Legal Ombudsman report highlights the spiralling costs of divorce

Posted 28/02/2013

A report published today by the Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales has shown that divorce and family law are the areas which receive the highest number of complaints.Some 13% of clients were dissatisfied with their lawyers in divorce cases, which was almost double the level of other areas of law. Approximately a quarter of the complaints related to costs, with one in five people saying they were not given an estimate of their legal costs at the start of their case. In one instance, a woman was charged £15,000 more than had been agreed at the start of her case, including a £4,000 photocopying fee.The Ombudsman has called on lawyers to do more to reduce complaints by providing a better service and giving clients accurate information upfront about their legal costs.Responding to the report, Family solicitor, Elisabeth Sneade – who was interviewed today on Ipswich Town 102 – said:“Divorce is nearly always a time of great stress, which is why, here at Ashtons Legal, our key objective is to help clients to obtain a divorce as smoothly as possible to reduce their stress whilst managing their legal costs. Stories of people incurring costs of £4,000 or more for photocopying charges is not what our clients experience.

We offer fixed fee options as well as the more traditional pay by the hour route, so our clients have certainty from the start of their case about what their costs will be. If we start working for a client on a fixed fee basis, we are careful to explain that if certain things happen it may be that we have to revise our costs estimate.”Many of the recommendations made in the report, such as a client discussing with the other person involved how they wish to approach the divorce, or making it clear to their solicitor how they want to approach their case, are recommendations which Elisabeth makes in her recently published book, ‘A Guide to Managing Separation and Divorce’.Elisabeth concluded: “Our approach to resolving family disputes is to promote as much communication within the family as possible at what is already an incredibly stressful time. We would encourage anyone who may be considering taking this difficult step to come and see us for a free half hour initial discussion.”For individual advice, please contact our Family Team.Read more about our fixed fee services.Read the full article on BBC News.

Elisabeth’s book is available from Amazon.