FAQ's
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Popular Q and A’s. See below...
GENERAL
If you have suffered an injury which wasn’t your fault in the last three years they you may be entitled to compensation. If the accident happened when you were below 18 years of age you have until you are 21 to register your claim.
These days you do not have to wait for the end of your case before receiving financial assistance to help you get better, faster. Where responsibility is accepted for your accident, we can negotiate early payments for approved treatments and any other expenses.
You can make a complaint by following the instructions on our Complaints Procedure page.
This will depend on the circumstances of your case. A straightforward road traffic accident can be settled within months, whilst more serious injuries may take longer. Once we have carried out initial investigations, we will be in a better position to anticipate how long it will take. You can be assured that we at Atha & Co will not delay your claim, it is simply not in our interest to do so.
PEOPLE OF TEESSIDE BELIEVE: Atha and Co are more likely to win more compensation than other local law firms.
Many people are naturally curious as to the value of their claim. However, at Atha and Co, we purposefully choose not to display a ‘tariff’ or ‘calculator’ for injury claims. The reason for this is simple: no two claims are the same.
There are an unbelievable amount of complexities around making a claim, variables that affect your pay-out and even more skill and experience involved in maximising claims. We would prefer not to confuse matters by giving you a figure that leads you to believe that you are likely to get the same as the next person simply because you had a similar accident. It is virtually impossible to give a simple, standard estimate.
At Atha and Co, we are however passionate about Maximising your Compensation Claim. You can rest assured that the decades of skill and experience is focussed on us asking more of the right questions than any other law firm. We believe that this is what leads to us being able to secure every single penny that you deserve rather than settling for ‘standard’ pay-outs based upon ‘standard questioning’.
What we can reassure you about is that at Atha & Co we are absolutely passionate about maximising claims for our clients. So much so that we put huge time and effort into drilling deeper and asking questions that many other law firms often overlook. This deeper questioning is designed to really get to the bottom of both the obvious financial implications and also the less obvious – financially, physically and emotionally – all of which can make significant differences to the payout we can secure.
Every case is different, so we assess each claim on an individual basis. If you have no case, we will tell you. It is not in your interest, or ours, to proceed with a case we do not feel will succeed. To get advice about your claim, send an enquiry or make an appointment.
You will not have to pay your own lawyer, but may have to pay the costs of the other side. Before exposing you to any risk whatsoever for having to pay any costs we will explain these risks thoroughly to you and ensure that you are covered by insurance. If necessary we will even organise and pay for insurance on your behalf. Unless you decide otherwise, we shall make sure that you have no costs to pay even if your claim fails. We provide a genuine ‘no win no fee’ service.
Generally, you have 3 years from the date of your injury to make a claim. If the accident involved a minor (under 18), the three years does not start until the minor’s 18th birthday. There are other exceptions to this three-year rule, which your solicitor can explain if you send an enquiry or make an appointment.
We always have to explain to clients that just because they are injured, it does not necessarily mean they are entitled to compensation. We still have to prove that somebody was at fault, in that they either did something which caused a foreseeable risk of injury or that they did not do something which could have prevented foreseeable risk.
The vast majority of injury claims settle out of court. Court action may be necessary to ensure that you are properly compensated if settlement negotiations break down.
You will not have to pay your own lawyer or, in most cases, the cost of the other side. Before exposing you to any risk, whatsoever, of having to pay any costs, we will explain these risks thoroughly to you and ensure that you are covered, where necessary, by insurance. We provide a genuine No Win No Fee service.
ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS
We've created this handy guide to tell you the three secrets that your insurance company won't tell you when you're claiming for an accident!
If the driver is not insured then the claim will be met by the Motor Insurance Bureau which is an organisation set up by the Insurance Industry to compensate the victims of uninsured drivers or those injured in hit and run accidents where the driver cannot subsequently be traced. The position is therefore the same as if the driver was insured and compensation is paid on the same basis.
A lawyer is a qualified legal practitioner, either a solicitor, barrister or legal executive, who is regulated by the Law Society, the Bar Council or the Institute of Legal Executives respectively. Claims management companies are not regulated by any of these bodies and often act as middlemen, not actually handling claims themselves. They usually take a cut from either your damages or your Solicitors costs – we don’t have anything to do with them.