Solicitors - notice of right to cancel

sam123455

Today I signed three contracts with a solicitors firm to help me with an injury claim for a motor accident. 

After signing the documents I read the reviews and quickly realised this is not a trust worthy company and they say they do ‘no win no fee’ and then proceed to charge fees after losing the case. 

The contracts in question are Bridging Agreement, Contingency Fee Agreement and Conditional Fee Agreement.

I signed them at around midday 17/02/25. I have emails the solicitor a notice of right to cancel also on 17/02/25 and will proceed to send them the same in writing as well to cover myself as best I can. 

I am very worried they will charge me for ‘work’ they have conducted before the cancellation period as they sneakily made me sign the following as part of the contract: 

“Once we have started work on your file, you may be charged if you cancel your instructions. If you request us to begin working for you within the cancellation period, you must pay us an amount which is proportion to the work done until you have communicated to us your cancellation of the contract. If you would like us to commence work on your file within the next 14 days, please confirm accordingly by accepting these terms by signing below. If we complete the work before the end of the cancellation period you will lose the right to cancel.”

I am hoping because I have cancelled on the same day they won’t charge me but if they try to charge me for half a days work on the case then what should I do? Am I protected because I have cancelled technically on the same day? Should I contact them in any other way or explicitly say anything to help cover me? 

The reviews online are terrible and say they charge people even if they cancel in the 14 days and someone has gone to court over it. 

Any information is appreciated. 

Thanks

DullGreyGuy

Was this signed in person at their offices or online or....?

Assuming it was remote then you have a statutory right to cancel a service within the first 14 days. Normally the service cannot start in the first 14 days unless you have explicitly agreed for it to do so. You dont loose your cooling off rights but they are entitled to bill you for the services rendered up until the point the cancellation is received. 

The fact it is the same day makes no difference, other than they'd be hard pressed to explain how they managed to run 300 billable hours, so if they have done 2 hours work between you signing and then cancelling then they are entitled to be paid for those 2 hours, likewise if they have incurred any non-refundable costs. 

Always do your research before buying and I'd highly recommend stop doing your research after you've bought 

sam123455

It was signed remotely so cooling off period applies. 

If they do hit me with a bill, do they need to prove to me how many hours and what work they are charging me for and what the non refundable costs are? 

Do I have an argument in court to not pay these costs in any way or is it likely I will have to pay them even though it’s basically a scam? 

TooManyPoints

I'm not trying to be critical, but I'm just interested to understand how you consider this to be a scam. Did they somehow conceal the paragraph you quoted so that you were unable to read it before you signed?

DullGreyGuy

sam123455 said:

It was signed remotely so cooling off period applies. 

If they do hit me with a bill, do they need to prove to me how many hours and what work they are charging me for and what the non refundable costs are? 

Do I have an argument in court to not pay these costs in any way or is it likely I will have to pay them even though it’s basically a scam? 

Just remember that the more you ask them the more you are potentially adding to your bill, a basic query most likely wouldn't be billed for but excessive questions or asking them to provide a photo of the file they created or other such silliness may result in a revised bill being issued including the extra time spent. 

You'd ask for the work time breakdown... fee earners capture their time in blocks of 5-15 minutes and so the timesheet will say 30 minutes to setup standard file, 15 minutes to read particulars, 10 minutes for email from ABC etc. The bigger the block they charge in the more detail thats lost because if they receive a short email and reply to it all within the 15 minute block there will just be one block recorded and the reply most likely won't be mentioned. 


It's in no way a scam, you signed paperwork saying you wanted them to start straight away and they simply followed your instruction. Most people dont cancel and are normally very pleased that they see movement straight away rather than the solicitor saying they cannot respond to the court summons etc for 14 days because of the statutory cooling off period. 

sam123455

@TooManyPoints you’re right it’s not a ‘scam’ for such. I understand that it’s my fault for signing the paperwork without doing proper research. The reason it felt like a scam was because I was not verbally informed that I would have to pay any fees or about the paragraph quotes. The assistant called me and rushed me to sign the document on the phone with him before I had properly read it all (I know it’s my fault). 

@DullGreyGuy thank you for your help. I will not request anything until / if a bill does arrive on my doorstep. If the bill is reasonable then I will pay it but if it’s unreasonable such as multiple hours of time when it’s just a simple injury claim and they only had 4 hours of a working day between when I signed and when I issued a notice of cancellation, I will then not be happy at all and could potentially get legal ombudsman involved. I would also like for them to respond to my notice of cancellation but I assume they won’t (heard nothing yet). 

I guess I will have to wait and see if they bill me and if it’s realistic of not. 

MEM62

@sam123455 Oh dear, you appear to have signed up with a no-win-no-fee outfit.  These are the bottom feeders of the legal world and best avoided.  If you have a genuine claim you would be better off using a real lawyer.  

sam123455

@MEM62 yeah it’s not clever is it. Because I issued the notice of right to cancel on the same day as signing (period is 14 days), have I at least saved myself paying ridiculous fees? 

Do you expect I will still have a huge bill turn up at my door regardless of cancelling it quickly? 

DullGreyGuy

MEM62 said:

@sam123455 Oh dear, you appear to have signed up with a no-win-no-fee outfit.  These are the bottom feeders of the legal world and best avoided.  If you have a genuine claim you would be better off using a real lawyer.  

Other than many of the major law firms that do non-corporate work do offer conditional funding arrangements so the top and the bottom use the model since legal aid was scrapped for this type of work. The bottom feeders are not the lawyers that work on a no win, no fee basis but the ambulance chasers who are the feeders into the law firms, 


The problem with a "real lawyer" is their fees which in modest personal injury cases are either non-recoverable or only a tiny percentage of it is. The best "real lawyer" I used was an equity partner at Linklaters and was £1,500 + VAT per hour. Have him setup a file, discuss the case, send an initial letter of claim and you've already exceed the average personal injury payout inc the fast track fixed cost allowance. 

Okell

MEM62 said:

@sam123455 Oh dear, you appear to have signed up with a no-win-no-fee outfit.  These are the bottom feeders of the legal world and best avoided.  If you have a genuine claim you would be better off using a real lawyer.  

I think you've misunderstood how legal services are now provided in this country.

Access to the law by anything other than a no win no fee lawyer is unaffordable for the vast majority of people in this country - even middle class people on reasonable incomes.

This OP is claiming for personal injury arising from a motor accident.  If he didn't have access to a NWNF firm I very much doubt that he would have deep enough pockets to fund a PI claim himself with fees and associated medical expenses.

If you want to do away with NWNF firms - who are proper lawyers by the way - you are effectively putting things like PI claims out of the reach of ordinary people.

I agree with DGG that it's ambulance chasers (and I would add accident claim management companies) who are the real bottom feeders

MEM62

@DullGreyGuy @Okell
Your points are interesting and something that I did no know.  

My view on this is probably tainted by the fact that I have had to deal with the ambulance chaser type NWNF firms on several occasions when spurious claims have been made against my employer.  The majority of the communication I received were copy/paste letters sent by individuals that I am convinced were not even legally trained.  It was usually the case that, as soon as these guys realised that a case would be defended and that we were not going to roll over they quickly dropped the matter.  All they wanted was easy, slam-dunk cases.  I tend to view all NWNF firm the same.  Perhaps I shouldn't.    

As for a proper lawyer being expensive, they will be you are paying a professional for their expertise.  Litigation is never cheap.