Services and Charges

In this section we provide you with details on the following:

• How we will deal with your claim
• Our service and timings
• Our Charges
• How to complain

How we will deal with your claim

After you contact us, we will send you an agreement to sign on-line which will explain how we will act on your behalf. On receipt of that signed instruction, we will write to the bank or financial company allowing it 8 weeks to confirm you have a claim. We may need documentary evidence of your existing  or completed PPI claim, and we will contact you to ask for this. It is not possible for you to have more than one organisation acting on your behalf to claim your compensation. If you have already instructed anyone else, please contact us immediately.

Your claim will be dealt with by our experienced team, and Richard Gilbert, Head of Litigation qualified for more than ten years as a Solicitor, will have responsibility for the overall supervision of your claim.

The service we provide

The service we will provide to you will include the following:

• We will review your claim regularly.
• We will advise you of any changes in the law.
• We will advise you of any circumstances and risks of which we are aware that could affect the outcome of your claim.
• We will issue court proceedings on your behalf whenever necessary. We will not delay your claim by seeking your prior approval but will always keep you promptly advised.

The Timing of your case

After allowing the financial institution 8 weeks to respond to our initial complaint. We estimate your case will take between 8 and 16 weeks to conclude if court proceedings are not required. If we do need to issue legal proceedings to force the bank to pay you, your claim will be subject to the court timetable which can mean it will take up to 9 months to conclude. This is however completely dependent on your specific case and the responses we receive.

PPI Solicitor Charges

We agree to act for you on a Damages Based Agreement (DBA).  Under this agreement we will not charge you anything if you do not receive any compensation. If, however we recover any compensation for you, our charges are a maximum of:

1. A contingency fee of 15% plus VAT of the total amount you are compensated if the case is settled without the need for legal proceedings
2. Should legal proceedings be required, then our fee will rise to 35% plus VAT of the total amount you are compensated PLUS the cost of After the Event Insurance of £180 which will protect you from any legal costs if your claim is unsuccessful at court. We may also be required to incur the cost of a forensic accounts report to be able to quantify your claim which will not exceed £250 + VAT. We will look to recover this cost from the financial institution but, in the event that this sum is not recovered, we would add this disbursement to our charges if we are successful in recovering compensation for you.
3. If legal proceedings are issued and we recover legal costs from the financial institution, we will pass these on to you. If we recover any disbursements (the money we have laid out on your behalf) such as a court fee, we will be entitled to keep these payments.
4. We do not make any separate charge for sending you your compensation by electronic bank transfer to a UK bank but if you require a cheque, or need the money transferred to an overseas account, then we will incur additional bank charges, and we will therefore make an additional charge to you as follows:
   
   Payment to you by cheque: £4.80 inclusive of VAT
   Payment to a bank outside the UK: £20.40 inclusive of VAT 

   (in the below we refer to a) to d) above as “Our Guaranteed Charges”).

   We will bill you for our charges when we send you your compensation, and we will deduct those charges from the money we send you.

   NB. We are also legally required to let you have an estimate of our charges, and we will notify you if our estimate changes.  We estimate that if proceedings are issued, then our costs will be around £1,200, and that without proceedings, our costs will be around £200, but once again this formal notification has little relevance to you because you will never have to pay us more than Our Guaranteed Charges.
   
   We confirm that:

• We will never charge you more than the sums set out in a) to d) above.
• If we do not recover any compensation for you, then there will be nothing whatsoever for you to pay.
• Whatever happens, there will never be an outcome in which our charges exceed the compensation we recover for you.
   

• Please note that it is not permissible for you to have more than one organisation acting on your behalf to claim your compensation. If we carry out work on your behalf but we cannot recover your compensation because you have also instructed another organisation to do so, you will be liable to pay us items a) and b) of our Guaranteed Charges.

  
  Complaint handling

  This firm is committed to high quality legal advice and client care, however if at any point you are unhappy or concerned with any aspect of the service we have provided for you, or about any charges we make, then please contact Richard Gilbert (our Head of Litigation) on Tel: 0203 198 8026, or by e-mail (Richard@fairplane.co.uk) or by post to our office.

  We have ten weeks to consider your complaint, but if we have not resolved it within that time or you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman, (Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ www.legalombudsman.org.uk E-mail - enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk Tel: 0300 555 0333) to consider the complaint.

  The Legal Ombudsman will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

  Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first.

  Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).

  The Solicitors Regulation Authority can also help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

  In addition, you have the right to challenge or complain about our bill, and you have the right to apply for assessment of our bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 but please note that you will be liable to pay interest on any bill which is unpaid for more than 30 days.

  For more information about how we deal with your complaint, please go to  
  

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