Paid for work that I did not request

I approached Schoeman Law in September 2025 with a very clear and specific request for legal services, which I set out in writing from the start.

On 21 October 2025, I had a consultation with the head of the firm, during which we even confirmed that I was still within the required time period to proceed with the legal process I had requested.

The next day, I received a mandate and cost estimate, which I understood to relate directly to the services I had requested.

After paying the R20 000 deposit, explicitly for the legal services I had requested, the firm billed the entire R20 000 for drafting an unsolicited report that defended the very party I intended to litigate against. I did not request or authorise such a report.

Instead of acting on my actual mandate, I was told that my prospects of success were “moderate” and later “low,” and informed that I would need to pay an additional R65 000 deposit (with a possible further R50 000) before they would proceed with the work I originally instructed them to do with a projected total cost of R500 000 at most.

Based on my experience, I genuinely feel as though I was effectively misled through the process and left feeling as if I had been ****med out of R20 000, because the work I paid for was not the work I requested.

Now the head of the firm has threatened me to not talk about this on HelloPeter and other platforms.