SRA Transparency Rules fines and warning letters: what happens after a web sweep

The enforcement numbers the SRA has published

• Fixed penalties. 750 pounds for a first transparency breach. The amount is 1,500 pounds for a subsequent breach of the same category within three years of the first penalty, or for continuation of the first breach after the SRA has directed payment. Fixed penalty decisions are generally published by the SRA, subject to its decision publication policy, and published decisions can be picked up by the legal press.
• Scale. Between May 2023 and September 2024 the SRA issued 439 official warnings and 36 fixed penalty fines over the Transparency Rules, and reported that more than 500 previously non-compliant websites had been changed as a result.
• Escalation. Firms that persist after warnings can be referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. In a judgment dated 5 June 2026 the tribunal fined a solicitor and his firm 4,500 pounds each, payable jointly and severally, after roughly two years of non-compliance with the rules.
• The baseline problem. In the SRA's published web sweep, 500 firm websites were selected and 447 could be reviewed (the rest were unavailable or under construction). Of those 447 sites, 25 percent were fully compliant, 58 percent were partially compliant and 17 percent were not complying at all. The most common gaps were missing complaints information, missing VAT amounts, missing key stages or timescales, and missing descriptions or costs of likely disbursements.

How the process runs: sweep, letter, penalty

The SRA describes an ongoing programme of proactive web sweeps: it reviews firm websites itself rather than waiting for a complaint, so a firm usually first learns its site was checked when the letter arrives. The typical sequence is a warning letter identifying the breaches, a short period to put things right, then a fixed penalty if the site is still non-compliant. Because the penalty for a repeat breach of the same category within three years doubles, a website that drifts back out of compliance after being fixed leaves the firm worse off than one that never slipped, which is the strongest argument for reviewing the site routinely rather than once.

Received a warning letter? A calm four step response

• 1. Map the letter to the rules. The letter will say which requirements the SRA considers breached. Check each one against the actual rule wording; the Transparency Rules checklist lists every website requirement in one place.
• 2. Fix everything, not only the named items. A follow-up review is not limited to the breaches in the letter. Work through the badge, the SRA number and regulatory wording, complaints information and the price information for every listed service you publicise.
• 3. Reply within the deadline. Confirm to the SRA what was changed and where, with a clear record of the changes. The SRA will then decide whether the matter can be closed at the warning stage or whether further action is needed; a prompt, complete response gives it every reason to close.
• 4. Put a review routine in place. Keep the site under regular review, especially whenever prices, services, staff or required disclosures change, because each of those can reopen a gap. The SRA's published guidance does not set a fixed review interval; what matters is that the site stays accurate.

Check your site before the next sweep does

You can run a free SRA website check on your own firm: our scanner reads your public pages the way a visitor would and reports whether it found the clickable SRA badge, complaints information and price information, with the evidence for each finding. The transparency statistics show how firm websites across England and Wales currently compare, and the fixes page explains how to close the gaps the check finds.

This guide is general information for England and Wales, not legal advice. Enforcement figures are the SRA's own published numbers, current at the time of writing; check sra.org.uk for the latest position. Website findings from our checker are automated, come from public pages only, and are not a legal opinion.