Why do we recommend legal advice for negotiating compensation?

If you’re not familiar with the scale used to judge road traffic accidents, you also won’t be familiar with how compensation is quantified as well as how many family members, or even non-relatives, are entitled to compensation. The insurer of the vehicle that caused the accident and death of your loved one will likely be well informed about the amount of compensation that must be granted in order to comply with the Law. The insurer will have specialists in fatal road traffic accidents; these cases differ from those involving injuries where compensation is negotiated by the victim.

In our opinion, when a client is vulnerable following the loss of their relative or friend, and has limited knowledge of their rights, they are unable to negotiate compensation as effectively.

Firstly, if they’re not familiar with how compensation is quantified, they may also not know if they’re being offered a fair payment. We also find that some people are not aware of their right to compensation, and ultimately lose this right by not claiming and leaving it too late.

What procedure is carried out by Administration following the death of a person in a road accident?

Law enforcement bodies (the police, civil guard, mossos…) are tasked with sending a number of files. If potential injuries are alerted to the emergency services, they will also send an Emergency Medical Service ambulance.

Once they arrive at the scene, if the victim has died, the police will contact the residing judge of the judicial area, who will send a forensic report so that the death is registered and the body can be removed.

Next, the body will be taken to the Forensic Pathology Service of the Institute of Legal Medicine, so that an autopsy can be carried out.

Subsequently, a death certificate will be sent out and with this, the inheritance procedure can begin.

What compensation am I entitled to?

Compensation depends on several factors.

Firstly, different types of damage are compensated

• Basic personal damage

• Individual personal damage

• Financial damage

It’s important to be meticulous when calculating all possible damages.

Also, different compensation is granted according to the type of relationship between the victim and the person seeking compensation, with different compensation offered to a child of the victim than to a sibling.

The circumstances of the injured party are also taken into account; for example, compensation is not the same for an only child as it is for a family of several children, nor is it the same if the child has a disability or if the child is cohabitating.

In conclusion, there are multiple factors which determine the amount of compensation owed and this variation may be tens of thousands of euros. We therefore recommend seeking adequate legal advice in fatal road traffic accident cases from the beginning.

In fact, in a recent case in the south of Spain, we discovered that a client was intending to accept compensation 50% lower than the amount that they eventually won. If they had acted without our advice, the client told us they would have accepted the first offer, as it seemed fair to them, but after being informed of their rights, they were aware that it was not at all fair.

So, we recommend that you contact us and we’ll represent you to achieve the best result.

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DISCLAIMER: The information in this article is not definitive, for up-to-date legal advice which is relevant to your case please contact our lawyers