No win no fee

BethanyD

There are a few fundamental points you raise in this post which need addressing:-

1. Hampson Hughes are a (large) law firm and as such would not be allowed to contact your friends directly - lawyers are not allowed to tout for busines.
2. In the more likely event that that a Claims Mangement Company contacted your friends (as a cold call) this is illegal and against their Regulator's rules.
3. If your friends' claim pre-dated April 2013 then HH would have taken out an ATE insurance policy to cover both adverse costs and disbursements (the Doctor's and Barrister's fees) if the case was not successful.
4. Your friends have seemingly made a fraudulent claim (albeit aided by the CMC) which invalidates any insurance cover - not a good place to be!

As a footnote, post-April 2013 Government legislation has made it the responsibility of the consumer to pay for ATE insurance and pay up to 25%of their compensation award to the solicitors running the case.


This is because insurers now only pay solicitors £500 in fees as opposed to £1300 before April.


As a result, the numbers of people claiming has reduced - unfortunately motor insurance premiums do not seem to have fallen as was promised.


I'm sure MSE can take up the god fight andright this wrong.

tilly4597 wrote: »

not sure if this is the right forum but I will try and keep it as simple as possible. My friends husband was involved in a car accident, no-one was too badly hurt and it was the other parties fault. Husband never put in a claim. 18 months on and a no win no fee company rang him and said he would have grounds to peruse a claim through them. He told them although he jerked his neck it was only a couple of days of discomfort and so never thought it necessary to take things further. This company 'persuaded' him to let them start a claim for him. He went to see their doctor and was told yes he could claim. 9 months later this company decided through advise from their barrister it would not be in their interest to continue as their chance of success was less than 50%. Friends husband then receive a bill from them for £9k, when they queried this they were told that in the small print they did advise if unsuccessful costs would occur. There has now been a dispute between the parties and now they have received a bill for £17k!!! Which included 2 x £650 for doctor appointment, even though he only went once! £5,000 for their success fee! A the end of all the paperwork it says words to the effect, if they dispute this then they will seek further costs from them. My friend has seeked legal advise but will need to pay a few thousand to even get the case looked at! Can a no win no fee company really do this, if so a warning needs sending out. Afterall they contacted him!! Any advice would be much appreciated as I hate to see the two of them so upset. To pay £17k they would need to remortgage their house! Why didn't they stop the claim as soon as they realised it was heading no where rather than continuing for all these months!

tilly4597

I will check with her as to who actually phoned. It was pre April 2013

fluffnutter

He should just ignore them - they'll never be able to argue in court that he owes them any money. Lesson learnt though - perhaps he'll not be so greedy in future.

halibut2209

So, long version short.

Company says they will take the case
Company then decides not to
Company then want to charge £17,000

Am I missing something?

Buzby

Sounds about right.. It's a win-win for the legal firm.

Irrespective of the moral issue - the T&C's agreed are the defining arbiter. They will always suggest the positive result, but the terms will certainly explain the issues of who pays what, when.

halibut2209

If that's the case, then you won't get a clearer example of an unfair term. They can arbitrarily refuse to proceed and then charge? Poppycock.

InsideInsurance

halibut2209 wrote: »

If that's the case, then you won't get a clearer example of an unfair term. They can arbitrarily refuse to proceed and then charge? Poppycock.

It is not really arbitrarily when there is an allegation of fraud.

Ultimately that is the part to challenge. When was the claim reported to the insurers? If it was on the day of the incident then not knowing about a mild whiplash is understandable, if it was reported a week after it then it isnt. This would also have to be taken in context of the doctors report and if it states there was injury or not - though for an already cleared up case of a few days of pain then its unlikely the dr will do anything other than confirm it.

The second part to check is the costs, the OP will have been given a costing up front both in terms of hourly rate and estimated total cost. It will not have been £17k for a mild whiplash and so a cost breakdown and justification for the overrun should be sort.

fluffnutter

Buzby wrote: »

Sounds about right.. It's a win-win for the legal firm.

Irrespective of the moral issue - the T&C's agreed are the defining arbiter. They will always suggest the positive result, but the terms will certainly explain the issues of who pays what, when.

And I very much doubt that they can successfully argue that they've genuinely incurred costs of £17K. For a case that didn't proceed. So that's seventeen thousand pounds for a few letters, a bit of admin and 10 minutes of a doctor's time. They can't simply include a charge of £5K as some spurious 'success fee'. It's nonsense. The OP's friend should sit tight and let them argue that one in court.

It's possible that some sort of payment is appropriate but 17 grand. Yeah right.

tilly4597

Sorry I have boobed a bit. It's not HH who are billing her for costs. Its the other sides solicitor who is claiming their costs back.
And just to verify he had sore neck and headache 1 - 2 days after the accident which lasted 2 - 3 weeks. When the other side sols phoned him because he was not going to persue a claim he said he was not inujred. Then he gets the phone call to say he would have a claim, he explained to them that he had already stated to other side he was not injured due to reasons given, but someone from CMC/HH said tell them you were injured for a longer period!

sorry for the confusement! ps the doctors report did confirm the injuries.

Hintza

tilly4597 wrote: »

Sorry I have boobed a bit. It's not HH who are billing her for costs. Its the other sides solicitor who is claiming their costs back.
And just to verify he had sore neck and headache 1 - 2 days after the accident which lasted 2 - 3 weeks. When the other side sols phoned him because he was not going to persue a claim he said he was not inujred. Then he gets the phone call to say he would have a claim, he explained to them that he had already stated to other side he was not injured due to reasons given, but someone from CMC/HH said tell them you were injured for a longer period!

sorry for the confusement! ps the doctors report did confirm the injuries.

I think this in general is excellent news, it is about time insurers fought back. My insurance was affected by a bogus whiplash claim and I felt at the time the system was wrong.

Funny how his injuries weren't that bad 18 months ago. If you were suffering headaches for 2-3 weeks after an accident the claim would have been in over a year ago.