Conduct and service

Make costs information clearThe Solicitors Costs Information and Client Care Code 1999 requires that the best information about costs be given to the client.

It recognises it may not always be possible to give the client, at the outset of the retainer, a meaningful idea of the overall costs to be expected.

In such cases, the code says the client should be told why it is not possible to give an estimate of costs and should then be given the best information possible about the next stage in the matter.

This information should be given throughout the retainer, by updating the client about costs regularly.However, the information which is given must be clear and in a form that the client can understand.

In a recent case dealt with by the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) the client and the firm had different views on that point.In their first letter to the client the solicitors wrote: The costs to date are 600.

We anticipate incurring a further 2,000 to conclude your matter.

The second letter, six months later, stated: The costs incurred to date are 450 and you are likely to incur further costs of approx 1,500.The third letter, about a year later said: The costs to date amount to 1,300 and we anticipate that a further sum of approx 300 will be incurred in concluding your case.Six weeks later the firm wrote again, not quoting a figure for costs incurred to date but stating: We estimate our costs will be in the region of 2,500.The final letter prior to the bill, written three months later, said, To date the costs amount to 1,550.

You are likely to incur a further 700 to conclude your case.The final bill was for approximately 4,450 profit costs, 790 VAT and disbursements of 1,000.

It totalled about 6,300.The client said he was expecting to have to pay about 2,500 that was the consistent message he had been getting from the solicitors.The solicitors said the figures they had given were cumulative, as should have been obvious from the discrepancies between them.What do you think? Whatever you decide, surely you agree that the information was far from clear.

That was the conclusion reached by the OSS in awarding compensation to the complainant.

The firm genuinely believed it had been complying with its obligations, so it just goes to show how careful you must be.l Every case before the compliance and supervision committee is decided on its individual facts.

These case studies are for illustration only and should not be treated as precedents.