10.3    Hourly rate services:

1. If we charge on an hourly rate basis, hourly rates vary according to the experience of the person handling your matter. The hourly rates that apply to your matter are set out in your Client Care Letter.

1. We review our hourly rates from time to time, we will notify you in writing of any If you do not accept the new rates after review, we reserve the right not to continue acting for you.

1. You will be charged for time spent on your matter which will include: any meetings with you (and any third parties); considering, preparing and working on papers; correspondence; making and receiving telephone calls; research; internal consultations; and Time is recorded and charged in six-minute units at the applicable hourly rate. Therefore, this is the minimum amount of time we will charge for any piece of work undertaken on your matter.

1. We add VAT to our fees applicable at the time that the work is
2. We reserve the right to charge separately for photocopying, printing, telephone calls, faxes, electronic funds transfers, catering and other support services, and travel, courier and other incidental expenses. Where applicable, we will charge VAT on our charges and expenses.

1. Where we give you an estimate of costs, it is a guide to assist you in budgeting for your legal costs and is not fixed. We will do our best to keep you updated with the best costs information that we are able to provide at any one If you would like to agree a ceiling figure, above which we will not incur any further costs without your consent, please let us know as soon as possible.

10.4  Agreed Fee

1. If we charge on an agreed fee basis this is where we can be reasonably confident of the amount of work we will be required to do on your The fee we agree and fix is based on the hourly rate of the fee earner doing your work and the expected number of hours likely to be taken to complete your case or matter.

1. Our fee is payable before we commence work on your behalf and is an agreed fee for my anticipated work and is not refundable (abortive fee does not apply).

1. We add VAT to our fees applicable at the time we commence work on your

10.5  Quotations and Estimates

1. The provision of figures (orally or in writing) from time to time for the likely cost of a piece of work is an estimate only and does not constitute a contract to carry out the work at that cost.

1. The provision of a written quotation for work constitutes an offer to carry out the work at that cost and does not become a contract until you accept the quotation or a defined part of it.
2. Unless stated in writing to the contrary, any quotation or estimate does not include any expenses or VAT.
3. Where we carry out work which falls outside the scope of an accepted quotation (or of an estimate which is subsequently incorporated into a contract between us) we may charge fees at our fixed hourly rates, in addition to the quoted or estimated We may also charge additional fees on the same basis for work within the scope of such a quotation or estimate which is made more time consuming, onerous or urgent as a result of:-

1. circumstances or information which we did not know or could not reasonably have anticipated at the time of the quotation or estimate (whether or not you were aware of them/it); or

1. your, or your agents’, act or

11.    Disbursements

• All disbursements (expenses) which we incur in working on your matter will be payable by you in addition to our charges. Examples of these expenses include but are not limited to Land Registry and Companies House fees; search fees; Stamp Duty Land Tax (and similar taxes); fees charged by experts, agents, couriers and barristers; court fees; travel expenses and subsistence; international telephone calls; use of on-line databases; and telegraphic transfer fees. VAT is payable on certain expenses, which you will need to pay in addition.

12.  Paying our bills

• The frequency of billing will depend on the nature of a matter. The frequency of billing for your matter is set out in your Client Care Letter.

• In some cases, particularly when litigation is involved or when we may need to incur substantial expense on your behalf, we may require you to provide a payment on account (payment in advance of us carrying the work out). Where we ask you for payment on account, we are not obliged to carry out any work on your matter until that payment has been A payment on account is not an estimate or fixing of charges, and our total charges may exceed the payment on account.

• You must tell us straightaway if you have any form of legal expenses insurance that you think might pay for our

• If a third party agrees to pay our bills, you will remain responsible to us for payment until those bills have been paid in full.

• Unless agreed otherwise, our bills are payable within 14 days of delivery. If we do not receive payment during this time, then we reserve the right to charge you interest on the outstanding amount at a rate which is 8%. Interest will accrue from one month after the date of delivery of the bill to the date of payment and will be payable on demand. We may also retain any papers and documents belonging to you while payment for our bills is outstanding.

• All bills, whenever they are submitted, will be for final bills for the period to which they relate but this does not prevent us from invoicing you for expenses for that period on a subsequent bill.

• We are normally only able to accept cash up to a limit of £1500 in any 28-day period for Immigration matters and £750 family matters. We do not normally accept payment in cash for property and personal injury If you circumvent this policy by depositing cash direct with our bank we reserve the right to charge for any additional checks we deem necessary regarding the source of the funds.
• If we receive money in relation to your matter from an unexpected source, there may be a delay in your matter and we may decide to charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary

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

• If we are providing services to more than one person whether individuals, companies or entities and we are asked to deliver bills only to one person, those bills will remain payable in full by all persons that we provide services to under this contract.

• Where we hold money on your behalf, because we have received funds on your behalf or you have made payment on account, we may use this money towards payment of our We will advise you if we do this.

• You can make a complaint about a bill using the firm’s complaints procedure which is available upon You may also have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman (see clause 26.7) or to apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

• Please inform us if you would like a third party to be responsible for paying our bills or any part of We must approve this in advance, and we will need the party’s name, contact details and

any other information or identification documents we request. It is your responsibility to pay our bills even if someone else has agreed to pay some or all of them and our bills will still be addressed to you. If someone else does pay some of our bills, you are responsible for paying the rest.

• We may charge interest on overdue bills on a daily basis at 8% above Barclay’s Bank Plc Base Rate. Any overdue bills that have to be chased will incur a handing charge of £50 plus VAT.

• We may cease acting for you if an interim bill remains unpaid after 7 days from the date of our bill or if our reasonable request of a payment on account of costs is not met.

• You have the right to challenge or complain about our bill. Please see section 26 (Complaints) for details of how to complain about our bill.

• You have the right to challenge our bill by applying to the court to assess the bill under the Solicitors Act The usual time limit for applying to the court for an assessment is one month from the date of delivery of the bill.

13.  Contentious matters

• You will be responsible to us for our fees and disbursements regardless of any order obtained for payment of your costs by another party. Our costs are likely to exceed the sum which you could recover from any other party to the proceedings. You should also bear in mind that you may be ordered to pay the costs of the other party.

14.    Your money

• Interest Policy

1. Where we hold money in a client account for you, the SRA Accounts Rules require us to account to you for interest where it is fair and reasonable to do so in all the circumstances.

1. Our interest policy shall be kept under review and may change if the Bank of England base rate increases or decreases. Interest rates payable on client accounts are currently around 0.1% and the Bank of England base rate is 5%. Therefore, the rate of interest available on client accounts is lower than rates of interest which can be obtained on other bank or building society accounts.

1. For cleared funds paid into a client account, the firm shall account for interest unless one of the following circumstances apply:

20. The amount of interest calculated on the balance held is £20.00 or less; or

1. The client money was held in cleared funds in client account for a period of five working days or less.

1. We will usually account to you for interest under our interest policy at the conclusion of

your matter.

14.2    Banking

1. The firm operates its client accounts through Metro Bank Plc regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

1. It is unlikely that we will be held liable for losses resulting from a banking

1. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is the UK’s statutory compensation scheme for customers of deposit providers (banks, building societies, etc.). The FSCS can pay compensation (up to £85,000) to consumers if a deposit provider is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay claims against it. Some temporary high balances (up to £1,000,000) are also covered for up to six months; these relate to balances in transactions involving property, marriage, divorce, redundancy, unfair dismissal, personal injury, a legacy from an estate of a deceased person or money held on behalf of a deceased person for the purpose of administering their estate. Please ask for further details if you require them.

4100. The £85,000 FSCS limit applies to an individual client, so if you hold other personal monies in the same deposit-taking institution as our client account, the limit remains £85,000 in total. Some deposit-taking institutions have several brands, e. where the same institution is trading under different names, so you should check with your deposit provider, the FCA or a financial adviser for more information. Further information regarding the FSCS can be found at www.fscs.org.uk, telephone number 0800 678 1100 or 020 7741 4100.

1. If a banking failure occurs in relation to any deposit provider which holds money that we have deposited on your behalf, you agree that we may, where applicable, disclose to the FSCS all relevant details in our possession about you and the money that we hold on your behalf with such a deposit provider. However, if you do not wish us to make any such disclosure, please notify us by writing to our Data Protection Manager/Partner, Ashrat Please note that by withholding consent to our disclosure of your details to the FSCS in such circumstances, you may forfeit any right you may have to receive compensation from the FSCS where a banking failure occurs in relation to a deposit provider holding money which we have deposited on your behalf.
2. We will never tell you of changes to important business information, such as bank account details, by email. Please notify us immediately if you receive any email or other communication purporting to be from the firm stating that we have changed our bank details or payment arrangements.

15          Limitation of liability

• Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions shall be limited to £3,000,000 (three million pounds), unless we expressly state a higher amount 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.

• Your contract is solely with the Firm, which has sole legal liability for the work done for you and for any act or omission in the course of that No representative, member OR director, officer, employee, agent or consultant of the Firm, will have any personal legal liability for any loss or claim.

• This liability cap will apply to our aggregate liability to you together with any associated party for whom you are acting as agent in relation to the relevant matter on any basis.

• Proportional liability: In addition to the other limitations in this document, where we and/or third parties are responsible for any loss suffered by you, our liability for that loss will be limited to a fair proportion of your total loss calculated by reference to the extent of our If you have engaged others to represent or advise you on a matter in which we are involved and you agree with any of them that their liability to you will be limited, in order that our position is not adversely affected by any such limitation of their liability, you agree that our liability to you will not exceed the amount which would have applied in the absence of that limitation.

• Third party liability: If you start proceedings against us for loss or damage and there is another person (for example, another adviser) who is liable (or potentially liable) to you in respect of the same loss or damage, then you will (if we so request) join them into the proceedings. This is subject to any legal prohibition against your joining them in that way.
• We have an interest in limiting the personal liability of employees, consultants and partners. Accordingly, you agree that you will not bring any claim against any individual employee, consultant or partner in respect of losses which you suffer or incur, arising out of or in connection with our engagement or the services we The provisions of this paragraph will not limit or exclude the firm’s liability for the acts or omissions of our employees, consultants or partners. The provisions of this paragraph are intended for the benefit of our

employees, consultants and partners but the terms of our engagement may be varied without the consent of all or any of those persons.

• We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit our liability for fraud nor for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, nor for negligence in contentious business, insofar as the Solicitors Act 1974 s60(5) precludes the exclusion of such

• Please ask if you would like us to explain any of the terms

16.   Rights of third parties

• Our advice is for your benefit Save as expressly set out, our contract with you is not intended to confer rights on any third parties whether pursuant to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.

• No other person may see or rely on our advice without our written consent and subject to the conditions that we impose at the time.

17.   Storage of documents

• After completing the work, we may be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for charges and disbursements

• We will keep our file of your papers (except those papers you ask to be returned to you) in a secure storage area, or electronically stored under our control of 6 years from the date of the final bill, after which time they will be securely destroyed. We do not keep or store documents in safe

custody following the conclusion of your matter unless we are at the time exercising our right to retain documents pending payment of outstanding fees and expenses or are prevented by any court order, undertaking or other legal constraints from doing so. We do not store or keep original Wills. However, should any of your documents be lost or damaged as a result of events beyond our reasonable control we will not be liable for their replacement or for any resultant loss.

• 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 such retrieval. However, we may 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. Unless otherwise agreed with you in writing, those charges will be at our hourly rates applicable at that time.

• We will also make an administrative charge of £30 plus VAT for retrieving files and will charge for copying, postage or courier fees where we are asked to send any document(s) or file to you or a third We may not release a file or a document where we are exercising our lien in respect of it.

18.   Confidentiality and data protection

• Our use of your information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘DPA’) and our duty of confidentiality. Therefore, we keep information passed to us confidential and will not disclose it to third parties except as expressly or implicitly authorised by you, except in the following circumstances:

• if required by law;
• to professional service providers (such as expert witnesses, auditors or other advisors) for legal, regulatory and compliance purposes;

• to selected third parties (including barristers and consultants) who assist us with legal, financial, administrative, information technology and other services; or

• if that information has entered the public domain other than as the result of our unlawful disclosure.

• These terms of business states otherwise

• If we engage a third party in connection with your matter, we may put in place an agreement requiring them to treat your information as confidential.

• The firm is the data controller (for the purposes of the DPA) of personal data that you provide to us. This means that the firm has a duty to comply with the provisions of the DPA when processing your personal data.

• The firm has appointed Ashrat Khan as its Data Protection Manager (‘DPM’)/Partner and she is responsible for overseeing the firm’s compliance with the DPA.

• We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including (but not limited to): updating and enhancing client records; analysis to help us manage our practice; statutory returns; and legal and regulatory compliance.

• If you are an individual, you have rights under the DPA. These rights are:

• The right to be informed and the right of access – You can request a data subject access request (DSAR) by emailing the supervisor of your matter or emailing our DPM/Partner – Ashrat Khan on ashratkhan@mandksolicitors.com with the details of the personal data that you want to access.
• The right to rectification – Please contact the supervisor of your matter to rectify any information that we In some cases, we may ask to see proof of this change of data.
• The right to erase – To request to erase any data that we hold on you please contact your supervisor or the DPM/Partner. Please also bear in mind if we are in the middle of a matter this may affect our capability to act for you. If this is the case, we will discuss this with
• The right to restrict processing – To request a restriction of processing please notify your supervisor or our DPM/Partner who will contact you to discuss the requirements of your requested restriction. Please bear in mind that some restrictions may prevent us from acting on your behalf. If this is the case, we will discuss this with you.
• The right to data portability – To request this please contact your supervisor or the DPM/Partner who will discuss the format you would like your data in when you make a
• The right to object – If you wish to the objection of any processing (irrelevant if consent has been provided previously). Please contact the supervisor of your matter or the DPM/Partner who will discuss your needs with you and action your Bear in mind, depending on the extent of the request this may prevent us from acting on your matter.
• Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling – The firm does not conduct any solely automated decision making or profiling.
  • These rights are absolute, but there are some cases where our legal obligations override data subject (For example, keeping data for anti-money laundering purposes, notifying the NCA of any money laundering suspicions without notifying you).

• We retain data as needed under the The timescales are explained in clause 17.2.
• Please read our Privacy policy available on our website https://mandksolicitors.com/ carefully as it contains important information on how and why we collect, process and store your personal data. It also explains you rights in relation to your personal data
• Unless you instruct us otherwise, we may contact you or others by email. We deploy a range of information security measures, but we cannot guarantee the security of information or documents sent by email. If you do not wish us to communicate information by email, please let us know.

18.11   Information and confidentiality

• We may also use it to ensure the safety and security of our premises (where we may also use CCTV); for fraud prevention purposes (including verification checks for our money laundering obligations); to assess client satisfaction (such as by asking you to participate in surveys); and to help improve our services generally.

• Should you have any queries concerning these rights, please contact our DPM/Partner at our registered office, M & K Solicitors, 278 Dunstable Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU4 8JN.

19       Disclosure of information for property transactions

• If we are also acting for your proposed lender in this transaction, we have a duty to fully reveal to your lender all relevant facts about the purchase and mortgage. That includes any differences between the mortgage application and information we receive during the transaction and any cash back payments or discount schemes that a seller is giving you.

• You must disclose all information which may affect your liability for stamp duty land tax or other stamp duty (duty) as we can then ensure you pay the correct duty. If you fail to disclose all information (and if in doubt, please disclose it as it can be discounted if it is not relevant) you must accept full liability for any penalties or action or other proceedings that any authority may take against you for failing to disclose information which resulted in a duty or greater liability to pay such duty.

20     Security of communications

• Where you provide us with fax or computer network addresses for sending material to, we will assume, unless you tell us otherwise, that your arrangements are sufficiently secure and confidential to protect your interests.

• The Internet is not secure and there are risks if you send sensitive information in this manner or you ask us to do so. Data we send by email is not routinely encrypted, so please tell us if you do not want us to use email as a form of communication with you or if you require data to be

• We will take reasonable steps to protect the integrity of our computer systems by screening for viruses on email sent and received. We expect you to do the same for your computer systems. Neither you nor we shall have any liability to each other in respect of any claim or loss arising in connection with such a virus or defect in an electronic communication other than where such claim or loss arises from bad faith or wilful default.
• It is very unlikely that we will change our bank account details during the course of your matter. In any event, we will never contact you by email to tell you that our details have changed. If you receive any communications purporting to be from this firm, that you deem suspicious or have any concerns about (however slight), please contact our office straightaway.

21     File auditing and vetting

• The firm may become subject to periodic audits or quality checks by external firms, companies or organisations. This could mean that your file is selected for checking. It is a specific requirement imposed by us that these external firms, companies or organisations fully maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited/quality checked by them. Please indicate if you are not happy for your file to be selected for file auditing and vetting.

22     Referrals to third parties

• If we recommend that you use a particular firm, agency or business, we shall do so in good faith and because we believe it to be in your best interests. However, if that particular firm is not another firm of solicitors, then you will not be afforded the regulatory protection of the Solicitors

Regulation Authority (SRA), the SRA’s Codes of Conduct and SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules, nor shall you be entitled to the benefit of the SRA Compensation Fund.

• All services provided us are regulated by the SRA and covered by Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the SRA’s Codes of Conduct and SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules, nor shall you be entitled to the benefit of the SRA Compensation Fund.

23     Outsourcing

• Sometimes we may outsource part of our work to other companies or people to carry out typing, photocopying, conduct searches, and serve documents on our files to help us deliver efficient, cost effective legal services. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. For information on outsourcing in relation to your personal data, please see the Privacy Policy on our website https://mandksolicitors.com/.

• External organisations such as the Information Commissioner’s Office or Lexcel auditors and the SRA may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice from time to time. They may wish to audit or quality check your file and related papers for this purpose. We will require that these external organisations maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited or quality checked.

• Your files may also be reviewed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business, the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new If you do not wish your file to be used in this way, please let us know as soon as possible.

24     Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing

• We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs However, we may be required by law to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where we 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.

• We will not accept any liability for any loss caused to you or any other party as a result of our refusal to proceed with a matter or transaction or otherwise complying with our legal

• To comply with anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing requirements, we are likely to ask you for proof of your identity and may conduct searches or enquiries for this purpose. We may also be required to identify and verify the identity of other persons such as directors or beneficial If you or they do not provide us with the required information promptly, your matter may be delayed.

• You agree that we may make checks using online electronic verification systems or other databases as we may decide.

• You must not send us any money until we have told you that these checks have been

• We will not usually charge you for undertaking identification and verification checks, but we reserve the right to do so where the checks are likely to be significantly more time-consuming than we would normally expect.

• We may ask you to confirm the source of any money you have sent us or will send If you do not provide us with that information promptly, your matter may be delayed.

• Any personal data we receive from you for the purpose of preventing money laundering or terrorist financing will be used only for that purpose or:
  • with your consent, or

• as permitted by or under another

25     Financial services

• We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the 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 SRA. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at fca.org.uk/register.

• The Law Society is the designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, but responsibility for regulation has been delegated to the SRA (the independent regulatory body of the Law Society), and responsibility for handling complaints has been delegated to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are unhappy with any insurance advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of these bodies.

• The limited regulated activities that we carry out are issuing certain insurance policies, such as after the event legal expenses insurance, defective title insurance and other property indemnity insurance (such as breach of covenant, absence of easement, lack of planning permission, unknown rights and covenants policies).

• Any insurance policy arranged by us on your behalf, shall, in our opinion, be adequate to meet your needs, but you are hereby informed that we do not recommend any policy over and above any other and that it is your responsibility to check that you are satisfied with the excess levels, exclusions, limitations and other policy terms. We do not conduct a fair analysis of the insurance market prior to arranging insurance You can request details of the insurance undertakings with which we conduct business at any time.

• You must provide us with details of any relevant existing insurance policies you may have at the outset. We will not be liable to you for any losses you sustain as a result of your failure to provide us with such details.

26     Complaints

26.1 This firm is committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, please contact Ashrat Khan, who is a Partner at this firm on 01582 732 503 or ashratkhan@mandksolicitors.com or by post to our Luton office. We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available on our website https://mandksolicitors.com/  

26.2 We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not addressed it within this time, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

26.3 If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no later than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or one year from the date when the complainant should have realised that there was cause for complaint.

26.4 As well as yourright to complain about any of our bills under our complaint’s procedure, you can also apply for the bill to be assessed by the court under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, in which case the Legal Ombudsman may not consider your complaint.

26.5 You should be aware that, when your complaint relates to a bill, the Legal Ombudsman will not consider your complaint while your bill is being assessed by a court.

26.6 A complainant to the Legal Ombudsman must be one of the following:

·       An individual;

·       A micro-enterprise as defined in European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 (broadly, an enterprise with fewer than 10 staff and a turnover or balance sheet value not exceeding €2 million);

·       A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;

·       A club, association or society with an annual income less than £1 million; or

·       A trustee of a trust with a net asset value less than £1 million; or a personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.

26.7 Legal Ombudsman Contact Details:

·       Address: PO Box 6167 Slough SL1 0EH

·       Telephone: 0300 555 0333

·       Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

·       Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

·       The firm is committed to ensuring that all Partners, Directors, Members, Consultants and Employees give their full co-operation to the Legal Ombudsman in the event of any dispute or complaint against the firm.

26.8 In addition to the Legal Ombudsman, the SRA can help you if you are concerned about our behavior. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. However, the SRA are not able to deal with issues of poor service.

26.9 Solicitors Regulation Authority Contact Details:

·       Address: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN

·       Telephone: 0370 606 2555

·       Email: report@sra.org.uk

·       Website: www.sra.org.uk

26.10 Exclusions

We shall not be obliged to comply with our complaint’s procedure in relation to any Dispute in which we seek: –

• an order or award (whether interim or final) restraining you from doing any act or compelling you to do any act; or

• a judgment or award for a liquidated sum to which here is no arguable defence (provided that the exception shall cease to apply and the Dispute may be referred to arbitration on the application of either party if the court decides that you should have permission to defend the claim); or

• the enforcement of any agreement reached or any binding order, award, determination or decision made pursuant to our complaints procedure, nor shall anything in this paragraph inhibit us at any time from serving any form of demand or notice or from commencing or continuing with any bankruptcy, winding up or other insolvency proceedings.

27     Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

• Alternative complaints bodies such as ProMediate (http://www.promediate.co.uk/) and Small Claims Mediation (scmreferrals@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk/ 0300 123 4593) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a

• Please contact us if you would like to use an alternative complaints body as both you and our firm must agree on a body before a complaint can be referred to an alternative complaints

28     Your affiliates

• Our client is only the person or entity designated in our Client Care Letter, and not its affiliates (whether shareholders, parent, subsidiaries, partners, members, directors, officers or otherwise). Accordingly, for conflict-of-interest purposes, we may represent another client with interests adverse to your Our engagement by you does not create any rights in or liabilities to any of your affiliates.

29     Commercial conflicts

• You will not attempt to prevent us from acting for other clients, including clients whom you consider to be your competitors, on matters in which you may have an interest but have not instructed us in relation This includes but is not limited to acing in relation to matters where you and/or your affiliates are involved.

30     Force majeure

• We shall not be liable to you if we are unable to perform our services as a result of any cause beyond our reasonable control.

31     Severability

• If any provision in these terms of business or our accompanying Client Care Letter is or becomes invalid, illegal or unenforceable then it shall, to the extent required, be severed and shall be ineffective and the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected in any way.

32     Termination

• You may end this contract (and therefore, your instructions to us) at any time by writing to us by post or However, we may be entitled to keep all of your documents and deeds while there is money owing to us (including charges and disbursements which have not yet been billed).

• We may end this contract (and therefore cease acting for you) in relation to any matter or all of your We will only do this where we believe we have a good reason and upon informing you in writing. Examples of a good reason include where you have not given us sufficient instructions, where you have not provided appropriate evidence of identification or where we reasonably believe that the relationship between you and us has broken down.

• If your matter does not conclude, or we are prevented from continuing to act because of our legal obligations or professional rules, we will charge you for any work we have actually done. Our charges will be based on our hourly rates applicable at that time (and where a fixed fee has been agreed, the charges will not exceed that fixed fee).

• If we cease acting for you, we shall (where relevant) inform the court or tribunal that we no longer act for you and shall apply to be removed from their records. We may charge you for doing so at our hourly rates applicable at that time.
• If we do have to cease acting for you, to the extent permitted my law and our professional obligations we will explain your options for pursuing the matter and will work with you to minimise disruption to your matter or matters.

• In any event we will be considered to have ceased acting for you:

1. upon our completion of the specific services that you have retained us to perform, or
2. when more than three months have elapsed from the last time we furnished any billable services to you.

• The fact that we may inform you from time to time of developments in the law which may be of interest to you, by email, newsletter or otherwise, should not be understood as a revival of a lawyer-client We have no obligation to inform you of such developments in the law unless we are specifically engaged to do so.

• On early termination, by either you or us, you will remain liable to pay all fees and expenses incurred before termination and due under our contract or due on the basis of time spent at our usual hourly rates, whichever is a less, together with any further fees and expenses for work necessary to transfer our files to another advisor of your choice. All our rights set our in these terms shall continue to apply even if we terminate our contract.

33     Cancellation rights

• If you are an individual consumer (and not a business entity) and if our contract with you is a ‘distance contract’ or an ‘off premises contract’, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract (the ‘cancellation period’). This right exists in accordance with The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Please refer to clause 2 for key definitions.

• This right will typically exist where we take instructions from you outside of our offices, for example during a visit to you, or by a means of distance communication such as over the telephone or by email. However, if you are unsure whether these cancellation rights apply to you, please contact us immediately upon receipt of these terms.

• Please refer to the cancellation notice at the end of these terms for further information about your right to cancel and the conditions attached to the same.

33.4     Where cancellation rights apply under these regulations, we will not start work on your file for 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract because the regulations prevent us from doing so unless you instruct us otherwise. If you would like our service to start within 14 days of the day of the conclusion of the contract, please mark the relevant box under the Instructions for Cancellation notice below stating your wishes and return a copy to us.

• By signing and returning the Client Care Letter, you are agreeing that we can start work straight away before the end of the cancellation period and expend your funds paid on account for disbursements. Please also note that if we commence working your instructions before the end of the 14-day period, you will be liable to pay us for any work done prior to any subsequent cancellation. If you have authorised us to commence work early, your right to cancel is lost if all the work is completed before you cancel. These charges will be applied on the same basis as set out in clause 10 of these terms and where a fixed fee has been agreed, the charges will not exceed that fixed fee.

34     Applicable law

• These terms and your Client Care Letter shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with English law. Any disputes or claims concerning this contract and any matters arising from it shall be dealt with only by the courts of England and Wales.

• If any provision of this contract is found by any court or administrative body of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, such invalidity or unenforceability shall not affect the other provisions of this contract which shall remain in full force and effect.

35     Lien on costs

• Where on completion of your matter we are holding any original documents for you including your case file, letters, documents, books, certificates or official documents, personal or official, we reserve the right to exercise our lien in respect of any unpaid costs, vat and/or disbursement due. This means that we will not hand the original documents to you unless our outstanding charges or any disbursements plus vat are paid in If you or any person would like us to forward a copy of your file or any documents on the file, we will require our copying and postal/delivery charges plus

the fee for the time of any fee earner in preparing the file for copying or to be transferred to be paid in full and in advance.

• Where we are holding money on your client account, and we have to pay for a disbursement we will withdraw money from your client account to make the payment. If we have to bill you on an hourly basis for any work, and we are holding money for you on client account, on this file, or any other file, we will withdraw money from client account to meet the amount of our bill.

• Disbursements, being sums we have to pay to others in connection with your case such as search fees, expert fees, court fees, courier fees, travel fares are charged to you at cost and are not part of your fixed agreed fee unless we say otherwise. Our normal policy is to require such payments in advance before incurring the liability. You will have to pay for all disbursements incurred on your behalf.

36     Intellectual Property Rights

• Copyright

We retain copyright and all other intellectual property rights in all documents and other works we develop or generate for you in providing the services (including know-how and working materials as well as final documents). We now grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub licensable licence to use such documents or other works solely for the Matter to which the services of developing or generating them relate and not otherwise. If you do not pay us in full for our services in relation to that Matter we may, on giving you notice, revoke that licence and only re-grant it to you once full payment has been made.

36.2  Opinions from Barristers and other Third Parties

• We may retain, for our subsequent use, a copy of the advice or opinion of any barrister or other third party given in written form (or any note of any advice or opinion) obtained in the course of providing the Services. Any barrister or other third party will be instructed on the basis that any such advice or opinion will be so retained.

• If we retain a copy of any advice or opinion in this manner, we will take all reasonable steps to conceal information (such as names, addresses or descriptions) which might reasonably enable you to be identified.

37     Joint Instructions

• Where we agree to work on a Matter for more than one client jointly, the rights and obligations of the joint clients to us in relation to the services will be several (save for obligations to pay money to us, which will be joint and several).

• Each joint client irrevocably permits us to disclose to any other of the joint clients at any time any information which we would otherwise be prohibited from so disclosing by virtue of our duty of confidentiality. If any joint client ends this permission during the provision of the relevant services, or if a conflict of interest otherwise arises between joint clients, we may suspend or terminate the provision of services related to that Matter to one or more of the joint clients.

• If any joint client asks us to transfer documents, we will deliver Your Documents to, or to the order of, the joint client who delivered them to We will retain any documents held for you and will supply copies to each joint client, making the originals available at one of our offices for inspection by any joint client on reasonable prior written notice.

38     Deadlines

• We will try to meet any deadline we agree with you for the performance of any Services but, unless we agree otherwise in writing in relation to any time, date or period for delivery or performance by us, time shall not be of the essence.

39     Proportionate Liability

• If you accept or have accepted any express exclusion and/or limitation of liability from any of your other professional advisers, our total liability to you arising out of the Services will not exceed the net aggregate of the amount for which we would otherwise have been liable after deducting any amount which we would have been entitled to recover from such adviser as a matter of law whether pursuant to statute or otherwise, but are prevented from doing so as a result of any such exclusion and/or limitation of liability.

40     Exceptions

• Nothing in this agreement exempts us from liability arising from our fraud or reckless disregard of our professional obligations; or from our negligence resulting in death or personal injury; or where, in the case of a contentious business agreement, law or regulation prohibits the exclusion of such liability.

41     Disclaimers

• Tax

• We are not generally qualified to advise you on the tax implications of transactions you instruct us to carry out, or the likelihood of them arising, however in certain circumstances such as in relation to inheritance tax and capital gains tax we may do so.

41.2  Planning in property transactions

• We will not advise you on the planning implications of your proposed purchase, unless specifically requested to do so by you, otherwise than by reporting to you on any relevant information provided by the results of the “local search”.

41.3  Other property disclaimers / Environmental 

• It is not our responsibility to carry out a physical inspection of the property nor advise on the valuation of the property nor the suitability of your mortgage nor any other financial arrangements. We shall not advise generally on environmental liabilities where we shall assume, unless you tell us to the contrary, that you are making your own arrangements for any appropriate environmental survey or investigations.

• We may, however, need to obtain on behalf of your lender, at your expense, an environmental search. However, we will not advise you about any issues relating to the possible contamination of any land which may be relevant to your purchase. We have to tell you that we are not qualified to advise on the results of any search made in that respect and would only be able to report to you the actual results of such a search.

• If we are instructed on purchase and we are also acting for your proposed lender, we have a duty to fully reveal to your lender all relevant facts about the purchase and the mortgage. This includes any differences between your mortgage application and information we receive during the transaction, any cash back payments or discount schemes that a seller is giving to you.

42     Legal Aid

• We do not undertake publicly funded work (“Legal Aid”) but it is important that you are aware of it. Legal Aid is not necessarily free. Legal costs may have to be paid out of any assets or cash recovered or You may be required to pay a contribution. For further information go to the Legal Aid Agency website: www.justice.gov.uk/legal-aid or telephone them directly on 0300 2002020.

43     Notices

• Any notice or other communication required to be given by either you or us in connection with these terms of business or the contract for the provision of Services generally shall be in writing and shall be delivered by hand or sent by pre-paid first-class post or other next working day delivery service at our address as set out in these terms of business or to your last known address (as appropriate) or sent by fax to the other party’s main fax number.
• Any notice or communication shall be deemed to have been received if delivered by hand, on signature of a delivery receipt or at the time the notice is left at the proper address, or if sent by fax, at 00 am on the next Working Day after transmission, or otherwise at 9.00 am on the second Working Day after posting or at the time recorded by the delivery service.

• This clause 43 does not apply to the service of any proceedings or other documents in any legal action or, where applicable, any arbitration or other method of dispute

resolution. For the purposes of this clause, “writing” shall not include e-mail.

44     Green Deal Scheme

• The Green Deal Scheme is a government driven initiative to allow for a loan to be provided on a property for the improvement of its energy efficiency. The loan is repayable on a monthly basis, in conjunction with the power bills on the The loan will run with the property unless it is repaid on the sale or transfer of the property.
• The seller(s) of the property are required, by law, to disclose the existence of any Green Deal loan on the property they are selling, or they may become liable for repaying the outstanding debt, even after they have sold the property.
• The Estate Agent/Seller must disclose the existence of a Green Deal loan agreement prior to a sale being agreed. If the property is being sold at auction, the existence of a Green Deal loan agreement should be disclosed before the winning bid is made.

• The purchaser on a normal sale should be given an EPC showing the Green Deal improvement or an EPC and a disclosure document showing details of the work carried out under the Green Deal Scheme. This disclosure document will be provided by the energy provider on completion of the work as well as details of the repayment amount, the unexpired term of the loan and details of the loan provider.

• Disclosure of the Green Deal loan must be made at least 7 days prior to exchange of contracts and the Transfer Deed must contain the Purchaser’s acknowledgement that they have received notice that the property is a Green Deal property.

• Whilst there are no charges, restrictions, notices or cautions registered when a property is a Green Deal property, the mortgage lender must be notified of the existence of the Green Deal loan because the borrower / new property owner is taking on another loan which runs with the

• If this applies to you, we will ask you to sign and return the Declaration and Agreement Section of the Client Care Letter we send to you confirming your authority for us to make any such disclosure to your mortgage lender.

• Please note that we offer no guarantees/warranties in relation to the extent and nature of any works undertaken under the Green Deal It is your responsibility to ensure that you have satisfied yourself as to the extent, nature and repayment provision of any such works undertaken in accordance with the Green Deal Scheme.
• We would recommend that all Green Deal loans be repaid by the seller on completion of the property transaction, as the value of the property will undoubtedly have already taken into account the work undertaken under the Green Deal loan.

45     Law Society Conveyancing Protocol

• You agree for us to provide information to other parties in accordance with Law Society Conveyancing Protocol.

46     Cyber Crime Warning

• You may have read in the press of attempts by criminals to deceive clients of law firms into paying money into a bank account that is not the firm’s own We rarely, if ever, as a

matter of normal business practice, change our bankers or bank details. We will notify you of our account details by letter sent by post, by fax if you have the facility to receive them or by telephone.

• We take cyber security very seriously and we know that emails can be intercepted and used illegally by If we provide details of our bank account to you by email, please ensure that you verify such details by speaking to the person who is dealing with your matter or a member of our accounts team.

• Please also note that we will NEVER advise you of a change in our bank details by email. For your cyber safety, if you receive such an email please speak to us We cannot accept responsibility for your actions if you send money to an incorrect account.

• • If we receive any communication from you informing us of a change to your account details or instructions for payment, we will not make any payment until we have been able to confirm those instructions directly with you.