How Much Will I Be Charged for My Hairdressing Claim? The Legal Costs Explained
A salon visit should leave you feeling confident, pampered, and happy with your look. But when negligence turns a routine appointment into a nightmare, leaving you with a hairdresser scalp burn, chemical blistering, or severe hair breakage, the physical and emotional toll can be overwhelming.
If you are considering taking legal action to secure the compensation you deserve, it is completely natural to worry about how much a specialist solicitor will cost. You might be wondering: Can I afford to sue my hairdresser? Will hidden legal fees eat up my entire payout?
At Hairdressing Claims, we believe in complete transparency. We operate on a strict No Win, No Fee basis, and we guarantee that our clients will always keep at least 75% of their compensation award.
Here is exactly how our fees work, what to look out for in the small print, and how we protect your payout.
Understanding the 25% Fee Cap (And Why VAT Matters)
Since the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act, personal injury and negligence solicitors in the UK recover a portion of their legal fees directly from the client’s successful compensation settlement. This is known as a Success Fee.
To protect consumers from unfair charging, the law introduced a 25% cap on success fees for no-win, no-fee agreements. Within the legal sector, taking a 25% cut of the compensation has become standard practice. However, not all firms calculate this 25% the same way, and this is where many clients get caught out by hidden extras.
- The Hidden VAT Trap: Many advertising law firms will tell you they take a 25% success fee, but they fail to mention that they add Value Added Tax (VAT) on top. Once a firm tacks an extra 20% VAT onto their 25% fee, your total deduction jumps from 25% to 30%.
- The Hairdressing Claims Guarantee: We don’t hide behind legalese or small print. As a dedicated partner of LLB Solicitors, our 25% cap strictly includes VAT.
If your case settles for £10,000, we promise you will receive at least £7,500. If you ask another firm that same question and their answer isn’t £7,500, it means they are adding sneaky extras on top.
Watch Out for Hidden ATE Insurance Premiums
Another cost that can heavily reduce your compensation payout is After the Event (ATE) Insurance.
Historically, this insurance was used to protect claimants from having to pay the opponent’s legal bills if the case was lost. Today, under modern UK legal frameworks, the risk of paying an opponent’s fees is highly restricted. Despite this, some personal injury firms still push costly ATE insurance policies onto clients, sometimes costing up to 10% of the total compensation and add that cost on top of their legal fees. In extreme cases across the legal industry, some firms have deducted up to 50% of a client’s final compensation once success fees, VAT, and ATE insurance are added together.
At Hairdressing Claims, we do not routinely recommend ATE insurance. In the rare instances where we feel it is genuinely required to protect your position, we include the cost within our 25% cap. You will never pay a penny more than the agreed 25%. If you don’t win your case, you don’t pay a penny.
What Can You Claim For?
Our specialist legal team handles nationwide claims for a variety of severe hair and scalp injuries, including:
- Chemical Scalp Burns & Blistering: Often caused by over-processed bleach, improper application of permanent hair dye, or a failure to perform a patch test.
- Severe Hair Breakage & Snapping: Resulting from the misuse of chemical straighteners, perms, or extreme heat styling tools.
- Contact Dermatitis & Allergic Reactions: Causing painful swelling, raw patches on the skin, and weeping sores around the scalp, face, neck, and ears.
- Psychological Distress: We understand that hair damage isn’t just physical. Severe hair loss or visible scarring can dramatically shatter your confidence, affect your social life, and even cause you to miss work.
Ready to Speak to an Expert?
If you have suffered a hair or scalp injury due to a hairdresser’s mistake, you shouldn’t have to navigate the legal process alone, or worry about upfront costs.
Get in touch with our compassionate team at Hairdressing Claims today for a free, confidential, no-obligation assessment of your case. Remember, if you have recently instructed another firm but are worried about their hidden fees, you have a 14-day legal right to cancel and switch to a transparent solicitor.
- Freephone (Landline): 0800 141 3682
- From a Mobile: 0333 202 6560
- Email: enquiries@hairdressingclaims.co.uk
- Online: Fill out our quick Online Enquiry Form and we will call you back.