Excessive legal costs
Overcharged by a solicitor? Presented with a legal bill you weren't expecting? Extortionate amount withheld by lawyers from your money? We can help!
Whether the solicitor estimates costs at one figure and then charged you more, or failed to give an estimate at all. If you've been charged for the same work twice, or charged for work they haven't done. Or did they hit you at the last minute with an unexpected bill? We can help!
We have extensive experience in helping clients in these circumstances and (apart from a fixed initial £180 fee) we may be able to offer a No-win No-fee agreement to cover our costs so the amount you pay up front will be strictly limited!
Please see below for a summary of what is involved in reclaiming excessive legal costs, but if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
What are the steps in this type of case?
1. Initial legal advice
What's involved?
The first step is to assess on an urgent basis how we can best approach the overcharge. There are three basic ways to deal with solicitors who try to rip off their clients. The first option is to raise a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. The second option is to not pay the solicitor's bill and wait for them to sue and then defend the case in court. The final option is to ask the court to prepare a Detailed Assessment which means to look at the solicitor's charges and decide what the correct bill should be. Each process has its pros and cons and not all of the options may be available depending on the circumstances.
How long does it take?
Our legal advice is usually given within a week or so.
What will it cost?
This initial advice is not intended to be a detailed analysis - that can come later. It is more to consider appropriate options, and therefore there is a small fixed fee of £180.00
2. Disclosure
What's involved?
Subject to the specific details of your case and any time limits we have, we may need to get more documentation from the solicitors in order to assess and / or progress your claim.
How long does it take?
If we need to obtain disclosure, it usually takes a month or so. Sometimes we may need a court application to be made and in this case it may take a further month.
What will it cost?
There is no up front fee payable at this stage unless the circumstances are unusual or if a court claim is needed. There may be fees to pay to the solicitors for copying costs or to release files.
3. Legal Ombudsman Complaint
What's involved?
This step only applies if we choose to go down the Legal Ombudsman route and not take a different course of action. If a decision is taken to complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and assuming the time limits can be met, we will undertake a full and detailed analysis of the case to present a formal letter of complaint and evidence. We first have to complain to the firm itself, but realistically the firm will almost always reject the complaint.
Unfortunately, at this present time, it is taking well over a year for the Legal Ombudsman to even allocate a complaint to a case officer, so we would only recommend this option if the other options were not available or if there were a specific benefit.
Eventually the Ombudsman will make a determination and if they consider the firm has overcharged you they can order them to waive their bill or offer a refund or pay you compensation.
How long does it take?
Current waiting times for this process are over 18 months.
What will it cost?
After the fixed fee for our initial advice there is no further up-front charge payable. Complaining to the Legal Ombudsman is free and you can do it yourself without needing a law firm to make the complaint or represent you.
If we succeed in getting a refund or compensation, we will charge you a fee for the work we have done together with a "success fee" to make up for the fact that we would have got nothing if you lost. These fees are usually capped at 30% of money you recover. So if we get £1,000 refunded to your and £500 compensation, our fees are capped at £450 and you receive £1,050.
If you do not recover compensation but instead the Legal Ombudsman reduces the amount you have to pay to your solicitors for their outstanding bill, the fees you pay would be capped at 30% of the amount of the reduction. So if your solicitors were chasing you for £10,000 but we get the amount you owe them knocked down to £5,000, our fees are capped at £1,500 and you will have saved £3,500 by using our services.
4. Deal with court claims
What's involved?
If your solicitor has already sued you and issued a claim in the County Court for you to pay their bills, this may be the only option we can use. If the solicitor has threatened to sue you and refuses to reduce their bill we can also use this option because we will tell them they have to issue a claim if they want to get payment.
We will then issue a defence to the claim and / or a counterclaim and set out the basis of the overcharging. Then, when the matter gets to court the judge can decide if we have a case.
We will need to follow the court process including witness statements, disclosure of documents and preliminary court hearings.
How long does it take?
The length of the process depends on the nature of the court case, but it usually takes around 9 to 12 months.
What will it cost?
We may be able to offer a no-win no-fee service but this is not always available and it depends on the circumstances. You may also have to pay court fees. If you lose the case then you may be ordered to pay court costs and legal fees to the solicitors on top of their original bill but if you win the case you should expect the court to order the solicitor to contribute to your legal costs.
5. Detailed Assessment
What's involved?
If we choose this way to challenge the solicitors' bill then strict time limits apply. If we have not been able to challenge the bill quickly enough we may need to attend court in the first instance and persuade the judge that we have a good reason to justify us proceeding. In some circumstances the delay may mean it is not possible to challenge the bill using this method at all (in which case we have to look at one of the other methods).
If we don't need a judge's permission, or indeed if we obtain it, then the next step is for the solicitor to itemise their bill section by section and item by item of each aspect of the work they have done.
We can then challenge each part of the bill line by line and explain why and where the solicitor has overcharged you.
There is scope for negotiation, but then a court hearing can take place where a judge decides what the correct bill should be.
How long does it take?
This process usually takes from around 6 to 12 months depending on the court involved and the amount of the bill.
What will it cost?
We can usually offer this on a no-win no-fee basis, but you would have to pay any court fees and expenses involved in the court hearings, so that is around £1,000 or so over the course of the case. If the bill is reduced by 20% from what the solicitor's bill was the court will order the solicitors to pay you the legal costs involved in the Detailed Assessment (including our fees). If you do not achieve 20% reduction, then the solicitors costs of the assessment are added on to their bill. We would give you full advice along the way of the likely arguments that they and we would use in court and what we think the likely outcome will be.
What to do now?
If you'd like to discuss the services we offer, and how we can help, please contact us. There's no charge for making an enquiry and the quicker you contact us, the quicker we may be able to help!
An indication of the steps involved, and the fees that we would charge if you were our client is set out on this page above. Please note that the charges listed are intended to cover the most common types of case that we see. If you came to us with an out of the ordinary case, it could be that we would not be able to act for your for the fees set out above. However, we would discuss this with you first, and you would have the opportunity to decide whether you wished to go ahead or not. Fees set out above are not fixed price quotes. They include VAT but any fees that are charges by third parties (such as the court) are subject to change, and the amount you need to pay is the whatever they charge when you instruct us to proceed.
In some cases and in some situations a court may order you to pay costs to the "other side" in a case. Usually (but not always) this happens if you "lose" your case and the other side "wins", or sometimes if a settlement offer is made it can happen if you don't take the settlement but a judge later thinks you should have done. These costs would be broadly similar to the costs you incur, but are often higher as our costs tend to be lower as we work more efficiently for you and aim to keep our costs low. They are not included in the breakdowns above.
Whilst we're happy to talk through what we can do to help, we won't be able to give legal advice until you formally become our client and you have signed the Client Care Pack we will send to you.
We can offer help in a number of different way, whether that's from just providing you with written advice, helping with one step or stage of your case, or handling the whole case for you from start to finish. We will help in whatever way best suits you!