FAQs – Personal Injury

The amount of personal injury compensation depends upon the extent of your injuries and the impact they have had on your life.  The more severe your injury, the more compensation you are likely to get.

The whole point of compensation is that is meant to put you back to how you would have been if the accident had not happened, so far as money can.

A guide to compensation for injuries is based on guidelines published by the Judicial College and reports of similar cases that have been decided by the courts.

In extreme cases, where there is a dispute, you may have to attend Court, however very few personal injury compensation claims actually go all the way to a court hearing, as court hearings lead to an increase in the legal costs.

Conditional Fee or as they are more commonly known as “No Win No Fee” agreements are available for most types of civil litigation claims. Claims for personal injury, medical/clinical negligence, product liability, professional negligence and employment law.

No. Compensation secured for personal injury damages are tax-free, which means you are entitled to keep 100 per cent.

There are no financial caps on personal injury damages.

The time you have to make a claim is set out in The Limitation Act 1980.

It is usually three years from the date of your accident.

There are two exceptions to this:

1. If you were under the age of 18 at the time of the negligence. In this instance the three years runs from your 18th birthday so the date you turn 21.
2. If the patient has lacked mental capacity to be able to instruct solicitors. In this case the time limit will not start to run until they regain capacity.

Court proceedings must be started within the three-year period.  It’s important that you do not delay often lawyers will not take on your case if there is only a few months before the three year date runs out,   the reason for this is that there are a number of things that need to be done to prepare it.   So it is best to seek advice sooner, rather than later.

Once again this is an area of  law where it can be difficult to work out when these time limits begin and end.   It’s crucial that you get it right, because you will not be able to make a claim if you are outside the time limit.  It does not matter how strong the rest of your case is if you run out of time then your case will not be able to proceed.