Funding your claim
We offer a range of funding options, which vary according to the type of dispute and strength of your claim.
“No Win, No Fee” or Conditional Fee Agreement (“CFA”)
Under the terms of a CFA, you do not pay our legal fees if we lose, but instead you will be responsible to pay our fees if you win your case. A “win” also includes a settlement, and we will agree what a “win” means with you in your case.
Generally, if we won or settled your claim the other party can be asked to reimburse or pay your legal costs. If this is not possible, generally the legal costs owed by you would be paid from the settlement or court award made.
In addition to your legal costs, there is also an extra charge applied on a CFA called a “success fee.” A success fee is a percentage increase on our costs determined by a risk assessment carried out at the outset of your claim. The law does not allow recovery of success fees from the opponent, and you will be liable to pay this if you “win” your claim. For example, if our costs were £1,000 and a 50% success fee is agreed, the total costs would be £1,500.
If there is a shortfall between your legal costs and how much we recover from the other side in the event of a “win”, then you will be liable to pay us the shortfall.
It is sometimes possible to recover a success fee in certain claims, such as claims for reasonable financial provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 as a future debt, as established in the case of Hirachand v Hirachand [2021] EWCA Civ 1498 and Bullock v Denton (our team acted for the successful party in the latter case). If this argument is successful the estate will pay the success fee.
Example:
We settle your claim for £100,000 and the other party also agrees to pay your legal costs on top with the actual amount to be agreed or decided by a judge. In this example, the legal costs are £30,000. The success fee is 50%, which equates to £15,000 on top.
Under the court rules, a party that agrees to pay the costs can ask a Judge to decide the actual amount as not all costs are recoverable. In this example, the judge says £25,000 of your costs are to be paid by the other side, leaving a shortfall of £5,000. You would be liable to pay the shortfall of £5,000 plus the £15,000 success fee, a total of £20,000.
Therefore, from the £100,000 settlement, you would receive £80,000.
Please note, you are liable to pay your opponent’s legal fees if you lose your claim. Our CFA cannot protect you against this. Your liability to pay your opponent’s legal fees only arises if court proceedings are started – we aim to resolve most claims without going to court. We will never issue court proceedings without your agreement and this risk is something we discuss in detail.
There is insurance, called After The Event Insurance (“ATE”), that can be taken out for payment of your opponent’s legal fees in the event you lose your claim and are ordered to pay your opponent’s legal fees. We will discuss the appropriate stage to obtain ATE with you.
You would remain liable for payment of any third party expenses called disbursements during your claim such as court fees and mediator fees as your matter progresses. These would form part of your legal costs that we seek to recover from your opponent.
Deferred Fee or Payment on Conclusion (“POC”)
It is possible to defer payment of our fees in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will not receive payment of our legal fees (although you will be kept updated as to what these are as your matter progresses), until a defined point in your claim, such as you winning your claim or an agreed settlement.
Our fees are uplifted by a certain percentage, dependant on the type of case to reflect the fact that we are delaying receiving payment for work that we have carried out.
You remain liable to pay your opponent’s legal fees if you lose your claim. Your liability to pay your opponent’s legal fees only arises if court proceedings are started. We will never issue court proceedings without your agreement.
You would remain liable for payment of disbursements (expenses) such as court fees and mediator fees as your matter progresses. These would form part of your legal costs that we seek to recover from your opponent.
The benefit of this funding is that you can obtain legal advice and the cost is often lower than a CFA or no win no fee agreement. This funding type is suitable when you already have some interest in a Trust or estate and need help to resolve a dispute so the funds then become available.
Fixed Fee
We are sometimes able to offer a fixed fee. This is a fee which is paid upfront and will cover the agreed work.
For example, we can investigate the validity of a Will for a fixed fee. The investigations will include:
- Obtaining the current Will and Will file;
- Obtaining any previous Wills and Will files;
- Obtaining and considering the deceased’s medical records;
- Obtaining a Larke v Nugus statement from the Will write if appropriate;
- Contacting the Will witnesses if appropriate; and
- Contacting relevant witnesses if appropriate.
We will consider the evidence obtained and assess whether we consider you are likely to succeed in a challenge to the validity of a Will. It is possible that if we do consider your claim is likely to succeed, we will offer to carry out any further work on a “no win, no fee” agreement (a Conditional Fee Agreement).
Privately Paying
We also work with many clients who pay invoices for our work at regular intervals during the course of their claim. In such cases, we require a payment of some of our costs before we begin work, and we will render regular invoices to our client for work carried out.
Hybrid Funding
It is not unusual for us to offer a hybrid funding arrangement to a client, for example, where we carry out a fixed fee investigation, and then change to a Conditional Fee Agreement once investigations are complete. Alternatively, we may begin to work for a client under the terms of a Conditional Fee Agreement but then change to a Payment on Conclusion basis if it is more appropriate to do so.
We will consider all funding options when we discuss your enquiry with you and offer what is the most suitable in the circumstances. Our team aims to be as flexible as possible on funding and we are always happy to discuss how to fund a claim during a free initial call.
