We make the charges for our wide range of legal services as transparent and as certain as possible.
1. Generally:
- If you join our PURPLE LEGAL scheme, when you book a SolicitorSlot we will try to answer any enquiries that you have, under the terms of that scheme. All SolicitorSlots are free of charge.
- Whilst we try to keep our fees keen, we are usually dealing with the most significant issue in someone's life. Cutting costs and therefore corners is not how we deal with such things. We prefer to charge a reasonable fee that enables us to offer a great service - every lawyer every time.
- You will not be liable to us for any fees until we have given you a fee quote and you have accepted it.
- If we can give a fixed or capped fee, in the absence of any variation in the work and further agreement between us, the initial fee will always apply.
- If we have to charge on a time-spent basis, we will give you an estimate of the overall cost and will update that regularly.
- We tell you as best we can of any "out of pocket" expenses that you will incur in addition to our fees.
- In all cases, we set out all costs aspects and implications at the outset, in far more detail than we are able to do here.
2. More specifically:
In all areas of work, we give you chapter and verse on costs at the outset and you are never liable to us for any legal fees until we have given you a fee quote and you have agreed it. We cover many different areas of work, many of which have their own charging structures and opportunities.
Depending on the work that we are doing for you, we may be able to give you a fixed or (even better) a capped fee (so it could be lower but will not be higher than the fee we quote). Some of our services, such as where we help you to get your affairs in order (by setting up a will and a Power of Attorney for you under our Portfolio service) or where we are helping you to avoid disqualification from driving, actually come with a fixed-price "menu".
In other areas of work, we offer a fixed price for particular pieces of work (such as where we act for you where you are buying or selling a property or where you ask us to prepare a particular contract or act for you in a particular transaction or situation), perhaps with a menu of additional services to cover any unforeseen developments that occur.
In other areas, fixed or capped fees are not available and instead we charge on a time-spent basis - for example, where you ask us to act for you in a long-running dispute. In such cases, we allocate the case to a lawyer of appropriate seniority. They record the time they spend on the case and invoice you each month for their work during the month. We give you a costs estimate at the outset and then update that every quarter as estimates can go up or down as the case progresses.
In yet other areas of work we may be able to take your case on on a "No win, no fee" basis so you pay no legal fees.
We also explore with you whether you are able to get any third party (such as via your household or motoring insurance policies or via any credit card or bank account benefit that you have) to cover your legal costs and expenses, and we explore too what protection we can secure for you to cover you against any risk of you being liable to pay someone else's legal costs.
Hopefully you can see from all of this that there are a number of ways to fund the legal work that you need doing, that we are transparent and flexible, and that you should feel free to talk through a case with us on a "no obligation" basis to get a better idea of what our fees would be. To do this, all you have to do is click on "Please contact me now" or call us on 0845 567 5000.