Confused regarding 'no win no fee' agreement.

[confused16]

I am looking in to this for my mum who around 3 years ago had a very small car crash with her neighbor. As far I am aware the Insurance paid out to the neighbor to fix his car and that was the end of that. Since then she has received calls constantly about how could she be owed money etc etc. by certain companies. After telling them over and over again that she wasn't interested as she didn't think she would be able to get anything, one person has told her that she will definitely be able to and that he was absolutely certain of it. A man came round to go through everything with my mum in terms of asking her what exactly happened. After explaining the situation the man repeated back to my mum what was said and asked her to sign for it. At no point did this man go through any terms of conditions with my mum or what would happen if she did not win. After waiting some time, my mum has now received a letter from a solicitors explaining that due to the fact that she has "accepted liability", they will no longer proceed with this claim and have told her she will need to pay them £1750.

I will be looking to speak to the 'Legal Ombudsman' but was curious as to any other options. Any help at all would be much appreciated.

Thank you very much for you time.

[Amethyst]

If your mums insurance paid out to her neighbour after the small bump it sounds like she accepted liability at the beginning and, as you said, it was all sorted and that should have been the end of it.

Your mum will need to get a copy of any agreement and statement she signed with this company that sent someone around to see her - do you have the company name ? Do you know who the solicitors are and who they are acting for ?

[confused16]

I am looking in to this for my mum who around 3 years ago had a very small car crash with her neighbor. As far I am aware the Insurance paid out to the neighbor to fix his car and that was the end of that. Since then she has received calls constantly about how could she be owed money etc etc. by certain companies. After telling them over and over again that she wasn't interested as she didn't think she would be able to get anything, one person has told her that she will definitely be able to and that he was absolutely certain of it. A man came round to go through everything with my mum in terms of asking her what exactly happened. After explaining the situation the man repeated back to my mum what was said and asked her to sign for it. At no point did this man go through any terms of conditions with my mum or what would happen if she did not win. After waiting some time, my mum has now received a letter from a solicitors explaining that due to the fact that she has "accepted liability", they will no longer proceed with this claim and have told her she will need to pay them £1750.

I will be looking to speak to the 'Legal Ombudsman' but was curious as to any other options. Any help at all would be much appreciated.

Thank you very much for you time.

Thank you very much for your fast reply. I will get the details tomorrow from my mum and post it tomorrow to let you know. Thanks again.

[Amethyst]

If you can get copies that would be great - or just this solicitors letter if that's all she has - and maybe any details at all of the company/person that visited her.

Thinking really that if it was a no win no fee type company and your Mum just told them what happened and that insurance had settled and paid out the other party then they shouldn't have taken on her case in the first place.

Were they trying to get her to claim some kind of personal injury ?

Will know more once you've got the documents, it will be sort outable one way or the other, so tell her not to worry xxx

[confused16]

Hello! Thank you very much for your help and sorry for the late reply. I have attached the two letters my mum has received.

After receiving the first letter which states that my mum's file would be sent to the 'Credit Control Department' in order to consider recovering costs. I rang up to inquire and was told that the file hadn't started to be looking in to yet however a rough estimate would come to £1750. After I said I would like to appeal against this as not only did I feel this was not my mum's fault, but also it was not actually possible for my mum to pay it, he then said "Ok, lets say the price is set at £1750, you would be able to pay it in installments etc. etc."

A few days later my mum received the second letter. My mum will be contacting her insurance tomorrow for more info from them. My mum made whichever company she spoke to originally aware that this had all been sorted a long time ago and there wasn't any point going further with it.

Any more information would be greatly appreciated! Thank you again for your time.

[Amethyst]

The crux will be anything she entered into with the original company that went to visit her and signed her up into claiming... well, do we actually know what they told her she could claim ? Do you know if it was JCA that cold called her originally ( unlikely but worth checking ) ? Does your mum have anything at all from the person that went to see her ? also does she have a copy of the no win no fee agreement with the solicitors?

[Amethyst]

Just had a quick look at reviews and they appear to have an issue with this kind of thing - as solicitors can't cold call I presume they've got involved with some slightly dubious lead provider sending cases to them where's there is just no claim.

A SAR (data protection act request) to JCA might help - see if your mum remembers the name of the lead company tho.

[pt2537]

I am looking in to this for my mum who around 3 years ago had a very small car crash with her neighbor. As far I am aware the Insurance paid out to the neighbor to fix his car and that was the end of that. Since then she has received calls constantly about how could she be owed money etc etc. by certain companies. After telling them over and over again that she wasn't interested as she didn't think she would be able to get anything, one person has told her that she will definitely be able to and that he was absolutely certain of it. A man came round to go through everything with my mum in terms of asking her what exactly happened. After explaining the situation the man repeated back to my mum what was said and asked her to sign for it. At no point did this man go through any terms of conditions with my mum or what would happen if she did not win. After waiting some time, my mum has now received a letter from a solicitors explaining that due to the fact that she has "accepted liability", they will no longer proceed with this claim and have told her she will need to pay them £1750.

I will be looking to speak to the 'Legal Ombudsman' but was curious as to any other options. Any help at all would be much appreciated.

Thank you very much for you time.

Your mum needs to get a copy of her file from these solicitors, she can do so by making a request under the Data Protection Act but there should be an attendance note explaining in detail the funding options to your mum.

When we do a PI claim , we have a check list that we go through with the client and that contains details of our discussions with the client over the funding options etc, and whether a CFA is the best funding option for the client etc.

If the solicitors didnt explain the funding options fully then the CFA may be open to challenge, there has been recent case law on this where solicitors couldnt recover their fees due to failing to properly explain funding

[confused16]

Your mum needs to get a copy of her file from these solicitors, she can do so by making a request under the Data Protection Act but there should be an attendance note explaining in detail the funding options to your mum.

When we do a PI claim , we have a check list that we go through with the client and that contains details of our discussions with the client over the funding options etc, and whether a CFA is the best funding option for the client etc.

If the solicitors didnt explain the funding options fully then the CFA may be open to challenge, there has been recent case law on this where solicitors couldnt recover their fees due to failing to properly explain funding

I just spoke to the Solicitors who told me they could not send out the file or draft a bill as this would add an extra £600 on top. They have given us to the end of the week before they draft the bill properly if its not paid and they will add that charge anyway.

It seems a company called 'Fresh Contact Limited' has called my mum explaining they were aware she was in an accident and how she could claim, like I explained above... Apparently my mum has said that she wasn't at fault. Now, my mum doesn't believe she was at fault but her insurance had paid out anyway and my mum had told them this over the phone.

Now the Solicitors are saying that my mum has mislead them, as there was apparently a risk assessment (30 questions) on the initial call and the question: "How did liability settle with the insurance company?" and my mum has said "the third party was at fault". They are saying as this wasn't true, my mum has mislead them.

I asked why they did not look in to the details themselves with the insurance considering they got their details my mum's insurance in the first place and I was told that they believe their client's words in 'good faith'.

Am I able to ask for proof of these phone calls if they are recorded?

I'm sorry if I am lacking any information here. Again any information is hugely appreciated, thank you!

[confused16]

This is an update of the letter I am now about to send to the solicitor as a formal complaint, which I believe I must do before I can go to the Ombudsman. Any feedback before I send it would be much appreciated. Thank you!.....


Formal complaint


To whom it may concern,

I am writing to make a formal complaint. My complaint is that you have failed to provide me with a satisfactory service when after I had given you very important information regarding my situation, you had chosen to ignore it and now turn this whole thing around on to me.

From the beginning I did not want to make a claim for compensation, however I was receiving phone calls every other day telling me that I would be able to claim and further being convinced that this was something I should definitely go ahead with. So, I then decided to follow your advice. I had made it clear to everybody I had dealt with from your company, that after my incident I had already accepted liability with my insurance and that this matter had already been dealt with, however your company had convinced me to go ahead with this claim telling me I would definitely be able to claim for compensation regardless.

My complaint is that after two years of your company going ahead with this claim, and me co-operating with everything you have asked for, regardless of the information you were given from both myself and my insurance you have now decided to send me letters, telling me that it has only recently been brought to your attention that I had accepted liability with my insurance, and therefor as I was held at fault for the claim you are no longer able to pursue this claim any further. Most importantly you also tell in this letter that because of this, I must now pay to you £1750.

I received this letter from you on the 16^th February 2018. When I called to enquire about this further it was explained to me that the only reason that you would not pursue this claim any further was because I had broken my contract with you by not informing you of accepting liability. This information of course was not true, as I had informed this to you like I mention right from the start.

Now in one of the first letters I received from yourselves, it states on page 2 in section Merits of your claim - “It is our policy to only take on claims that are likely to succeed”.

I state your claim because I feel that even though I had informed you about my acceptance of liability with my insurance, you are telling me that even though you knew this, you believed that this was something to continue with.
On the 3rd July 2015 I received a letter from you informing me that you had spoken with my insurance. I believe during your conversation it would have been mentioned that I had admitted liability and my insurance would have obviously explained that they had paid out. Now It also states on page 2 of the letter I received from you in section Our Advice,

“Our advice at this stage is that you should proceed with a claim. If for any reason circumstances change to affect this advice then we will let you know in writing”.

I state your claim here because I don’t understand why you would decide to go ahead with this claim and further convince me to also go ahead with it after knowing this information. I have received written confirmation from my insurance telling me that you were informed of this, and yet you still wanted to pursue it further. At no point, like you say you will do in the above statement did you let me know in writing if there was a “change to affect this advice”.


This situation has cause me a great deal of stress and anxiety as I know I am not at fault for your lack of investigation in to this claim. I do not believe that I should have to pay anything to you as I know that the information I gave you regarding my acceptance of liability was given right from the start. I am further not able to work due to health reasons and have no such income to even consider paying anywhere near this amount of money to you, especially when this is caused from no fault of my own.

In my view, you should reconsider asking me to pay you such costs. Costs that were from the top of one of your colleague’s head made up within minutes of thinking of an average of what I may have to pay you back. When I asked your colleague over the phone how to appeal against this I was told that if you were to open this file to have a look and also draft a bill, you would be adding an extra £600 on to the money you believe I should pay you.

I feel I am being bullied by your company and I feel you are trying to scare me by threatening to add more and more costs on to this for no reason at all.

I understand that you are required to respond formally to my complaint. I shall follow up this letter if I do not hear back from you by 3rd April 2018. In the meantime, if you need any further information from me, please telephone me on the above number.


I look forward to hearing from you in the very near future.


Yours sincerely,

[confused16]

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

After sending my complaint email to JC&A Solicitors they have now sent my mum a letter explaining that because she didn't make a payment, they would now be upping the payment to £3000!!!!

Can they really do this? Even if I'm in the process of a complaint?? I did not even receive a reply from them.

Please if anybody could help me on this matter it would be much appreciated! Thank you!

[Amethyst]

I would contact the Legal Ombudsman and have a chat with them about it with a view to pushing the complaint over to them sooner than the 8 weeks - they could take the further 'invoice' as a final response to your complaint, particularly if that letter is dated after they would have received the complaint.

Did your mum ask for her file ?

Your mum needs to get a copy of her file from these solicitors, she can do so by making a request under the Data Protection Act but there should be an attendance note explaining in detail the funding options to your mum.

Also a SAR from your Mum to Fresh Contact for all data held would be of assistance here too- Subject Access Request Letter

Does your mum have a copy of the client care letter & CFA agreement from the solicitors ?

[Joeeey41]

Hi, I’m new to this forum. Reading your problem, I’ve got the same. I had a small crash around 3 years ago. Never heard anything from my insurance so I had no idea who was at fault. I put it down to being 50/50. I was then in-undated with numerous phone calls every day. I then spoke to my manager who said you might as well as her husband did and got a pay out, and as they say no win no fee I thought I might as well. Ended up being with jc&a soliciotrs. I told them everything that happened and how I actually had no idea who was at fault as like I said I heard nothing from my insurance regarding the accident. Anyway a person came round with a contract. Didn’t explain anything at all tbh, kind of just rushed the whole process. I was then set up for an appointment for a medical as I said I suffered pain in my shoulders but it comes and goes and I had injections because of this. Anyway I received a letter last January explaining it won’t be going through due to my insurance accepting liability and no further action will be taken. I threw this away as I didn’t think I would need to keep it. Anyway last week I revived a letter saying I owe costs and they’ll send me a pack in due course. Received this the other day and they say I owe £2600 but if I pay within 14 days they’ll give me a discount to make it £1600. This doesn’t seem right to me as I don’t understand how a solicitor firm would take any discount for work. So I phoned them and they said apparently last year I phoned them up saying that I had spoken to my insurer at the time and they accepted liability. They have me a date and time but I do not recall doing this at all as I know that if I did I would have to pay fees. I would have let it continue and if I lost then I would of paid no fees. Can I ask for a recording of this phone call as I do not recall this at all and as it was a year and a half ago I would not remember. Can I also ask for the last letter they sent me last year as I do not have this? I’m only 22 and the main reason I went through this is because I wanted all these phone calls to stop and funnily enough they have since this all began. I do not have this money and I wouldn’t be able to afford it monthly either as I’ve got all my other bills to pay. Someone please please help. I need advice on what to do? Thanks

[Amethyst]

Can you check your phone bill from the date and time they state you called ?

Was it jc&a solicitors who cold called you and visited you or another company who passed you on to jc&a ?

Send them ( jc&a solicitors and the company who contacted you, And your car insurers actually ) a subject access request under dpa/GDPR http://legalbeagles.info/library/gui...ccess-request/

[plasterer]

Just an update to this post as the thread starter is known to me. After putting a co.plaint in writing to them.
Also a letter to the ombudsman. They dropped all fees
And closed the case. I sujest you do the same. You may not get the same outcome . But good luck