Lawyer's Office
Peter De Cock

Fees and costs

The fees and costs are to be devided into three categories:
  • legal costs
  • office costs
  • the fee

The legal costs are the costs of the process servers; courts, notary public, experts, translaters, etc. (this list is not limited).

Office costs are:

  • the cost for opening the dossier: 100 €
  • correspondance and typed pages, such as statements, petitions, etc. (list not limited): 11 € per typed page
  • photocopies: 0.50 € per page
  • transport expenses:
    • traveling time: 25 € per hour
    • mileage: 0.50 € per km
  • telephone, fax and e-mail are not charged separately
  • costs of third parties are charged seperately

The fee:

The principle is an agreement with the client. The fee can be determined in two ways:

  • based on the value of the dispute, according to a percentage from 15 till 8 % per bracket
  • per hour: an hourly rate of at least 100 € with time units of 6 minutes is being charged, depending on the value of the dispute, the degree of complexity, etc.

In due course interim statements of achievements and costs are being send and the client will be informed carefully about the developments in his dossier.

A first exploratory talk or introductory consultation at the office is charged 50 € per 30 minutes.

Starting January 1, 2008, a new statutory regulation came into effect, which alters the amount that is granted to a winning party in a proceeding and has to be paid by the loosing party and which constitutes a part of the costs and fees of the lawyer of the winning party.

The legislator has provided a basic amount, which the judge can change in plus or minus when at least one of the parties is asking it, but with respect tot a minimum and a maximum which is set by the regulation. The amounts which the legislator has set, depend on the total value of the case. If a case is impossible to measure in money, there is a basic amount of 1.200 € with a minimum of 75 € and a maximum of 10.000 €.

For cases which are brought before the Tribunal that deal with all labour and social proceedings, there are other amounts, which are much lower.

You can find the schedule of the amounts here. The legislative document (Royal Decision of October 26, 2007) you can read here (only in French and Dutch).

The amounts are adapted to the consumers price index and changed with 10 % everytime the index changes with 10 points).

The amount which is granted by the court and is paid by the other party is of course – as it was already before – deducted from what the client has to pay.

© 2007 Advokatenkantoor Peter De Cock BVBA

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