I was just talking to clients now who has had R200,000 added to their bond account for legal costs who has never even been to court in any kind of opposing action against the bank. Something tells me they might be getting ripped off.
There are limits to what attorneys can charge for what they do:
In the High Court you can find them at: http://billsofcosts.co.za/case-law/send/7-court-tariffs-in-south-africa/379-high-court-tariff-1-november-2017.html
In the Magistrates courts the tariff is lower: http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2015/20150123-gg38399_rg10349_gon33-RulesBoard.pdf
So what to do is list and the phone calls, letters, etc that you have got, and count the pages of the legal documents you have received and put them in a spreadsheet.
Then put in the tarifff amount per page or phone call or whatever. Do a separate column for candidate attorneys and attorneys.
Its likely that in many matters that a candidate attorney drafted the document, so you should propose that this is the case until proven otherwise.
Note, one could argue that an excessive level of phone calls or letters might not be chargable.
(if any one knows if new tariffs have been made since 1 November 2017, please let me know, But it doesn’t appear so.)