where the deeds are? And you've got nowhere?

Nowhere, absolutely nothing.

I do believe, from reading your notes,

that you have a receipt from the solicitors concerned,

so you have evidence that your deeds and your will were lodged

with that particular firm of solicitors.

That is a very good starting point and a good lesson

for everyone is if you get a receipt from a solicitor

or indeed anyone else, keep it safe.

Now, the good thing about using a solicitor

is that they do have succession.

There should be a firm that's taken over responsibility

for that firm's business.

But when Bernie found out who that succession firm was

and contacted them, they claimed they couldn't find

any trace of her will or her deeds.

-I think, Angela, that this is a case of Bernie being fobbed off.

-Exactly.

The solicitors who took over the previous firm, on the face of it,

have responsibility.

You need to be booking an appointment with a senior partner,

saying, "I want answers here."

Now, he may get himself off the hook

by saying, "We didn't take over responsibility

"for the wills and deeds from the previous firm,"

but he's got to prove that to you.

If your house is registered with the land registry,

then the loss of the deeds isn't a massive problem

because the land registry will be able to send you a copy.

It's actually only £3 for a copy of the land register

and £3 for a copy of the land registry plan.

It's not a great expense.

If yours is one of the properties in England and Wales that's not

registered, and there are still many thousands that aren't,

then your deeds will have to be reconstructed.

The cost of reconstructing those deeds should lie with the people

who are responsible for looking after your will and deeds.

That firm may have ceased to trade, but another firm,

on the face of it, has taken over.

Just make sure that they recognise

that you're not going to go away, that they do

have responsibilities and they have got to pay up

or produce the will and the deeds, one or the other.

-True?

-Absolutely true.

Since filming with us, Gary has traced the firm of solicitors,

who have taken responsibility for Bernie's property deeds,

which is a huge relief for her.

But the hunt for her will goes on.

Outside, in our gripe corner, you couldn't wait to

sound off about some particularly common complaints, quite a few

of which we've been investigating through this series.

What really annoys me is cold calling.

Can't we stop it?

Well, we think England shirts are an absolute rip off.

57 quid?!

I'm only 16, he's 15. How are we going to afford that?

I couldn't believe how much it cost me to phone an 0845 number.

It was £7 for 20 minutes.

I didn't get to speak to anybody and, worst of all, it was the NHS.

And even Julia couldn't resist a gripe.

I hate it when you ring someone up and all you get is

a recorded message or even worse music, music, music, music.

They've ruined Vivaldi's Four Seasons for me

and I'm very, very cross about it!

Now, as you know, hundreds of thousands of small businesses

start up every year, so to really make a go of things, each of them

needs to be able to offer something unique.

But here's someone who thought she'd come up with some

really quirky ideas to set her apart from everybody else,

only to discover that one of the industry's big players

was selling stuff very much along the same lines.

In the end, trying to prove who got there first

is not as simple as you might have thought.

Claire Mullan has long had an eye for a funky design,

so much so, that for the last nine years she's made a living

turning her imaginative ideas into T-shirts.

Tee and toast designs are happy, carefree,

they're a little bit quirky, they're designed to get people to smile.

The business has a loyal fan base, both in Claire's native Belfast

and right across the UK, thanks to her online shop.

The T-shirts sell well,

but not in such numbers that Claire would generally expect to see

someone wearing one of her designs on the street.

So when she saw what looked like just that, she was amazed.

I was working at St George's market in Belfast

and from a distance I was excited to see who I thought was a customer

walking towards me wearing one of my T-shirt designs, the McMullet.

As the T-shirt came closer,

Claire realised that it wasn't one of her T-shirts after all,

but one that looked very similar and it was being sold at Primark.

I was really disappointed to find out that something

similar to our own original design was available in the high street.

It looked like Claire's unique design wasn't so unique after all.

Something that seemed very close to it was being

sold by one of the biggest names on the high street.

This is our McMullet design. It was designed in 2004,

it was one of our original designs and we've seen something very

similar to it that came from Primark in 2012.

The style is a little bit different but you can see from a distance,

they look very similar.

But you know what they say, great minds think alike.

Claire thought it was probably just coincidence,

but then it happened again.

When the second one happened a few months later,

I didn't know what to do.

I was getting phone calls, texts, e-mails, all from family

and friends and loyal fans, so they started flooding in with responses

of, "Have you seen this? This looks like yours."

This time, the similarity between the T-shirts was perhaps even

more of a surprise, with Primark's design having an uncanny resemblance

to one Claire had started selling several years earlier.

So, this is our design on the left.

It's got the unicorn with a speech bubble, the shape of a cloud,

with the words "I'm magic" inside.

Then Primark have a version with a unicorn

in a different kind of illustration style, but then in a very similar

font, they have the words "I'm magic".

Claire could never have imagined that almost five years after

her design, a very similar one would appear

in the stores of a much bigger company.

You feel a bit sick, you start researching, you're mad,

you're angry, you're disappointed, you're disappointed for your fans

and your followers because they're buying something that's not meant

to be found in the high street.

Claire was convinced that one of Primark's designers

must have seen her work.

She tried to take the matter up with Primark directly,

but when she couldn't get through to anyone who could help, Claire asked

a lawyer specialising in copyright issues to look into her case.

But after much thought, Claire decided that she

didn't have the resources to attempt legal action

against one of the biggest forces on the high street.

The energy and the time it would have taken away from running

my business to deal with a high street chain, I just thought my

time was going to be put to better use by focusing on my business.

But just three months later, Claire was astonished when she was told of

another Primark T-shirt that seemed remarkably like one of her designs.

So on the left, we have our moose-tache design, a moose with

a moustache and on the right we have Primark's design.

With Primark, the phrase three times a charm,

it wasn't funny the third time.

We ran both sets of designs past an intellectual property lawyer

to see if he thought this could be just a coincidence.

What we've got here is images that look at least to me

to be extremely similar. Clearly there's a bit of deviation,

but the idea behind it looks, to me, to be very similar.

And then when you see that something even more similar has

happened in respect of the mullet/moustache design,

again, it might be just about different enough in copyright

terms, but it certainly looks like a shared amount of inspiration there.

Proving that there had genuinely been any copyright infringement

can be extremely hard in a court of law.

The courts will always tell you that copyright doesn't protect ideas,

it protects how they are expressed.

It's a very fine line to walk between doing something

that's obviously inspired by something else

and something that is just a direct imitation.

When we contacted Primark, the store said it was saddened

by Claire's allegations, which it says are simply wrong.

It told us the buyers who commissioned and developed

its T-shirts were not familiar with Claire's company

or designs and at no time copied or took inspiration from them.

Primark added that, like all high street fashion retailers,

it follows emerging trends, which Claire's designs also reflect.

While the store would agree there are similarities,

it says these arise from fashion trends, not Claire's designs.

So if all retailers and their designers are chasing

the same trends and fads every season, perhaps it's no

surprise that sometimes the end results can have a lot in common.

But there are things that small businesses like Claire's can do

to protect their ideas.

Document everything.

If you come up with something that you've...

say a visual design like this, take date stamp photos,

keep records of absolutely everything to prove when you came up with it,

that it was you that came up with it.

Claire still believes that Primark's designers were at least

inspired by her ideas,

but it seems she may just have to draw a line under it

and move onto her next creation.

I'm going to continue making really fun, quirky,

happy designs that make people laugh, that make people smile.

And as long as I love drawing silly doodles, that's what I'll be doing.

Now there are some occasions in life where we have no choice

but to turn to a professional for help.

But if you weren't happy with the job they did,

would you know where to turn?

And if you took professional advice on what to do next and it turned

out to be wrong, should it be you that ends up paying the price?

No-one wants extra stress when dealing with the death of a parent,

but Paul Cowdrey has found himself with plenty of that

since his father Bill died in 2008.

Ready? Yeah!

Paul's father had appointed his own solicitor to be

the executor of the will.

-Hi, Julia.

-Hello, Paul.

But Paul became unhappy with aspects of how the solicitor was

dealing with his father's estate and the time and money

he felt it was taking,

so he made a complaint to the solicitor,

but how that could be dealt with was going to prove much more

complicated than he had expected.

The solicitor came back and said that I wasn't the client

and therefore he wasn't going to deal with the complaint.

I was the beneficiary under my late father's estate,

so, technically, I wasn't the client.

The solicitor himself was actually the client in this respect

because he was appointed the executor of the estate.

The solicitor made clear he didn't work for Paul,

but his late father's estate, and that wasn't just legal semantics.

It was a distinction that would soon snowball with severe consequences.

So what did you do then?

I pursued the matter through the Legal Complaints Service.

The Legal Complaints Service was at the time the body

responsible for investigating complaints made against solicitors.

But before going any further, Paul wanted to know whether the cost of

pursuing his complaint was something the solicitor could charge him for.

I checked with the case worker, I asked her point blank

whether I could be charged, and I was assured that I couldn't.

Reassured, Paul went ahead, and his complaints were referred

up to the Solicitor's Regulation Authority.

They too appeared sympathetic to Paul's case on the basis that

although Paul wasn't the solicitor's client, in a case like this,

he should be treated in the same way as if he was.

But the solicitor didn't agree.

With his costs for dealing with Paul's complaints mounting, he

sent a legal letter warning how much he'd expect to be paid for that,

and it was a lot.

He sent me a letter of claim for 17,500 covering the SRA

and the legal complaints investigation.

It must have been quite a shock when you opened that letter?

It was a shock and, to be honest, the amount of money,

it was a horrendous amount of money.

And what made it worse was the fact that Paul was being asked

to stump up £17,500 after being assured by legal experts

that making a complaint shouldn't cost him anything.

With the solicitor adamant that he was entitled to recover his costs,

and the very real threat that the way for that to happen was for it

to come out of the estate,

potentially affecting all the beneficiaries,

it seemed the only way forward was for the case to be settled in court.

And, thanks to the support he'd had from the

Solicitors Regulation Authority,

Paul felt confident about his position.

Well, I had the backing of the SRA.

The Legal Complaints Service had told me that

I couldn't be charged and I felt that I was completely in the right.

You can make a complaint about a doctor

and you don't get charged, or a dentist,

but you make it against a solicitor

and you know, you end up being charged.

Unable to afford to pay for someone to represent him in court,

Paul decided to represent himself.

He was sent a statement of support from the

Solicitors Regulation Authority, which he was able to use

while making his case.

But despite this, the judge found against Paul.

What the judge said to me is, "I'm not here to determine

"whether your complaint was justified or not."

That's the crux of the matter, really.

The ruling, on a point of law,

was as Paul had initially been told by his father's solicitor.

Because he wasn't the client, he could be charged for the time

the solicitor spent defending the complaints made against him.

But Paul now also had to pay all the costs

and charges associated with the case coming to court,

meaning the total amount he owed was rapidly spiralling out of control.

So what was it like for you when you heard the judge ruling against you?

-It was devastating.

-And the consequence is?

Well, the consequence is that I may end up losing my house here

because the amount of money that I now owe is something like £86,000.

Whatever the legal judgment,

that's a devastating price to pay for pursuing a complaint.

Paul continued to fight his case, enlisting the help

of his local MP Simon Danczuk, who tried taking it right to the top.

My constituent, Paul Cowdrey, is to lose his home after raising

concerns about overcharging.

I'm happy to look into this case.

As the honourable gentlemen will know, the legal regulators are

independent from Government, so it's not possible to intervene directly.

But there was nothing that could change Paul's situation or

overrule the word of law.

In a further blow to Paul, the Legal Complaints Service, the body

which advised him on his complaint in the first place,

has since disbanded.

But Paul feels someone should still be responsible for decisions

they made in the past.

I sought advice from the Legal Complaints Service

and said, "Could I be charged if I made a complaint?"

And they assured me I couldn't.

I got bad advice and I don't think that was reasonable or fair.

At the time we filmed with him,

the amount Paul owed the solicitor and had to pay off the rest

of the associated legal fees

had ballooned to a total of £129,000.

We asked the Solicitor's Regulation Authority what

they now think of Paul's case, and they told us that while they

sympathise with Paul, and normally would not expect solicitors

to charge for dealing with complaints, in this case, the costs

incurred from dealing with Paul's complaints went beyond the usual.

They said that Paul ably argued his case,

and that the issues were properly debated,

but once the court had ruled on the question of charging, it would

be inappropriate for the SRA to seek to deal with the issue.

We also contacted the solicitor Paul had

complained about in the first place.

His representatives stressed that his work as executor had

benefitted the estate as a whole,

and that Paul's complaint against him was not supported

by his siblings, the only other beneficiaries of the estate.

They went on to say that the matter has been subject to careful

and detailed scrutiny in court on five separate occasions

and each time the decision has been against Paul.

And they recommended that anyone considering making a complaint

of this kind exercise considerable care when doing so as in their

view, if Paul had taken independent legal advice at various stages,

he'd almost certainly not find himself in his present predicament.

But at least the situation shouldn't now get any worse.

To stop the amount owed spiralling further, in July, 2014, Paul

and his wife pulled together as many assets as they could to make

a settlement with the solicitor that resolves the debt

and allows them to keep their home.

But Paul still feels that he was given the wrong advice

by the Legal Complaints Service at the very start

and he doesn't see why he should be paying the price for that.

I'm not prepared to back down any further and, you know, if I have to

take it to the European courts, I'm perfectly prepared to do that.

Very determined.

Here at Rip Off Britain, we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories on any subject. Are you confused over your bills?

Or just trying to wade through never-ending small print?

It's very frustrating because it makes what should be a simple job

a lot more complicated.

I think some people just give up, so they don't get the best deal.

Maybe you're unsure what to do, when you discover

you've lost out, and that so-called great deal

has ended up costing you money.

People are buying into this, I did,

and are they going to be as awkward with them as they were with me?

You might have a cautionary tale of your own

and want to share the mistakes you made with us.

It upsets me an awful lot, because I'm retired and I...

begrudge having to pay that kind of money out.

You can write to us at...

Or you can send us an email to...

Remember that the Rip Off team is ready and waiting to investigate

your stories.

It's sometimes easy to hear the stories we look into on the programme

and think, "Oh, I'd never fall for that," or at least think that,

if you did, you'd know exactly what to do to get your money back.

But I have to say that today's stories simply do not fall into that category.

It's hard to see how any of the people we've met could have seen what was coming.

That's especially the case where people took advice that ultimately let them down.

Of course, there are always two sides to every story,

but you can't help sympathising with the predicament of those who tried

to find out the best thing to do, and yet were steered

in the wrong direction with very little they can do about it.

If you're facing a situation like any of the people we featured in today's programme,

where it's not really clear how things have ended up quite the way they have,

or you don't know which way to turn next,

then do please let us know.

However bad things seem, there may yet be something we can do

to point you in the direction of, well, if not a solution,

then at the very least some further help.

We'll be back soon to do exactly that with more of your stories,

-so thanks for watching us today. Goodbye.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.