East Sussex & Kent
Our Fees
We aim to make sure you have the information that you need to make an informed choice of legal services provider, including understanding what the costs may be.
We are required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to publish information on the prices we charge for certain services that we offer including Residential Conveyancing.
Except in the case of Legal Aid, we will provide an estimate of our legal costs at the outset of your matter.
This will be based on the information we have at the time and will include the likely costs including a break down of our charges, VAT, and those payments we believe we are going to have to make to others (known as disbursements).
This may be an agreed fixed fee, or a realistic estimate, or a forecast of the likely costs bracket if we cannot be more specific.
It is only possible to give an estimate of our charges when we’ve spoken with you and understood the precise work you want us to carry out.
For a Residential Conveyancing matter, please click here to be redirected to our fee's calculator.
Hourly Rate
Depending on the nature of your matter, we may charge at an hourly rate.
Our hourly charges vary between different levels of our staff on the basis of their qualification and experience.
The full hourly rates are:
Level 1 Partners and Senior Solicitors £261.00
Level 2 Assistant Solicitors/Legal Executive £218.00
over 4 years’ experience
Level 3 Assistant Solicitors/Legal Executive £178.00
under 4 years’ experience
Level 4 Trainee Solicitor/Legal Executive £126.00
If we are charging at an hourly rate, we will supply you with a clear explanation of the length of time that we think the matter will take.
You are entitled to set an upper limit to the level of costs that you are prepared to incur.
Please note however that when you contact us to discuss instructing us for a specific legal matter we reserve the right to revise these rates to reflect the complexity, value or urgency of the matter, and our resources to accept your instructions.
Fixed Fee
For some matters, most commonly Conveyancing, charging at an hourly rate is not appropriate and instead we charge a Fixed Fee.
For a Fixed Fee matter, our final invoice does not depend on the hours worked, it depends on specific details of the matter generally available at the beginning. For example in conveyancing, the purchase price of a property,
This means the initial estimate of our legal fees will, barring unexpected complications*, accurately reflect our final invoice. Therefore, you should have a better understanding of the total legal fees for, say, purchasing a property before commiting to anything.
This does not apply to disbursements, which are costs we pay to other people on your behalf and therefore we cannot always predict.
*If there are unexpected complications, then we may have to start charging at an hourly rate. We will always request your permission before doing so.
Legal Aid
We are a Legal Aid accredited firm for Housing and Family matters.
Whether Legal Aid will be available for your matter depends on your financial circumstances and the type of matter.
Legal Aid is available for the following types of matter:
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Housing matters where you are risk of becoming homeless
If your matter falls into the above categories, then we can conduct an assessment of your finances to determine if you are eligible for Legal Aid.
Even if you are eligible for Legal Aid, you may still be required to pay some costs upfront or pay back some of the costs if you win damages in your case.
For further information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/legal-aid
Not satisfied with an invoice you have received?
If you are not satisfied with the amount of we have charged, you have the right to ask us to obtain a remuneration certificate from the Law Society.
The certificate will either say that our fee is fair and reasonable, or it will substitute a lower fee.
If you wish us to obtain a certificate you must ask us to do so within a month of receiving our invoice.
We may charge interest on unpaid bills and we will do so at the rate payable on judgment debts, from one month after delivery of our bill.
If you ask us to obtain a remuneration certificate, then unless we already hold the money to cover these, you must first pay
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half our fees shown in the bill;
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all the VAT shown in the bill;
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all the expenses we have incurred shown in the bill-sometimes called paid “disbursements”
However, you may ask the Law Society(at 8 Dormer Place, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 5AE)to waive these requirements so that you do not have to pay anything for the time being. You would have to show exceptional circumstances apply in your case.
Your rights are set out more fully in the Solicitors (Non-Contentious Business) Remunerations Order 1994.
You may be entitled to have your charges reviewed by the court (this is called ‘assessment’). The procedure is different from the remuneration certificate procedure and it is set out in ss70,71 and 72 of the Solicitors Act 1974.