The recent Court of Appeal ruling in the Belsner v CAM Legal Services case (Belsner v CAM Legal Services Ltd [2020] EWCH 2755 (QB)) has led to discussion in the legal profession around whether and to what extent the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) can determine complaints about lawyers’ costs.
In the ruling, the Judge said that, rather than the parties seeking to “bring expensive High Court litigation to assess modest solicitors’ bills in cases of this kind”, referring the matter to LeO would have been “a cheaper and more effective method of querying solicitors’ bills”.
In fact, LeO can and does determine complaints about costs. They make up around 12% of the total number of complaints we investigate in any given year.
Complaints about costs fall into two broad categories. The first is complaints about the costs themselves, mainly that these are excessive for the work that’s been carried out. The second is complaints about the information provided about costs – for example, lack of estimates or information at the outset, and poor billing and updates provided (or not provided) during the course of the retainer.
To help legal providers to resolve these types of complaints – and prevent them altogether – we have published detailed guidance on the issues we see and how we approach them. We’ve also recorded a bitesize webinar focused on preventing complaints, including those about costs.
