Solicitors may only charge £5 for administering an affidavit or statutory declaration, plus £2 for each exhibit. This figure includes VAT, so the basic fee payable, in reality, is £4.25 and £1.70 respectively.


If the solicitor administering an affidavit has a relatively modest charging rate of £150 per hour and takes ten minutes to deal with an affidavit, his firm would be losing slightly more than £20 for each affidavit where there is no exhibit.



Statutory fees for affidavits and statutory declarations were last raised about 13 years ago and, understandably, solicitors are now declining to administer them. Not only is the work grossly underpaid but it is disruptive.



If solicitors are to be persuaded to continue to administer affidavits and declarations, the statutory limit should be removed so that solicitors can charge whatever they consider to be the correct figure. If one firm charges a figure that is regarded as too high, then it will be open to those dissatisfied to go to a firm that charges less. Statutory fixed fees for conveyancing were abolished in 1971 as being anti-competitive.



Meanwhile, increasing numbers of solicitors will not be prepared to attend to those who wish to make an affidavit, leaving members of the public with no option but to visit a court office, if they are fortunate enough to live in a town which has one.



Anthony Shuttleworth, Menneer Shuttleworth, Bexhill on Sea, Sussex