There are four possible ways of funding your claim with us, whether it be for personal injury or any other dispute:
Private Funding
You may fund your case using your own private funds and paying monies out as the claim proceeds.
If you are successful with your case, then you should recover monies from your opponent. If you are unsuccessful in your case, you will not recover monies spent unless you have after the event insurance and have as part of that cover for your own costs (see below under ‘No Win No Fee’).
Legal Expenses Insurance
You may have legal expenses insurance which is often attached to a home or motor insurance policy.
Legal expenses insurance can be attached to buildings insurance which can cover current tenants of property and can also be found with some credit cards.
We ask if you could kindly bring in any insurance documents in order for us to check whether you are have access to legal expenses insurance.
If your policy does extend to legal expenses insurance, and covers the claim you wish to bring, then if you are unsuccessful in your case, the policy should pay your costs.
Trade Union Funding
If you are a member of a trade union, you may be entitled to funding through your trade union. Please let us have details of your membership and entitlement to costs (if applicable) so that we can advise you as to whether you are entitled to trade union funding.
‘No Win No Fee’
A ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement is another name for a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA).
One of the most important features of a ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement is that if you do not succeed in your claim, then you will not be liable to this firm for our fees.
Do I have to pay my opponent’s fees if I lose?
Although you might not have to pay our firm’s fees if you lose, you would be personally responsible for payment of your opponent’s costs and expenses. For this reason we always try to offer the ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement in conjunction with an insurance policy so that you will not incur personal liability for your opponent’s costs should the claim fail. This means that you will not have to pay any fees if you lose and you will therefore be able to pursue your claim with a considerable degree of security.
This insurance policy is known as after the event insurance. If you win, the insurance premium should be paid by your opponent. If you lose, the insurance policy may be self-funding and may pay for itself. We can assist with arrangements for this type of insurance and advise you on how much cover it provides you against your opponent’s costs.
The circumstances in which you may have to pay our fees
There are instances where you may be responsible for our fees. For example:
- In the unlikely event that you should wish to end the ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement, you will have an obligation to pay our basic costs, unless we agree to await the outcome of your claim.
- You may also be responsible for some of our fees if you win. This situation may arise if we cannot recover all of our costs from the opponent. However, in the event of a successful outcome, we would hope you will recover most if not all of our costs from your opponent.
Our costs are made up of basic costs and a success fee.
This success fee is charged as a percentage of our firm’s basic costs and reflects a number of factors, principally, the degree of risk that we have undertaken in entering into this ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement. For some types of case, such as road traffic accidents, the success fee is fixed; for most others, the solicitor must calculate it (although this is subject to possible amendment by a Judge).
No success fee is payable in the event of an unsuccessful outcome.
If your claim falls within the fixed fee or predictable cost schemes and it is successful, then your minimum responsibility for our fees will be the amount of costs payable by the losing party under those schemes.
Will I have to pay out any monies before the conclusion of the claim?
We may ask you to pay for disbursements as your claim proceeds. In a claim for personal injuries, disbursements are likely to include but are not limited to the following expenses:
- GP and Hospital Records
- Experts Medical Report
- Counsel’s fees
- Court fees
These expenses should be recovered from the opponent in the event of a successful outcome of the claim. In the event of an unsuccessful outcome, these disbursements may be covered by the insurance policy taken out in your name.
If you are unable to provide monies for these disbursements, we may be able to make alternative arrangements.
You may wish to view the new model ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreement for personal injury cases and general information for clients on ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreements.
Please contact our Ruth Brown or Colin Byford on 01702 349971 or by email at ckb@chennellssolicitors.co.uk who will be pleased to discuss ‘No Win No Fee’ Agreements further.