Fees for Motoring Offences

We have attempted to cover the fees associated with the most common services here. If you want to know fees for a service not covered here, please Contact Us.

Get In Touch About Fees for Motoring Offences

Call Us 24/7
0207 100 2525

Motoring Offence (summary only)

At Adam Bernard Solicitors, our work in relation to motoring offences is charged by a fixed fee and/or through conditional fee agreements estimates of the amount payable are below.

The work that will be carried out are as follows:

  • Taking instruction
  • Attendance and preparation
  • Considering evidence
  • Providing advice in relation to plea and likely sentence
  • Where you cannot anticipate the likely sentence, advice on the options available to the court in relation to sentencing
  • Where appropriate, advice on whether an exceptional hardship or special reasons argument should be made
  • Representation at a single hearing at Magistrate court

Timescales for Motoring Offence cases

In cases where the person pleads guilty and the case is dealt with at a single hearing the whole case is usually completed within six months from the date of the offence.

It is impossible to predict how long your claim will take to resolve.  If liability is admitted by the other side then claims will usually take up to 6-8 months.  This allows us time to organise a medical examination and collect any other information or documentation in support of your claim.  If liability is denied and the matter progresses towards a trial then the matter could take 12-18 months.

Get in touch with our expert Solicitors for Fees for Motoring Offences today.

Motoring Offences

VAT & disbursements

Our fees and some disbursements are subject to VAT at 20%. The amount charged for the disbursements depends upon a number of variables so we will be able to advise you of the correct charges when we have further information.

The time spent on the above preparation will depend on the nature of the case and our fixed fee from the rate of £500 plus VAT (chargeable at 20%) and/or subject to a Conditional Fee Agreement (where applicable).  This figure does not include any additional work in relation to:

Disbursements  Fees (VAT charged at 20% where applicable)
Counsel Fees
    Avg. £500 plus VAT
Translation Fees
 Avg.£150 plus VAT
Expert Fee’s    Avg. £500-£700 plus VAT

Paying us if you win

If you win your claim, you pay our basic charges, our expenses and disbursements and a success fee together with the premium for any insurance you take out. You are entitled to seek recovery from your opponent of part or all of our basic charges and our expenses and disbursements, but not the success fee or any insurance premium.

The overall amount we will charge you for our basic charges, success fees, expenses and disbursements is limited as set out in Schedule 2 below.

It may be that your opponent makes a formal offer to settle your claim which you reject on our advice, and your claim for damages goes ahead to trial where you recover damages that are less than that offer. If this happens, we will not claim any costs for the work done after we received notice of the offer or payment. In these circumstances, you may be ordered to pay your opponents costs, but only up to the amount of damages and interest awarded to you.

Expenses and Disbursements

If you receive interim damages, we may require you to pay our expenses and disbursements at that point and a reasonable amount for our future expenses and disbursements.

If you receive provisional damages, we are entitled to payment of our basic charges, our expenses and disbursements and success fee at that point.

If you win overall but on the way lose an interim hearing, you may be required to pay your opponent’s  charges  of  that  hearing, but usually only up to the amount of damages awarded to you.

If on the way to winning or losing you are awarded any costs, by agreement or court order, then we are entitled to payment of those costs, together with a success fee on those charges if you win overall.

What do I pay if I lose?

If you lose you will normally have the benefit of Qualified One-Way Cost Shifting so the court will not usually enforce an order for costs against you, unless:

  • the proceedings have been struck out; or
  • the claim is fundamentally dishonest; or
  • the claim includes a claim for the financial benefit of someone else.

If you lose, you do not pay our charges but we may require you to pay our expenses and disbursements.

Success fee

The success fee is set at 100% of our basic charges, where the claim concludes

at trial; or 100 % where the claim concludes before a trial has commenced.

The success fee percentage reflects the following:

(a)        the fact that if you lose, we will not earn anything;

(b)        our assessment of the risks of your case;

(c)        any other appropriate matters;

(d)        the fact that if you win we will not be paid our basic charges until the end of the claim;

(e)        our arrangement with you about paying expenses and disbursements;

(f)         the arrangements about payment of our costs if your opponent makes a Part 36 offer or payment which you reject on our advice, and your claim for damages goes ahead to trial where you recover damages that are less than that offer or payment.

The Success Fee cannot be more than 100% of the basic charges in total.

Cap on the amount of Success Fee which you will pay us in the event of success in proceedings at first instance

There is a maximum limit on the amount of the success fee which we can recover from you.

That maximum limit is 25% of the total amount of any:

(i)         general damages for pain suffering and loss of amenity; and

(ii)        damages for pecuniary loss, other than future pecuniary loss;

which  are  awarded  to  you  in  the  proceedings  covered  by  this  agreement.  The maximum limit is applicable to these damages net of any sums recoverable by the Compensation Recovery Unit of the Department of Work and Pensions. The maximum limit is inclusive of any VAT which is chargeable

However, this maximum limit applies only to a success fee for proceedings at first instance and not to a success fee on other proceedings (such as, for example, an appeal against a final judgment or order).

We will provide you with a copy of any relevant judgment or of our calculation of any settlement showing how much of your damages should be attributed to General

Damages and Past Pecuniary Loss, net of any sums recoverable by the Compensation Recovery Unit.

You also have the right to apply to the court for assessment of our costs, including our success fee.

Basic charges

These are for work done from now until this agreement ends.  These are subject to review.

How we calculate our basic charges

These are calculated for each hour engaged on your matter. Routine letters and telephone calls will be charged as units of one tenth of an hour. Other letters and telephone calls will be charged on a time basis. The hourly rates are:

Overall cap on your liability for costs

We  will  limit  the  total  amount  of  charges,  success  fees,  expenses  and disbursements (inclusive of VAT) payable by you (net of any contribution to your costs paid by your opponent) to a maximum of 25% of the damages you receive.

Dealing with costs if you win

  • Subject to any overall cap agreed with you, you are liable to pay all our basic charges, our expenses and disbursements and the success fee (up to the maximum limit) together with the premium of any insurance policy you take out.
  • Normally, you can claim part or all of our basic charges and our expenses and disbursements from your opponent,. You provide us with your irrevocable agreement to pursue such a claim on your behalf. However, you cannot claim from your opponent the success fees or the premium of any insurance policy you take out.
  • If we and your opponent cannot agree the amount, the court will decide how much you can recover. If the amount agreed or allowed by the court does not cover all our basic charges and our expenses and disbursements, then you pay the difference up to any maximum agreed with you.
  • You, not your opponent, pay our success fee and any insurance premium.
  • You agree that after winning, the reasons for setting the success fee at the amount stated may be disclosed to the court and any other person required by the court.
  • If  your  opponent  is  receiving  Community  Legal  Service  funding,  we  are unlikely to get any money from him or her. So if this happens, you have to pay us our basic charges, expenses and disbursements and success fee.

We are allowed to keep any interest your opponent pays on the charges.

You agree to pay into a designated account any cheque received by you or by us from your opponent and made payable to you. Out of the money, you agree to let us take the balance of the basic charges; success fee; insurance premium; our remaining expenses and disbursements; and VAT.

If your opponent fails to pay monies due to you

If your opponent does not pay any damages or charges owed to you, we have the right to take recovery action in your name to enforce a judgment, order or agreement. The charges of this action become part of the basic charges.

Payment for advocacy

The cost of advocacy and any other work by us, or by any solicitor agent on our behalf, forms part of our basic charges. We shall discuss with you the identity of any barrister instructed, and the arrangements made for payment.

Barristers who have a conditional fee agreement with us

If you win, you are normally entitled to recover their fee from your opponent, but not their success fee. The barrister’s success fee is shown in the separate conditional fee agreement we make with the barrister. You must pay the barrister’s success fee shown in the separate conditional fee agreement we make with the barrister. We will discuss the barrister’s success fee with you before we instruct him or her. If you lose, you pay the barrister nothing.

The  barrister’s  success  fee  is  included  within  the  maximum  limit  to  the recoverable  success  fee  in  proceedings  at  first  instance  as  explained  in Schedule 1.

Barristers who do not have a conditional fee agreement with us

If you win, then you will normally be entitled to recover all or part of their fee from your opponent. If you lose, then you must pay their fee.

Get in touch with our expert Solicitors for Fees for Motoring Offences today.

Please see the table below for our hourly fees from our East London Office:

Guideline hourly rates

Fee earnerHourly Rate (ex. VAT chargeable at 20%)
Solicitors and legal executives with over 8 years’ experience
 £282 p/h
Solicitors and legal executives with over 4 years’ experience
 £232 p/h
Other solicitors or legal executives and fee earners of equivalent experience          £185 p/h
Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners
 £129 p/h

Please see the table below for our hourly fees from our Central London Office:

Guideline hourly rates

Fee earnerHourly Rate (ex. VAT chargeable at 20%)
Solicitors and legal executives with over 8 years’ experience
 £373 p/h
Solicitors and legal executives with over 4 years’ experience
 £289 p/h
Other solicitors or legal executives and fee earners of equivalent experience          £244 p/h
Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners
 £139 p/h

We may quote a fixed fee based on our hourly fee earner hourly rates based on an approximation of the number of hours. Generally, it takes between 4-8 hours of work to complete a general application, however this varies. This means that on average costs are between £500 and £6,000 depending on the application.

Get in touch with our expert Solicitors for Fees for Motoring Offences today.

0207 100 2525