PIO Legal Services Ltd
(Solicitors)
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.
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.
Hourly Rate
Depending on the nature of your matter, we may charge at an hourly rate.
Our hourly rate is £180.00 (inclusive of VAT).
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, 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.
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.