Prices of Individual Consumer Legal Services 2024

Why is this research important? 

This is the fourth wave of research on the prices of legal services commonly purchased by individual consumers based in England and Wales. It involves a survey of providers, focussing on three areas of law: conveyancing; divorce; and wills, trusts, and probate. 

The first wave, conducted in 2015, found significant variation in prices and that firms that display prices on their website are generally cheaper. This was a key piece of evidence in the Competition and Markets Authority’s market study, which suggested limited competition in the sector and that the legal sector was not working well for individual consumers and small businesses. 

The second wave of the research, conducted in 2017, found a similar picture to 2015. The third wave included new questions designed to explore how HM Courts and Tribunals Service’s reforms had affected prices, finding minimal changes since the second wave of research. 

The fourth wave of the research was conducted in 2024. We collected 1,534 responses split across the three blocks. There were quotas to ensure responses were spread across different provider types, including geographic location.  

The report and supporting outputs can be found below: 

What did the research reveal? 

This research found that: 

  • Prices for the same legal services can vary significantly. This is consistent with the findings of the previous wave of research.  
  • The spread of prices has widened between 2020 and 2024. 
  • The rise in inter-quartile ranges (IQRs) between 2020 and 2024 appears to be due to two main factors: i) a general rise in prices in response to inflationary costs; and ii) changes in the regional makeup of the survey sample. 
  • Some English regions, and often Wales, have cheaper average prices than other English regions and more providers are offering services remotely compared to 2020. 
  • The spread of prices is slightly narrower among providers who display their prices online, albeit not for all scenarios. This too is consistent with 2020. 
  • Providers offering fixed prices are often cheaper than those basing their prices on estimates or hourly rates. On the whole, firms with a quality mark are no more expensive than those without.
  • Price transparency has improved among regulated conveyancing firms subject to the transparency rules. 
  • There is some evidence of a relationship between higher service quality and higher prices among conveyancing providers. 
  • Factors that caused variation in prices were:
    • Influence of location.
    • Influence of remote service offerings.
    • Fixing prices. Providers offering fixed prices are significantly cheaper than those offering estimates.  
    • Difficulty in being able to accurately charge for their service area. Areas of law that tend to use estimated costs tend to produce greater costs.  
    • Other firm characteristics (such as the size of the firm and its location: cities, towns and rural areas produce different prices.) 

How are we going to use this research? 

We will use the insights from this fourth wave to monitor the impact of changes to transparency rules since 2020. We will assess whether any further changes are needed. 

We will also continue to assess whether current transparency rules are improving price transparency and competitiveness within the legal services sector.