By Legal Futures Associate Tower Street Finance [1]
A recent court ruling saw the claimant of a contentious probate case being able to recoup the success fee uplift which was part of the ‘no win no fee’ arrangement she had with her solicitor.
The claim was made under the 1975 Inheritance Act by the deceased’s daughter. She was estranged from her father and had been unable to work for the past 10 years because of mental health issues.
She was awarded a proportion of the estate’s value after an unsuccessful appeal from the sole beneficiary (the deceased’s wife). In the landmark ruling, this also included the success fee from the conditional fee arrangement.
People who make a claim under the 1975 Act are generally doing so because they are suffering some kind of financial hardship, so if they are unable to fund a claim a ‘no win no fee’ arrangement is often their only option.
However the ruling stated that this decision would be on a case-by-case basis moving forward and the fee would only be able to be claimed back if there were no other ways of covering the legal costs at the outset.
Tower Street Finance’s business development director Dicky Davies says: “We do provide an alternative method of funding inheritance disputes, and our product – Inheritance Dispute Funding [2] – was designed with people who can’t afford to cover the legal costs themselves in mind because the funding is paid back from the estate.
“Many of the solicitors we work with said they often see clients with good claims walk away because the firm is not geared up to bank roll cases with a conditional fee arrangement so this product is extremely beneficial to both the law firm and their clients.”
Benefits of Inheritance Dispute Funding:
- Fast, simple decision making
- No credit check on the client
- No assessment costs – the decision is made based on information supplied by the solicitor
- Funding amount agreed and 100 per cent of the costs are covered
- Interest is only paid on the amount drawn down from the facility to cover solicitors’ costs as they are paid
- The funding is repaid from the inheritance
- No personal liability and no monthly repayments
To find out more call us on 0343 504 7100, email info@towerstreetfinance.co.uk or visit https://towerstreetfinance.co.uk/partner-with-us/