Our fees
How much we charge for our work is a delicate matter and we try to get it right.
We will always provide you with a budget in writing, which depending on the nature of the work to be carried out will be based on one of following systems:
Fixed fee (used for conveyancing, wills and straightforward inheritance work)
Whenever possible we offer you a fixed fee for dealing with the whole of your case (this is normally the case with conveyancing, inheritance and wills). This fee will only be revised if the nature of the work changes substantially (for example, if we discover title problems when dealing with the purchase of a property and you decide to continue with it asking us to resolve the problems before you purchase, in the case of an inheritance when new assets appear during the procedure which where no disclosed when the initial budget was prepared, etc.) during. This would be explained , and we would not continue until you have accepted.
Often it will not be possible, at the outset, to quote a fixed fee for the whole of your case. If this is so then we will try to give you a fixed fee for carrying out a preliminary investigation into the the situation. At the end of that investigation we will advise you generally about the case and the likely cost and timescale involved in dealing with it.
By the hour (used frequently for complex inheritance cases with no will in Spain etc.)
Where the amount of work is impossible to predict we will have to charge you on an hourly basis.
Our hourly rate is presently 220 euro plus V.A.T. an hour . We split each hour into 6 units of 10 minutes and will record our time in these units. Therefore, if a task takes less than ten minutes we will round-up and charge for one unit. This may sound odd but this method of splitting up the hour covers us for the time it takes to switch from one task to another and is a widely used in the legal profession. We will report to you regularly regarding the work performed and time spent and will advise if we consider that you are not making a wise use our our time . (Example 1 : when a lot of questions are asked over an e-mail we may suggest a meeting over Zoom as a more cost efficient way of dealing with the query. Example 2 when we are representing a group (fore example various beneficiaries of an estate to try and have all parties assist the meetings to avoid doubling up on explanations )
Sometimes we can give you a guideline of maximum and minimum fees to expect on a case . We would then not go over that maximum fee with ought advising you first.
Conforming to Law Society guideline (Litigation).
Our litigation work is almost always charged in accordance with the guideline of recommended fees established by the law society of the province where the court case takes place.
Litigation always starts off with a meeting to asses your situation and establish if the court case is worthwhile for you.
In any case this is in most cases, but what will prevail is the budget that we will provide you in writing before taking on the case.
On completion depending on result.
This is not our usual way of establishing our fee, but exceptionally this is a possibility that can be discussed.