Upload your costs agreement. Understand your options.
Read what the firm told you, compare it with WA legal-costs protections, and see a possible overpayment calculation—without pretending an estimate or a disputed claim is already a court finding.
1. Your agreement
Text files are processed immediately. For PDF/Word, this preview loads an external extraction library only after you select the file.
We never apply WA-specific legal rules as if they automatically govern every state.
Only text visible above is analysed. Missing words do not prove a clause or attachment was never provided elsewhere.
2. Payments and amounts disclosed
A displayed estimate may support an important representation claim. The difference calculated below is a conditional scenario, not an automatically established refund.
3. What the agreement says
4. Potential statutory routes
Check the charging basis, estimates, negotiated billing rights, written updates and what reasonable steps established your understanding. A qualifying disclosure breach may void the agreement under s 178, which also expressly addresses payment and recovery pending assessment or an authorised costs-dispute determination.
Separately check whether the practice actually denied a client's right to require and have a negotiated costs agreement. This requires evidence beyond deficient disclosure alone. A proven Division 4 contravention engages s 185(1). Section 185(2) can require repayment of established excess, including where voidness is due to disclosure.
An applicable determination regulates chargeable work and applicable rates/allowances, subject to the law's exceptions. It does not necessarily fix one total for a matter whose work and steps remain unknown. Get the correct scale for each relevant period and calculate the chargeable items.
The words “estimate” or “available on request” do not automatically prove informed understanding or shield misleading price statements. Test the scope, assumptions, reasonable grounds, changes and what the customer was told.