Check My Legal Fees News
Full legal fees refund for former client of National Accident Law Limited
"Fantastic work by the team at Checkmylegalfees, who secured for me a full refund of the legal fees deducted from my compensation. The team were professional and approachable throughout and answered all of my questions. I was impressed with the overall level of service and have no hesitation in recommending them."
Our client. 23/03/21, on receiving his refund
A former Client of personal injury law firm National Accident Law Limited received a full refund of over £4,000.00 on the legal fees that was deducted from his compensation award.
Our Client was awarded £13,000 in compensation following a road traffic accident that occurred on 10th March 2017, however his Solicitors, based in Kettering, deducted £4550.00 from his compensation for "unrecovered costs" and a "success fee".
His Solicitor, National Accident Law Limited, are part of the NAHL Group PLC, which include powerhouse brand National Accident Helpline. National Accident Helpline, who have spent more than £200 million in marketing in the last 20 years, describe themselves as "the most trusted brand", their 2017 campaign heavily featuring the slogan "when it's wrong, make it right".
Our Client, based in Uxbridge, contacted us in December 2020 with concerns that he may have been overcharged in relation to the fees deducted and instructed us to handle the case on his behalf. He provided us with a "final statute bill" that he had been given by National Accident Law Limited on 14th October 2020 shortly after his claim settled, which confirmed that their basic costs were £1,121.46 inc VAT, plus a success fee amounting to £3,221.34.
On 19th January we received notification from Kain Knight Costs Lawyers that they had been instructed to deal with the matter on behalf of National Accident Law. Kain Knight then delivered a completely different bill dated 26th January 2021, in which the basic costs were now claimed at £6,972.30 inc VAT (an increase of £5,850.84), with a success fee of £3,250.00 inc VAT (an increase of £28.66). This was strikingly different to the original bill, and with no explanation for the differences, or even the need for a second bill.
On behalf of our Client, we wrote to Kain Knight outlining our initial concerns with the fees deducted, specifically regarding which bill should be treated as their "final statute bill", given there were now two versions of the document and asked them to explain the alarming difference in profit costs claimed.
We also detailed concerns that our Client told us he had not been sent a copy of the terms and conditions / retainer documentation up until the point of settlement of his claim. We set out that our instructions that our client was told verbally that the success fee reflected the risk involved in his claim, whereas the written documentation said that it was set at 100% (the very maximum allowable under the law) "without reference to the risks of your claim" and "so that we can offer a high standard of service" . Further, we set out the fact that an effective success fee of 46% could not realistically applied to our Client's case, as liability was never in doubt.
By reply, we received notification that National Accident Law had put forward an offer to refund our Client the full deducted legal fees back to our Client.
Our Client subsequently accepted this offer to bring the matter to a swift conclusion.
