Terms & Conditions
- Introduction
- Charges
- Invoices
- Disbursements and payments on your behalf
- Money on account
- VAT
- Money laundering precautions
- Termination of legal services
- Conflict
- General points
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 These Terms of Business set out the basis for our provision of legal services to you. An appointment letter incorporating these terms will normally be sent to you, setting out the work to be undertaken by us and how we will charge for that work. Any variation of these terms of business must be agreed in writing.
2. CHARGES
2.1 Our fees are based on the various criteria laid down by statute which states that our charges are to be fair and reasonable having regard to all the circumstances. Other factors may also be taken into account, notably complexity, value or urgency, and an additional mark-up added.
2.2 We will agree a basic fixed fee amount with you at the time that we agree the instruction; VAT will be chargeable in addition to the fixed fee together with any additional fees and disbursements which are incurred as a result of the transaction being carried out on your behalf.
2.3 For a variety of reasons some instructions are not completed. A transaction may abort. In these circumstances we will charge for the work done, subject to a minimum of £400 plus VAT at 20% and any incurred disbursements will also be charged.
3. INVOICES
3.1. We will normally send you an invoice for the work carried out on your behalf following exchange of contracts, in situations where completion of your contract is likely to occur shortly after or on the date of exchange then we will provide you with an invoice for the entirety of the transaction. We will inform you if our invoices cover all the work carried out during the specified period, or are simply for payments on account of our overall charges
3.2 Payment is due when our invoice is delivered. We may charge you interest on invoices not paid within 30 days of the delivery at the rate of 4% above the base rate of HSBC PLC.
3.3 If a transaction or other matter is abortive, our fees will still be payable.
3.4 If our invoice is not made out to you but to a third party, you must pay our charges if and to the extent that the third party fails to pay our invoice in full.
3.5 There are circumstances in which we may be entitled to exercise a lien for unpaid costs. A lien includes an entitlement to retain property that belongs to you, such as deeds, other documents, or money, until our professional costs have been paid.
4. DISBURSEMENTS AND PAYMENTS ON YOUR BEHALF
4.1 We will often incur expenses on your behalf in the course of a transaction. These include the couriers, searches, registrations and agents who conduct investigations or agency fees, or provide reports, photocopying, binding, long distance telephone calls, facsimiles, and other reasonable out of pocket expenses (“Disbursements”). Disbursements incurred on your behalf will be included in our invoice.
4.2 We will obtain your approval before incurring any substantial Disbursements (including barristers’ fees, agency fees, overseas legal fees or separate solicitor’s lenders fees). We will normally either require you to provide us with sufficient funds to cover such Disbursements or arrange for the person providing the services to invoice you direct. If we pay any such Disbursements on your behalf, we will invoice you for them and payment will be due from you on delivery of the invoice.
4.3 We will sometimes be required to give an undertaking (i.e. a binding commitment) to pay an amount of money on your behalf in relation to a matter. We will not give such an undertaking without your prior approval. We will normally require that the relevant amount (or a reasonable estimate of it) is paid to us before we can give the undertaking.
4.4 If we have to incur additional expenses for non-legal staff working overtime on evenings or weekends in order to meet deadlines set by you, we may include overtime charges as a separate item on our invoices to you.
4.5 A charge of up to 10% will be levied in respect of Disbursements.
5. MONEY ON ACCOUNT
5.1 We usually required clients to provide us money on account before starting work on their behalf. This will serve as a source of payment of our invoices when delivered. From time to time, we may ask you to replenish the account so that it does not fall below the agreed amount. Any funds in excess of our charges will be returned to you after the completion or termination of our services.
5.2 The terms on which interest is paid on money we hold for clients are governed by the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules 1998.
5.3 We maintain records in respect of interest earned as required by the Inland Revenue and our professional rules. We may, when it is fair and reasonable, apply interest that has accrued on monies held on account (or otherwise received on your behalf) towards payment of unpaid invoices and/or accrued interest on those unpaid invoices.
6. VAT
6.1 All fees quoted, Disbursements and other charges are exclusive of value added tax (VAT). We deal exclusively with the purchase, mortgage or sale of property in England and Wales and therefore it is highly unlikely that our services will be outside the scope of UK VAT.
6.2 If our services are subject to VAT, and if we incur interest, penalties or legal costs because any information on your VAT status is not correct, you must indemnify us fully on demand for these amounts.
6.3 If our invoices are not payable by you as our client but by a third party, you will still be liable for any VAT in respect of our charges.
6.4 Our VAT number is: 701 8201 82
7. MONEY LAUNDERING PRECAUTIONS
7.1 Like all firms of solicitors, we are now required by law to apply procedures to guard against the risk of money laundering. It will help us to avoid any problems with your legal work if you bear in mind the following points.
7.2 Identification checks: We may need to obtain formal evidence of your identity. This may be necessary even though we have acted for you before, or even if you are known personally to a member of staff. We will tell you if such evidence is necessary, but it may help us if you are able to bring evidence to our first meeting. Normally the evidence we would ask for is your passport, plus two or more documents to establish your address, such as recent utility bills, council tax statements, or bank statements.
7.3 Cash: We do not normally accept payment in cash.
7.4 Source of funds: At the start of any matter we will normally ask you to tell us the source of any funds you will be using. If the source is an unusual one, such as in the name of someone other than yourself, please tell us as early as possible, including the reason.
7.5 Destination of funds:- Where we are to pay money out to you, we will normally do so by cheque in your favour, or into an account in your name. If instead you want us to pay surplus money out into the name of someone other than yourself, please tell us as early as possible, including the reason.
7.6 Confidentiality: We have always sought to keep our clients’ affairs confidential. However, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 can oblige us to report information about financial offences to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. In particular, if it seems that any assets involved in your matter were derived from a crime we may have to report it. This can include even small amounts of money, and covers all offences, including for example tax evasion and benefit fraud.
7.7 If we have to make a report we may not be able to tell you that we have done so. A report may result in an investigation by the police, the Inland Revenue or other authorities. The law contains exceptions. If you are concerned about how this may affect you, please ask us to clarify.
8. TERMINATION OF LEGAL SERVICES
8.1 You may terminate our services at any time by giving us reasonable written notice, whether or not you have cause to do so. If you do so, you must pay our charges for work carried out up to date of termination. In those circumstances, we may keep all the papers which we are entitled to retain until all of our costs, Disbursements and interest have been paid.
8.2 We may stop acting for you at any time on reasonable written notice provided we fulfil our obligation to maintain proper standards of professional conduct. We will withdraw our services if:
- you fail to give us proper instructions;
- you fail to give us the co-operation which we are reasonably entitled to expect;
- our continuing to act would be impractical, unethical or unlawful;
- you fail to provide us (or to replenish) sufficient money to be held on account; or
- you fail to pay our invoices as and when rendered.
9. CONFLICT
9.1 An actual or potential conflict between your interests and the interests of another client of the firm may arise during the course of a matter. If this situation arises during our dealings with you, we will discuss the position with you and determine the appropriate course of action. In order to protect your interests, we may not be able to continue acting.
10. GENERAL POINTS
10.1 All communications between us (and all work done on your behalf) is confidential, but we may in certain circumstances be required by law to disclose information to a relevant authority (e.g. under the Criminal Justice Act 1993 or the Money Laundering Regulations 2007). By law, we are not allowed to inform you of such disclosures.
10.2 Unless specifically agreed in writing we do not provide tax or accountancy advice and would expect your accountants/tax advisers to deal with all issues relating to tax and accounting arising in respect of a matter and your tax and accountancy matters generally.
10.3 We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority.
10.4 All work done and advice provided by us is for your use and benefit only and may not be supplied or passed on to any other person without our prior written approval. Our duty of care is to you as our client, not to third parties unless such responsibility is accepted by us in writing.
10.5 We may destroy files and documents relating to completed transactions or business six years or more after the date on which the file was closed. Original documents held by us will of course not be destroyed. We will seek your instructions at the close of the matter on which documents should be returned to you. In respect of any documents retained we reserve the right to make a reasonable charge and we shall only have a responsibility to you where such charge is paid.
10.6 These Terms of Business are governed by English law. By instructing us you agree that any dispute arising in connection with these Terms of Business or our services shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts. We may vary these Terms of Business from time to time by giving you reasonable written notice.
We are committed to continuous improvements in the quality of our services. We encourage suggestions or comments from you in helping us to achieve this goal. Whilst we hope that you will not need to complain, we recognise the wisdom of explaining our internal complaints procedure. Wherever possible please refer complaints to your contact Partner or alternatively the Senior Partner (Clive Sharples) who will investigate with the solicitor or legal advisor concerned.
We encourage you to first try to resolve any complaint directly with us. However the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) investigates complaints about solicitors for the Law Society. More detail is available at www.legalcomplaints.org.uk.
