Personal Injury claim

SterlingArcher

I have a personal injury claim that has been going on for well over a year that involved soft tissue damage. The no-win no-fee solicitor has said the deffendants have come back with an out of court settlement claim for £1,000, but after their fee and the ATE insurance, the ammount I will receive is £180. Is it me or does this seem obscene?

Aylesbury_Duck

SterlingArcher said:

I have a personal injury claim that has been going on for well over a year that involved soft tissue damage. The no-win no-fee solicitor has said the deffendants have come back with an out of court settlement claim for £1,000, but after their fee and the ATE insurance, the ammount I will receive is £180. Is it me or does this seem obscene?

No idea, because I don't know what terms you agreed to.  What does your contract say about fees and deductions?  Are they fixed, or a percentage?  £820 is a big deduction from an offer of £1,000 but not so much from an offer of £10,000 for example.

Remember that at this stage, it's simply an offer.  You don't have to accept it.

turnitround

When you took on the solicitor he will have had to give you a complete breakdown of all the charges. They have to give you the info about charges straight away and you will have signed to agree to it.  

You dont have to accept the offer but by not doing so you are giving them the go-ahead to do more hours work and up their fee. 

You can google and get a rough estimate of what your claim could be worth as there are set figures for a lot of things.
I have a friend in exactly the same situation, he thinks he is going to get a few thousand. Having looked at his agreement and the scale of charges he will be lucky not to owe them money when it is all finalised as already they are billing for over 40 hours of work.

DullGreyGuy

SterlingArcher said:

I have a personal injury claim that has been going on for well over a year that involved soft tissue damage. The no-win no-fee solicitor has said the deffendants have come back with an out of court settlement claim for £1,000, but after their fee and the ATE insurance, the ammount I will receive is £180. Is it me or does this seem obscene?

This is why you read the paperwork before signing it and spending a year on a claim.

Their fee is capped at 25% and hopefully you understand how much you agreed for the After The Event insurance would be. If the costs are above this then ask the solicitors for a breakdown. 

turnitround

As DullGreyGuy says fee are capped at 25% but if yours is like our friends there are lots of additional charges added to the base fee which all add up. You need to check the paperwork you signed and also make sure they give you a complete breakdown of charges. .

yell_stone

Could the low offer be related to the tariff changes in 2021?

Search for 'whiplash reform programme' or 'government tariff scheme for soft tissue injuries'

TELLIT01

There have been many reports of people actually being out of pocket once all the fees have been paid.  No win, no fee solicitors do need to be regulated to ensure that they cannot take more than x% of the payout to cover all their costs.

Gavin83

You don't have to accept the offer but I think you need to be realistic in how much you'll get if it went to court. Unless you've got a life altering injury the payouts are generally quite low.

I'd also check the paperwork. I expect if you refuse this offer, take it to court and lose (or receive less) then you'd still be liable for the fees, even if this means you'll end up out of pocket.

DullGreyGuy

TELLIT01 said:

There have been many reports of people actually being out of pocket once all the fees have been paid.  No win, no fee solicitors do need to be regulated to ensure that they cannot take more than x% of the payout to cover all their costs.

The x% is to cover their fees, the disbursements (aka costs) are separate and will be on top. Often the most notable is the ATE insurance but there can on occasion be others

Undervalued

Aylesbury_Duck said:

SterlingArcher said:

I have a personal injury claim that has been going on for well over a year that involved soft tissue damage. The no-win no-fee solicitor has said the deffendants have come back with an out of court settlement claim for £1,000, but after their fee and the ATE insurance, the ammount I will receive is £180. Is it me or does this seem obscene?

No idea, because I don't know what terms you agreed to.  What does your contract say about fees and deductions?  Are they fixed, or a percentage?  £820 is a big deduction from an offer of £1,000 but not so much from an offer of £10,000 for example.

Remember that at this stage, it's simply an offer.  You don't have to accept it.

Exactly!

If the OP was getting £9180 I am sure they would be delighted, although the party paying it may well feel that was "obscene"!

The fact that a settlement has been offered doesn't meant the OP would have won in court. They may have done, equally they may not. Rightly or wrongly, large number of cases that could have been successfully defended are settled simply because it is cheaper. Justice? No, not really but that is how it is.