Question to you Alberta Real Estate Paralegals...

[Denyse Giguere]

I met with a few lawyers last week and they were wondering how much I would charge per real estate file. Originally I was just going to charge by the hour, but I don't see a problem charging per file.

Anyone else done real estate work for a lawyer in Alberta and what would you typically charge per file? I suppose it depends on too whether it's a sale, refinance or purchase.

Thanks in advance for your opinion

PS - Excuse my typing today, one of my fingers is broken (thanks to an incident yesterday where I accidentally pulled our screen door shut with my hand in the way, lol)

[Reynetta]

Sorry, I haven't done any real estate work in Alberta (or anywhere else for that matter), but since I am a virtual paralegal I too am interested in this type of work so hopefully someone will provide you with an answer.

Hope your hand heals quickly!! Watch out for those doors!!

Have a super day!

Rey

[The Legal Support Advantage]

I'm new, but I've been thinking about this as well. I don't do real estate, but I've considered doing task-based flat fee pricing on some things and an hourly rate on other things. I was going to just guesstimate how long a certain task (or file in your case) would take on average, then apply the hourly rate and either just go with that or maybe discount it by 5 or 10 percent. I think that sometimes you'll be way ahead and sometimes you won't. If you find it's not as profitable as you'd hoped, either up the flat fee or go back to hourly altogether.

I was actually thinking about doing this as a type of "loss leader." Offering a specific task at a discounted rate to "get them in the door" and then once they see how great I am, they'll use some of my other services, and hopefully turn into long term contracts. I'm not sure about that yet though. It could come back to bite me so I'm still thinking it over.

Good luck. I hope some veterans chime in.