TERMS OF BUSINESS

INDEX

A. Introduction

B. General Terms

B1.              Services

B2.              Responsibilities

B3.              Hours of Business

B4.             Provision of Services Regulations 2009

B5.              Equality and Diversity

B6.              Data Protection

B7.              Storage of Documents

B8.              Confidentiality and Disclosure

B9.              Outsourcing of Work

B10.            Auditing and Vetting of Files

B11.            Limiting Liability

B12.            Applicable Law

B13.            Value Added Tax

B14.            Costs

B15.            Termination

C. Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

C1.             Client Due Diligence

C2.             Making a Disclosure

C3.             Mortgage Fraud

D. Other fees and Costs Related Matters

D1.             Introduction and Referrals

D2.             Payment of Commissions

D3.             Payment of Interest

D4.             Financial Arrangements with Clients

D5.             Financial Services

E. Complaints

E1.              Complaints handling

A.    Introduction

These Terms and Conditions of Business along with the accompanying engagement letter govern the lawyer-client relationship which will exist between us. By continuing to instruct this firm we shall be entitled to assume you have agreed to the terms and conditions set out here. Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the subject to the application of the current hourly rates these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this firm. Nobody is authorised to alter these terms other than in writing.

B.    General Terms

B1.    SERVICE STANDARDS

We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost.  As a start, we hope it is helpful to you to set out in this statement the basis on which we will provide our professional services.

You will receive notification in writing accompanying these Terms of Business as follows: -

• If appropriate, a request for confirmation of the identity of the appropriate Client.

• An engagement letter confirming the person responsible for dealing with your work and the person responsible for overall supervision of the matter.

• Identification of your objectives in relation to the work to be done with an explanation of the issues involved and the options available. Any exclusions and limitations imposed upon our retainer will be explained in the covering letter.

In addition: -

• We will update you by telephone, letter, fax or e-mail with progress of your matter on a regular basis and this should occur at least every 6 weeks unless agreed to the contrary.

• We will communicate with you in plain language and we will explain to you either in writing or verbally the legal work required as your matter progresses.

• We will update you on the costs of your matter at least every 6 months or sooner if significant issues arise. You will not receive a costs update if a fixed fee for the work to be carried out has been agreed unless further work is required outside the agreed fixed fee.

• We will update you on whether the likely outcomes still justify the likely costs and risks associated with your matter whenever there is a material change in circumstances.

• We will update you on the likely timescales for each stage of this matter and any important changes in those estimates.

• We will continue to review whether there are alternative methods by way which your matter can be funded.

• From time to time the person dealing with your case may be assisted by another member of the department e.g. if he/she is on holiday or out of the office. A list of members of staff that may work on your file are as follows:

  Family

Suzanne Neale – Solicitor                     

Jennie McGill – Solicitor 

Zoe Brettle - Solicitor

Lucie Allen - Solicitor

Zylana Smith - Solicitor

Natasha Johnson - Solicitor

Jaya Dhaliwell - Solicitor

Indiya Kainth - Solicitor

Alex Pearson - Legal Executive

Raminder Matharu - Associate Legal Executive

Prison Law

Ghazala Parveen – Legal Assistant

 Litigation   

Graham Bird – Legal Executive     

Private Client

David Simon – Solicitor   

B2.    RESPONSIBILITIES

You should be aware that there are both responsibilities for the Lawyer dealing with your matter and you in relation to this particular retainer, namely: -

Our Responsibilities: -

• We will review your matter regularly.

• We will advise you of any changes in the law relevant to your matter.

• We will advise you of any circumstances and risks of which we are aware or consider to be reasonably foreseeable that could affect the outcome of your matter.

Your Responsibilities: -

• You will provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions at all times.

• You will respond to communications from us promptly and attend arranged appointments.

• You will notify us promptly of any change of contact details, change of address or telephone numbers.

• You will provide all documentation required to complete the transaction in a timely manner.

• You will safeguard any documents which are likely to be required for disclosure.

• You will in privately funded cases pay any invoices in full within 30 days (unless agreed otherwise) and deal promptly with any reasonable request for payment of professional fees on account.

• You will, in cases of legally aided work provide any information and documentation promptly that is requested by ourselves on behalf of the Legal Aid Agency or provide information requested directly by the Legal Aid Agency.

B3.    HOURS OF BUSINESS

The office hours of business are from 9.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Monday to Friday (except for public holidays).

B4.    PROVISION OF SERVICES REGULATIONS 2009

In accordance with the Provision of Services Regulations 2009 we can confirm that the Firm has in place Professional Indemnity Insurance for work carried out in England and Wales. Our Insurers are Allianz Insurance. If the Firm has to make a notification under the terms of its Professional Indemnity Insurance policy, information about you and our file may be seen by our Insurers. Our files may therefore be seen by an assessor or another person unconnected with the Firm in the future, unless you notify us that you do not agree to this.

We are regulated and authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) under number 564264. The SRA Code of Conduct sets out the regulatory framework imposed on service providers such as ours. The current edition of the SRA Code is available on the SRA website at www.sra.org.uk.

B5.    EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

The Firm operates under an Equality and Diversity Policy in respect of both client and employees and a copy of this Policy is available upon request.

We can confirm that Glaisyers LLP is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of its dealings with clients, third parties and employees.

B6.    DATA PROTECTION

We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including:

• updating and enhancing client records;
• analysis to help us manage our practice;
• improving our marketing;
• legal and regulatory compliance.

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018 relevant data protection legislation including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and any subsequent legislation in force from time to time and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. Where this is necessary, we will always contact you to discuss and seek your explicit consent before any information is disclosed. Under data protection legislation you have a right of access to the personal data that we hold about you, further information about your rights can be found in the data protection section in your client care letter.

We may from time to time send you information that we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office, preferably in writing.

B7.    STORAGE OF DOCUMENTS

Once our bills have been paid and with the exception of those papers that you request to be returned to you, we will retain papers arising from our work for you in storage for a minimum of 6 years from the date on which our file is archived. At the end of that 6 year period those papers may be destroyed by us without reference to you. You should therefore make special arrangements with us for any documents that you would like us to retain for a longer period of time and in particular to ensure the permanent retention of papers such as deeds and wills.

In certain circumstances we keep files for longer than 6 years and the exact period of retention will be explained to you when we write to you at the conclusion of the case.

Upon completion of the case, if your file is in paper form, your papers will be stored in an off-site archiving warehouse where they will be stored at no charge to you. You may ask at any time for these to be retrieved from archive. This will involve a cost dependent upon the size of the file. We will advise you of the costs involved before we retrieve them from archive. 

For electronic files, these will be stored in our case management system and we will take all reasonable steps to destroy data, unless we are satisfied that there is good reason for retaining it. This provision may change without reference to you if there are changes to the relevant legislative or regulatory requirement.

We keep files on the understanding that we will destroy them after the due destruction date which has been provided to you. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody e.g. Wills or house Deeds. 

If we take papers or documents out of storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for the retrieval. However, we reserve the right to charge you for time spent producing stored papers that are requested and reading correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers.

After completing the work, you will be of course entitled to any of your papers before they are archived. We will however be entitled to keep all your papers and documents when there are still monies owed to us for fees and expenses. We are entitled to hold on to your papers, even if you request us to send them to you whilst fees and expenses are owed to us.

B8. Confidentiality

The information and documentation you provide to us is confidential and we will not disclose any such information or documentation to any person save where we are required to do so by:

• any police, governmental, regulatory or supervisory or law enforcement body or authority in connection with statutory or regulatory obligations or in accordance with any internal procedures we have put in place to meet those obligations;
• our insurers, external auditors, other advisers or professional standards bodies.

Electronic communications

We may communicate with you by email, mobile phone and other electronic media. If you do not wish us to communicate with you by those means, please let us know.

When we communicate by electronic media we take steps to safeguard the security and confidentiality of the information transmitted. However, we cannot guarantee that all communications will be secure or free from infection or virus.

If you require a greater level of security in electronic communications, please notify us in writing of this and we will agree with you a mutually acceptable email protocol.

You should ensure you check to see whether emails we send you are blocked due to virus checking or other detection software.

Please note that we may monitor incoming and outgoing emails for the prevention and detection of crime, investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our telecommunications systems and ascertaining compliance with our internal or professional practices and procedures.

The next two paragraphs below set out further circumstances where we may be required to disclose information about you.

B9.     OUTSOURCING OF WORK

From time to time we ask other companies or people to carry out typing, photocopying or other work on our files to ensure this is done promptly. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsource providers. However, if you do not want your file to be outsourced please let us know as soon as possible. We should point out that the outsourcing of work is normally an exceptional occurrence as the majority of such work is carried out in house.

B10.   AUDITING AND VETTING OF FILES

External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our Practice from time to time e.g. the Solicitors Regulation Authority/Legal Aid Agency. They may also require access to your information for administrative or regulatory purposes. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files and papers which are audited/quality checked by them. Please contact us if you do not wish your files to be disclosed to external auditors.

B11.   LIMITING LIABILITY

Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions shall be limited to £2,000,000.00 (two million pounds). We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profits or opportunities.

We can only limit our liability to the extent that the law allows. In particular we cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

Please ask if you would like us to explain further any of the terms above.

B12.   APPLICABLE LAW

Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Business will be determined by the Law of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh Courts.

B13.   VALUE ADDED TAX

This Firm is registered for VAT under registration number 558 93 5880. All fees and appropriate expenses will be charged with the appropriate amount of VAT. Any fees quoted will be subject to the appropriate rate of VAT.

B14.   COSTS

Wherever possible we will provide you with details of the likely overall costs of the work to be carried out at the outset. In addition, we will provide you with the likely cost of expenses e.g. Barrister’s fees, Expert Witness fees, Search fees, Land Registry fees etc.

In some cases we will be able to provide you with a fixed fee price for the work to be carried out. If a matter doesn't proceed to completion you will be liable for abortive costs, these are dependant on how far the matter has progressed.

In other cases it will not be possible to provide a precise figure or a likely cost. In those cases we will endeavour to provide you with a range of costs at the outset and explain the factors that will affect the final cost, or we will explain to you why the costs cannot be realistically estimated and we will update you on a regular basis as to how the matter is progressing and provide the best information possible about the cost of the next stage of the matter. 

We will always endeavour to investigate other options for payment other than privately paying for the work to be done. Where available we will investigate your eligibility for Legal Aid, investigate whether you have any Legal Expenses Insurance or where appropriate consider taking the case on a Conditional Fee Agreement. If we decide to conduct the case under one of these alternative systems of finance we will still provide cost estimates to you.

In all cases we will explain to you at appropriate times the risk of Cost Orders being made against you from other parties and also explain to you the proportion of your liability for costs even if you receive a Cost Order from an opposing party. 

In the case of publicly funded Clients we will always explain the effect of the Statutory Charge which is imposed by the Legal Aid Agency where property has been recovered or preserved as a result of receiving Legal Aid.

In respect of privately paying Clients we will require our fees to be paid within 30 days of the date of the Invoice to you.

We are at liberty to charge interest on all or part of any bill outstanding beyond its due date. 

You of course have the right to complain about or challenge your bill by applying for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

We will from time to time ask for a payment on account of fees in respect of work that is to be done and/or expenses to be incurred.

B15. TERMINATION

You may terminate your instructions in writing to us at any time but we can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We may decide to stop acting for you only with good reason. We must give you reasonable notice that we will stop acting for you. If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up until that point.

Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. This only applies where contracts are agreed away from our premises or where we are not both physically present (face-to-face). To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or e-mail). To meet the cancellation deadline, it is necessary for you to send a communication concerning you exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period expired. If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you. We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for the work carried out on your behalf from the date of instruction by you to the date of cancellation by you. We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day we receive notice of cancellation from you. We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement.

C. MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING

C1.    CLIENT DUE DILIGENCE (C.D.D.)

The Money Laundering Regulations 2007 require us to: -

• Obtain information about a client’s identity and verify their identity on the basis of that information.

• Obtain identity information about people who are related to the client (Beneficial Owners) where relevant, and at times verify that information

• Obtain information on the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship

• Continue to monitor the transaction and keep identity information up to date. 

As mentioned above the Law requires Solicitors, as well as Banks and Building Societies and others, to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their client. In the circumstances you will need to provide us with either of the following: -

Your current photo-card driving licence correctly showing your current address or your Passport plus an item of evidence to prove your address such as a recent utility bill, Council Tax demand or Bank statement.

If you are unable to provide such evidence you will need to discuss with us alternative evidence that will be acceptable. We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent. We may arrange to carry out an electronic verification of your identity if we consider that a saving of time and cost will be achieved by doing so. The normal identification process will not be charged and will be dealt with as an administration cost but if detailed enquiries have to be made as to identify which may involve external providers a fee may be charged to you for such service.

The reason why these checks are necessary is because Solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their client can be targeted by criminals attempting to launder money.

Do not send us any funds until the identification procedures have been carried out.

C2.    MAKING A DISCLOSURE

We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why because if we did we may ourselves be guilty of a criminal offence known as “tipping off”.

C3.    MORTGAGE FRAUD

When acting for a client in conveyancing matters we often will be acting for the client and the proposed Lender in the transaction i.e. the Bank or Building Society. We have a duty in these cases to fully reveal to the client Lender all the relevant facts about the purchase and mortgage, this includes: -

• Any differences between your mortgage application and information we receive during the transaction
• any cash back payments or discount schemes that the seller is giving you.

D. OTHER FEES AND COSTS RELATED MATTERS

D1.    INTRODUCTION AND REFERRALS

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Code of Conduct provides that we must inform all clients about any relationship that we have with a third party such as a funder, fee sharer or introducer that affects steps you can take on behalf of the client. In this firm such an arrangement would be extremely rare and you would be informed in writing, if there is such a relationship, at the outset of the matter. On the rare occasion that this will occur we will of course provide you with independent advice and you are of course at liberty to raise any questions you may wish to raise about this relationship.

D2.    PAYMENT OF COMMISSIONS

The Solicitor Regulation Authority Rules prevent us making a secret profit from any relationship with our client. In the unlikely event of a commission being paid to us in respect of a client’s case we are obliged under the Code of Conduct to pay any commission in excess of £20 to our client unless there has been a prior agreement to keep the commission that has been paid.

D3.    PAYMENT OF INTEREST

Any money received on your behalf will be held in our client account. Interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate set by the Firm’s Bankers. That rate will of course change from time to time. The period for which interest will be paid normally runs from the date when funds are received and cleared by us until the date of the direct payment or cheque issued to yourself. The payment of interest is subject to the terms set out in the Solicitors Accounts Rules 2019. If the amount calculated is £20 or less, below that sum we consider the administrative costs of dealing with the funds would exceed the interest due.

D4.    FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS WITH CLIENTS

Our practice policy is only to accept cash from a client up to the limit of £1,000.00 in any 28 day period. If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our Bank we may decide to charge you for additional checks we decide are necessary to prove the source of the funds.

Where we have to pay money to you it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.

D5.    FINANCIAL SERVICES

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. If while we are acting for you, you need advice on investments we may have to refer you to someone who is authorised to provide the necessary advice. However, we may provide certain limited investment advice services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you. This is because we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. 

The Solicitors Regulations Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society and the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against Lawyers. If you are unhappy with any investment advice you receive from us you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.

E.    COMPLAINTS

E1.    COMPLAINTS HANDLING

A.  This Firm has a written complaints procedure and that complaints are handled promptly, fairly and effectively in accordance with it.

B.    You will be told in writing, at the outset (or in the case of an existing client, the next appropriate opportunity): -

       I.    That you, in the event of a problem, are entitled to complain.

       II.    You will be told in the letter to whom you should complain.

       III.   That you are entitled to complain about the Firm’s bill.

       IV.   You are entitled to, upon request, see a copy of the Firm’s complaints handling procedure.

      V.  You have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman at the conclusion of your complaint procedure, the time frame for doing so and full details of how to contact the Legal Ombudsman will be provided.

     VI.    You also have a right to object to the bill by applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

     VII.   If all or part of a bill remains unpaid this Firm may be entitled to charge interest.

C.    You are entitled to receive a copy of our complaints procedure upon request.

D.      Once you have made a complaint you will be told (1) how the complaint will be handled (2) within what time scales they will be given an initial and/or substantive response.

E.      At the conclusion of the Firm’s complaint process you will be told of your right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, the time frame for doing so and full details of how to contact the Legal Ombudsman.