Checklist
The SRA Transparency Rules as a website checklist: which services, what each page must contain, and where it goes
The SRA Transparency Rules require an SRA-regulated firm to publish price and service information on its website for eight specified services, to display the SRA digital badge, and to publish how a client can complain, including to the Legal Ombudsman and to the SRA. This page is that requirement as a checklist a practice manager can work down in an afternoon: the eight services, the eight things each price page must contain, the four rules on where it sits, and the three things that apply to every firm whatever it offers. It is a builder's checklist, not legal advice; the rules and the SRA's guidance are the text, and the firm's COLP confirms the wording. The long-form reading is the guide.
Five-minute self-check
- 1. On a phone, from the home page, find the cost of a residential purchase. Count the taps.
- 2. On that page, find the disbursements, the VAT position, the stages and the person who does the work.
- 3. Scroll to the footer. Is the SRA badge live, and does it open the SRA's record of the firm?
- 4. Find how to complain, and whether the Legal Ombudsman and the SRA are named with their time limits.
- 5. Check the date on the fee page. If there is none, nobody owns it.
Which services
The eight services that need a price and service page
If the firm offers the service, a page is required. If it does not, nothing is required for that row, and the badge and complaints items below still apply.
| Service | Client | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Residential conveyancing | Individuals | Freehold and leasehold sale and purchase, remortgage. Nearly every high street firm. |
| Probate, uncontested, assets in the UK | Individuals | The grant and the administration of a straightforward estate. |
| Motoring offences, summary only | Individuals | Speeding, drink driving and the other offences dealt with in the magistrates' court. |
| Immigration, excluding asylum | Individuals | Visa, settlement and citizenship applications. |
| Employment tribunal claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal | Individuals | Bringing the claim. |
| Debt recovery up to £100,000 | Businesses | Undisputed debts, from the letter before action to enforcement. |
| Employment tribunal defence | Businesses | Defending an unfair or wrongful dismissal claim. |
| Licensing applications for business premises | Businesses | Premises licences and the variations to them. |
What each page must contain
Eight items, ticked one by one
01
The total cost
A fixed figure where the firm charges one. Where it cannot, the average cost or a range, and the basis of the charge: hourly rates and who charges them, or a percentage and of what.
02
The disbursements
Each one likely to arise, with its amount or how it is worked out. Search fees, Land Registry fees, court fees, counsel, the probate application fee.
03
VAT
Whether it applies to the fee, and to each disbursement separately, stated rather than assumed.
04
What is included
The work the figure covers, and the work a client might reasonably think it covers but does not, in the same place.
05
The stages
The key steps of a typical matter, in the order they happen, in words a client understands.
06
The timescale
How long a typical matter takes, and what tends to make it longer.
07
The people
Who does the work and who supervises it: qualifications and experience, not only names.
08
Kept current
A page is right on the day it is published. It stays right only if someone owns it, so each page carries a reviewed-on date and a named owner inside the firm.
The eighth item is ours, not the SRA's. It is the one that keeps the other seven true a year later.
Where on the site
Prominent means found, not filed
The rules say the information must be in a prominent place and easy to find. On a website that means four things, and a PDF in the footer does none of them.
- Reachable from the practice page
- A client reading about conveyancing is one tap from the conveyancing fees. The link is in the body of the practice page, not only in a footer list.
- Reachable from the footer
- A 'fees and service information' link on every page, so the information is found from anywhere, including from a search that landed on a guide.
- A page, not only a document
- A PDF may exist as well, for the firm's records, but the information the rules require is in the page itself, in text a phone can read and a search engine can index.
- Plain language
- The rules ask for information that is clear and accessible. A fee page that needs a glossary fails a client even if it satisfies a reviewer.
Whatever the firm offers
Badge, complaints and the regulatory statement
The SRA digital badge
The live, clickable badge from the SRA, which opens the firm's entry on the SRA's register. In the footer of every page and on each regulated-service page. It confirms the firm is regulated and it is the thing a cautious client clicks.
The complaints page
How to complain to the firm and what happens next; that a client can take the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, with the time limits and contact details; and that concerns about conduct can be raised with the SRA. One page, linked from the footer and from each fee page.
The regulatory statement
The firm's full name, that it is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and its SRA number, shown on the website. We put it in the footer beside the badge, so it is on every page without anyone thinking about it.
What we do
Build, place, date, remind
- Build the pages in the format above, one per regulated service the firm offers, from the figures and the stages the fee earner gives us.
- Place the badge, the statement and the complaints page where the checklist says, on every page, using the SRA's own badge code.
- Keep a dated copy of each version of each fee page, so the firm can show what was published on any given day.
- Remind the firm at the anniversary, and change the page the same week the firm changes a figure or a fee earner.
What the firm does
Decide the figures, confirm the words
- The figures are the firm's. We do not set fees, estimate disbursements or decide what is included.
- The COLP confirms the wording before any fee page goes live, and again when it changes.
- The firm reads the rules. The current text of the Transparency Rules and the SRA's guidance are on the SRA's website, and they are the reference. We are not the firm's compliance adviser.
The pages are part of every site package on the pricing page, from £1,200, and they can be added to a site we did not build.
Questions practice managers ask about the rules
Which firms do the Transparency Rules apply to?
Firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, in England and Wales, that offer any of the services in the table. A firm regulated elsewhere, for example by the CLC, has its own regulator's publication requirements, similar in intent. The website approach is the same: a page per service, written to be read.
We offer conveyancing but not the other listed services. What do we publish?
A price and service page for conveyancing, meeting every item on the checklist, plus the badge and the complaints information, which apply whatever the firm offers. Nothing is required for the services on the list that the firm does not provide, though saying what the firm does not do saves a client a call.
Is a range acceptable instead of a fixed fee?
Yes, where a fixed fee is not possible, with the basis of the charge alongside it. A range is more useful to a client when the page also says what moves a matter from the bottom of it to the top.
Does the SRA badge have to be on every page?
The rules require the digital badge to be displayed on the website, and the SRA supplies the code for it. We place the live badge in the footer of every page and on each regulated-service page. An image of the badge saved from another site is not the badge.
Who is responsible if a fee page is wrong?
The firm, as with anything it publishes. We build the pages, lay out the figures the firm gives us in the format the rules describe, keep a dated copy of each version. The COLP confirms the wording before it goes live. We are not the firm's compliance adviser, and the current text of the rules and the SRA's guidance are the reference, not this page.
Have the fee pages checked against this list
Send the firm's site. You get the checklist marked against it, item by item, what is missing, and a quote for putting it right on the site you have or on a new one.