Brett Holt Solicitors
Standard Terms of Engagement
As a matter of good practice and in accordance with the Rules and Guidelines published by the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority we set out below the Standard Terms of Engagement upon which work is to be undertaken by us for you.
Our Commitment to You
It is our aim to provide you with the highest level of service at all stages of the transaction for which we are engaged. In particular:
We will keep you regularly informed of progress
We will return phone calls within 24 hours (when possible)
We will communicate with you in plain language
We will explain the legal work that may be required
We will advise you of the likely costs risk benefit of pursuing a matter
We will advise you of the likely timescale involved to conclude the matter
If at any time you feel that we are not achieving the service standards we have set ourselves please contact the person having conduct with your matter to discuss your concerns. If they cannot be resolved by this method please contact either of the two Partners, Andrew Woolford and Amanda Powell, who will be pleased to investigate and help to resolve any complaint you may have. We will do all in our power to resolve any difficulty quickly.
Scope of Instruction
On receiving instructions we will write to you to record your instructions. We will confirm any substantial variation from those instructions which may occur from time to time. We will also confirm the name of the person who will deal with your matter on a day to day basis and who within the firm has overall responsibility for your matter.
There will be some transactions where we will offer specific taxation advice. However, in general terms, we will not advise upon the taxation implications of any transaction unless you specifically request us to do so. In that event we may need to seek assistance from a third party qualified to advise in the particular matter on the basis you pay separately for that advice.
Proof of Identity
The law now requires solicitors, as well as banks, building societies and others, to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their client. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their client can be used by criminals wishing to launder money. In order to comply with the law on money laundering we need to obtain evidence of your identity as soon as practicable. We should be grateful therefore if you would provide us with documents to verify your identity and address as will be set out in our initial letter to you.
Confidentiality
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation however is subject to a statutory exception: recent legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering the solicitor may be required to make a money laundering disclosure.
If while we are acting for you it becomes necessary to make a money laundering disclosure we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or of the reasons for it because the law prohibits “tipping off”.
Where money is due to be paid by you to us it is important that you are the source of that payment. We will be entitled to return money we receive from elsewhere or to make such enquiries on the subject as we see fit, either of which may cause delay in the transaction which will be at your own expense.
Authority to disclose information to mortgage lender
If you are buying a property with the aid of a mortgage loan we will usually be instructed to represent your lender as well.
Information regarding the transaction or your financial circumstances may come to our notice that we consider appropriate to disclose to the lender. Your acceptance of these terms of engagement will act as your authority for us to make such disclosure.
Payment of costs or disbursements on account (i.e. “up front” )
It is normal practice for solicitors to ask clients to make payments on account of anticipated costs and disbursements. Where appropriate, we will let you know of any payments required on account. It is helpful if you can meet requests promptly, but if there is any difficulty, please let us know as soon as possible. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, you will be personally responsible for payment of our fees, disbursements and VAT.
Directors of a Company which instructs us may be asked to be personally responsible for the payment of our accounts.
In the event of any fees, disbursements or VAT (whether already incurred or to be incurred) not being paid, we reserve the right to decline to act any further in relation to any matter we are dealing with and to prepare a detailed account for all work carried out. If we are asked to give a solicitor’s undertaking on your behalf, we are entitled to require a deposit of funds or other security from you before proceeding further.
The policy of our practice is to accept a maximum of £750 in cash
Interim Accounts
Interim accounts may be delivered for the work carried out after each significant stage of the matter, or every three months if earlier, if it appears that the matter may not be concluded soon. This assists our cash flow and enables you to budget for costs. We are sure that you will understand that in the event of a payment not being made we reserve the right to decline to act any further and prepare a detailed account for all the work carried out to date.
Payment of Bills
On a Sale – our costs VAT and disbursements will be deducted from the net proceeds of sale on completion (if sufficient). If not sufficient we will inform you before completion of the balance which you must pay before we complete the matter. We cannot pay any shortfall out of our own account.
On a Purchase – our costs VAT and disbursements are payable before completion. We will inform you of the balance due and if not paid reserve the right to refuse to complete the matter as we cannot pay moneys which we do not have out of our client account.
On a Sale and Purchase together – we will inform you before completion if there is a balance due to us which will have to be paid, or a balance due to you which will be sent after completion.
On a Re-mortgage – our costs VAT and disbursements will be deducted from any balance due to you on completion, but if there is a shortfall then we will require this to be paid before we complete the matter.
Transfer of Equity – we will inform you before completion if you are required to pay our costs, disbursements or any shortfall on moneys being paid to the other party, not covered by you already or by a re-mortgage.
In Probate matters our costs VAT and disbursements will be deducted from assets collected in for the estate any shortfall will be payable by you
On all other matters our invoice is to be paid within 30 days of being rendered to you.
If our charges are not paid within thirty days of the issue of the invoice you agree that we can charge interest on the outstanding sum at 4% above the base rate for the time being of our bankers, Barclays Bank plc, calculated from the date of issue of the invoice until the date of actual payment.
It is agreed and understood that, as your solicitors, we may receive monies delivered for you and credit these to you in our client account.
VAT is always payable on our fees at the current rate and may be payable on some disbursements as well.
Our policy is to keep clients regularly informed on the progress of their case. This includes information on costs and disbursements if it is likely that the original estimate will be exceeded.
On Conveyancing matters, Probate, Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney and the like you will receive an estimate at the outset. On Litigation matters the costs will be based on time spent and an hourly rate agreed at the outset subject to revision.
Money Retained in Client Account
We will account to you at the conclusion of the matter for any surplus balance of funds held in our clients account on your behalf and for interest that may reasonably be said to have arisen during the course of the transaction subject to our right to set off against this the accounting or administration costs that may be incurred.
We may receive money in the course of the transaction that has to be retained well after the matter has finished, perhaps because of agreed disbursement not then due for payment, or taxes, or to cover excess service charges or because of an undertaking to others to which we are subject to on your behalf. You will be notified of any such and will be deemed to give your on going authority without requiring any periodic or annual confirmation while the money remains so retained,
Referral Arrangements
We may pay a referral fee for work to be referred to us. In such a situation we will inform you in writing and will tell you what he we have paid. The advice which we give to you will be independent and we will treat you the same as any other client. You are free to raise questions on all aspects of the transaction and any information which you disclose to us will be treated as confidential and not disclosed to the referrer or to any other 3rd party without your consent. We will not act for the referrer in connection with the same transaction in any way at all and you are under no obligation to instruct us in connection with the transaction
Financial Services and Insurance Mediation
We are not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 but we are able in certain circumstances to offer a limited range of investment services to the client because we are members of the Law Society. We can provide these investment services if they are an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide.
If you have any problem with the service we provide for you then please let us know. We will try to resolve any problem quickly and operate an internal complaints handling system to help us to resolve the problem between ourselves. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us then we are regulated by the Law Society which also provides a complaints and redress scheme.
We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority to undertake insurance mediation work. However we are included on the Register maintained by the Financial Services Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity which is broadly advising on selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Law Society. The Register can be accessed via the Financial Services Authority website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.
Communication by email
If you contact us by email or request us to contact you by email we will assume that you are content to communicate through this media and where appropriate will do so. However it must be recognised that email may not be as secure a method of communication as letter or telephone contact. If you do have any concerns regarding the security of email please advise the person responsible for your matter and we will cease communication by this method.
Solicitors Accounts Rules
Please note that we cannot pay out money on your behalf unless we have received funds from you that have cleared through our bank account. We must therefore receive any cheques at least 7 days before the money needs to be paid out. If a longer clearance period is required we will let you know at the time. Similarly, if we receive any payment by way of a cheque for you, that cheque must clear through our bank account before we can pay the funds out.
From time to time we will hold money in our clients account on your behalf. Where appropriate we will pay you money in lieu of interest on general clients account on funds that we have held calculated in accordance with the Solicitors Accounts Rules. This payment will be made to you without deduction of tax so that it will be your responsibility to account to the Inland Revenue for tax (if any) due on this payment. Alternatively, where we are likely to hold funds for longer periods we may arrange for money that we hold for you to be placed on deposit with our bank in which case our bank will pay interest net of tax whilst the money is on deposit and we will provide you with a statement in respect of this when forwarding the net interest to you.
Any payment that is to be made to you in respect of monies held in our clients account will normally be paid on or shortly after the conclusion of the transaction for which the money was received or held.
Professional indemnity insurance
Under the Indemnity Insurance Rules firms are required to take out and maintain qualifying insurance.
Details of Brett Holt’s insurance can be found at our office(s), or you can contact us to request this information.
Equality and diversity
We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Our equality and diversity policy can be found here.
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 for management purposes and statutory returns; and
Legal and regulatory compliance.
Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to disclose information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. You have a right of access under data protection legislation to the personal data that we hold about you.
We may from time to time send you information which we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office in writing.
Out Sourcing
From time to time we may choose to outsource typing and photocopying and other administrative procedures in order to ensure that they are dealt with in a timely fashion. In doing so we will ensure that confidentiality is observed. Should you not want this to be done you should tell us prior to us proceeding with your matter.
Termination of Acting
You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time. For example, you may decide that you cannot give us clear or proper instructions on how to proceed or you may not wish us to pursue your matter any longer.
We will decide to stop acting for you only with good reason and on giving you reasonable notice.
If you or we decide that we will stop acting for you, you will pay our costs to date, either on the hourly basis specified in the client care letter, or a reasonable sum not exceeding the fixed estimate given in the client care letter. Upon termination of our instructions we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents whilst money is owing to us.
Storage and Retrieval of Papers
Upon conclusion of a transaction we will place the working file in store. Sale and Probate files will be retained for a period of 3 years and then destroyed. All other files will be retained for a period of 6 years and then destroyed. There will be no separate charge to you for the storage of your papers.
Wills and Title Deeds and some other documents of importance will be stored separately indefinitely, again without charge to you.
If we retrieve papers from storage in relation to continuing or proposed revised instructions we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, we reserve the right to charge you for any time spent in producing such stored papers and reading the correspondence or any other work necessary to comply with your instructions relating to those papers.
When we act for you in more than one matter
If you instruct us in more than one matter within six months of each other these Terms of Engagement shall apply in respect of each such matter. In the event you regularly instruct us in connection with a number matters, whether or not they are similar to each other, these terms of Engagement shall apply to all such matters until we provide you with any revised Terms of Engagement.
Review of Files
Our practice is subject to audit or quality checks by external firms or organisations. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.
Limitation of liability
Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions shall be limited to £2 million or such other higher amount as expressly set out in the letter accompanying these terms of business. 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.
These limitations apply only to the extent that they are permitted by law. In particular they do not apply to any liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence.
Applicable law
Any dispute or legal issue arising from our terms of business will be determined by English law and will be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.