PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE
Terms of website use
This terms of use (together with the documents referred to in it) tell you the terms of use on which you may make use of our website www.johnsonmay.com (our site), whether as a guest or a registered user. Use of our site includes accessing, browsing, registering to use our site, asking us a question, our answers, making an enquiry and our response, use of our mail outs/newsletters, any self-help guides and courses (“use our site”).
Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use our site, as these will apply to your use of our site. We recommend that you print a copy of this for future reference.
By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them.
If you do not agree to these terms of use, you must not use our site.
Other applicable terms
These terms of use refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our site:
- Our Privacy Policy,which sets out the terms on which we process any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us.
- Our Acceptable Use Policy, which sets out the permitted uses and prohibited uses of our site. When using our site, you must comply with this Acceptable Use Policy.
- Our Cookie Policy, which sets out information about the cookies on our site.
Information about us
Johnson May Solicitors, is the trading name of Johnson May Limited. Johnson May Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA: 8001033).
For the avoidance of doubt, any written or oral opinion provided on this site is for guidance only and should not be relied upon.
We also have a network of specialist consultant solicitors who may be able to assist you through their own SRA Firms or they may provide unreserved legal work through their own insured independent companies.
Changes to these terms
We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page.
Please check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we made, as they are binding on you.
Changes to our site
We may update our site from time to time, and may change the content at any time. However, please note that any of the content on our site may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update it.
We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will be free from errors or omissions.
Accessing our site
Our site is made available free of charge. We will also answer your law questions and enquiries submitted via our site free of charge as long as the question and enquiry falls without in our expertise. Our intention will be to answer your law questions and queries within 48 hours but as this part of our site is free, we are busy and we regret that we may not be able to answer all questions and queries, we will of course try our best to. Our position is reserved to not answer questions, if and when required.
When you send us a question, an enquiry or your subscribe to our mailing list, you give your express permission and consent for us to use your personal data in accordance with our Privacy policy and for our consultants and our partnered SRA Regulated law firms to correspond with you thereafter.
Self-help guides may be available for you to download either free of charge or for a fee. Any prompts for payment will be clearly identified and securely protected. If you have any concerns, you should not proceed with your purchase and you must report any concerns to us swiftly.
You may access the majority of our site without providing us with your personal information. There are however, some parts of our site where we will require your personal information to provide you with the service that we offer. Your personal information will be processed in accordance with our privacy policy which you can also here [insert link].
We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. Access to our site is permitted on a temporary basis. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of our site without notice. We will not be liable to you if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.
You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our site.
You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.
Our site is directed to people residing in the United Kingdom. We do not represent that content available on or through our site is appropriate or available in other locations. We may limit the availability of our site or any service or product described on our site to any person or geographic area at any time. If you choose to access our site from outside the United Kingdom, you do so at your own risk.
Your account and password
If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.
We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.
If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us at [email protected].
Intellectual property rights
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.
No reliance on information
The content on our site, any law questions that we may answer or any oral discussions that we may have is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site, our answers or oral guidance given. You may instruct our consultant lawyers direct but any such instruction will be through our partnered SRA Regulated law firms direct and not JLC.
Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up-to-date.
Limitation of our liability
Nothing in these terms of use excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, or our fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by English law.
To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to our site or any content on it, whether express or implied.
We will not be liable to any user for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with: use of, or inability to use, our site; or
- use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.
If you are a business user, please note that in particular, we will not be liable for:
- loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
- business interruption;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
- any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
If you are a consumer user, please note that we only provide our site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial-of-service attack, or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any content on it, or on any website linked to it.
We assume no responsibility for the content of websites linked on our site. Such links should not be interpreted as endorsement by us of those linked websites. We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.
Different limitations and exclusions of liability will apply to liability arising as a result of the supply of any goods by use to you, which will be set out in our Terms and conditions of supply.
Uploading content to our site
Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site, or to make contact with other users of our site, you must comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you will be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. If you are a consumer user, this means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.
Any content you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but you are required to grant us [and other users of the Site] a limited licence to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties. The rights you license to us are described in the next paragraph (Rights you licence).
We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any content posted by you or any other user of our site.
We have the right to remove any posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, your post does not comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.
You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.
Rights you licence
When you upload or post content (“Content”) to our site, you grant the following licenses:
- a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that user generated Content in connection with the service provided by the website and across different media. It may also wish to use the Content to promote the site or the service.
- other users, partners or advertisers to use the Content for their purposes or in accordance with the functionality of the site.
- the abovementioned licenses will remain in place even if the content is deleted.
We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform in order to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.
You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.
Linking to our site
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it but please do seek permission from us in the first instance.
You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.
Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.
We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
If you wish to make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact [email protected].
Third party links and resources in our site
Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only.
We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.
Applicable law
If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, its subject matter and its formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree to that the courts of England and Wales will have non-exclusive jurisdiction. However, if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.
If you are a business, these terms of use, its subject matter and its formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
General
Any rights and obligations not specifically detailed herein are reserved and you should contact us if you have any questions and/or queries relating to use of our site.
Contact us
You can contact us at:-
Johnson May Limited
137-139 High Street, Beckenham, London, BR3 1AG.
T: 020 8150 7173
M: 079 3999 7096
Client care and terms of business
Table of contents
- Costs, disbursements and billing. 1
- Our service to you. 3
- Communications between us. 4
- Legal documents. 4
- Joint instructions. 4
- Conflicts of interest 5
- Money held for and due. 5
- Limitation of liability. 5
- Limited companies. 6
- Tax advice. 6
- Complaints. 6
- Anti-money laundering procedures. 7
- Pooled funds. 8
- Data protection and General Data Protection Regulation privacy notice. 8
- Confidentiality and disclosure. 9
- Monitoring communications. 10
- Storage of documents. 10
- Professional indemnity insurance. 11
- Financial Conduct Authority. 11
- Property transactions. 11
- Acting for your lender in conveyancing transactions. 12
- Conveyancing Quality Scheme. 12
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 13
- Referral arrangements. 13
- Recovering legal costs and disbursements. 13
- Terminating the retainer 14
- Distance selling – The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 14
- Continuing instructions. 15
We will charge either a fixed fee or a fee based on the time spent dealing with a matter. Please refer to your personal Terms of Business for the method of charging.
Our costs are generally based on the time spent dealing with a matter. Time spent on your affairs will include meetings with you; considering, preparing and working on papers, including preparation of bills and statements of account; correspondence and making and receiving telephone calls.
We will charge you as set out below per hour for each hour of work from now until our firm’s annual review on 1 April each year. We will provide a written estimate of our costs as soon as we have sufficient information to enable us to do so. If, due to unforeseen circumstances or difficulties and changes in your instructions, it becomes necessary to revise our estimate, we will write to you with a fresh estimate as soon as possible before incurring any additional costs.
The current hourly rates of our staff are set out below:
| Grade A Solicitor and legal executive with over 8 years’ experience. | £282 |
| Grade B Solicitor and legal executive with over 4 years’ experience. | £232 |
| Grade C – Other solicitor or legal executives or fee earners of equivalent experience. | £185 |
| Grade D – Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners | £129 |
We will add VAT to our charge at the rate that applies when the work is done. At present VAT is 20%.
On 1 April each year the hourly rates are reviewed and we will notify you in writing of any increased rate.
Letters and telephone calls made and received are usually charged on a time basis of six‑minute units.
If your instructions require us to work outside normal office hours we reserve the right to increase the hourly rate.
For certain types of cases, we may be able to act for you under the terms of a Conditional Fee Agreement (“CFA”) (“No win no fee”), a Discounted Conditional Fee Agreement (“DCFA”) or a Damage-based Agreement (“DBA”). Please refer to your personal Terms of Business for further information about how these types of agreements work.
Estimate of costs
Based on the information you provide us we will provide an estimate of the costs involved.
- Other costs and disbursements
There may be certain other disbursements, including payments we make on your behalf, such as search fees, Land Registry fees, expert’s fees and counsel’s fees, which you will have to pay. VAT is also payable on some of these disbursements.
If as part of our work we are required to pay out funds by electronic transfer, for example to you, a bank or building society or the other side’s legal practitioner, this will be charged and we will confirm the rate for each electronic transfer required.
- Initial costs
As we expend funds on your behalf from commencement of the matter we may need to ask you for a payment on account of our costs, disbursements and VAT as disclosed above. If so, we will send you a statement requesting payment into our client account. From time to time we may ask for a top-up payment. When your matter is completed we will return any surplus to you. If we ask for costs on account we are not obliged to do any work until they are received.
These amounts will be shown as paid on your invoices.
- Paying the invoice
Payment of invoices can be made by a number of methods, including cheque and bank transfer.
In order to provide maximum protection against fraud we recommend that you always telephone our office to confirm bank account details before a transfer is made.
- Billing
We will send you a bill for our costs and disbursements when the work is completed. However, if the matter extends over a number of months etc we will send bills at monthly intervals.
If you have any questions about a bill, please contact our firm as soon as possible.
You are entitled to complain about a bill. There may also be a right to object to the bill by making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman or by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.
If an interim account is not paid within seven days of sending the bill, or a final account is not paid within 14 days of sending the bill, we reserve the right to terminate your instructions and to retain your papers until such time as the account is paid.
We reserve the right to charge interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate on overdue invoices.
We aim to offer our clients quality legal services at a fair cost. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in our dealings with clients, third parties and employees.
We will:
- Communicate in plain language;
- Explain the legal work required as the matter progresses;
- Provide regular updates on the cost and progress of the matter;
- Provide updates on whether the likely outcomes still justify the likely costs and risks associated with the matter whenever there is a material change in circumstances;
- Advise you of any circumstances and risks of which we are aware or consider to be reasonably foreseeable that could affect the outcome of the matter;
- Notify you of any changes in the law which may affect the progress or likely outcome of the matter;
- Continue to review whether the matter can be funded using alternative methods;
- Respond to your queries promptly;
- Deal with all information in accordance with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018.
We ask that you please:
- Provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions;
- Keep us updated with information relevant to the matter;
- Provide the relevant documents we need in a timely manner;
- Attend all scheduled appointments on time;
- Let us know of any change in your contact details;
- Respond to our queries and requests promptly;
- Pay our costs promptly.
We will communicate with you by email, telephone and letter. If you have a preferred method of communication please let us know.
All emails received will undergo a virus check. Unless you withdraw consent, we will communicate with others when appropriate by email but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by email.
During the time we are working with you it is likely we shall send you legal documents and papers to read and perhaps sign. These may be complex and onerous and we strongly recommend you carefully read these documents and come back to us if there is anything in them which is unclear.
If you instruct us to act not only on your behalf but also on behalf of another person or persons in relation to the same matter, – for instance husband and wife, family members or business partners, we are thereby authorised to act upon instructions received from any one on the assumption that they have authority to give instructions on behalf of all of them. However, prior to accepting initial instructions the identity of each client must be confirmed.
In the case of companies, the instructions may come from an individual director of the company unless otherwise instructed in writing.
Unless agreed otherwise any one or more of those instructing jointly is jointly and severally liable for costs and disbursements.
We will not normally act for two or more clients in the same matter where an actual or potential conflict of interest exists between those clients. We may act for two or more clients in the same matter if a substantially common interest exists and we have explained the relevant issues and risks to each client, who have subsequently given informed consent to us acting for all of them and we are satisfied that it is reasonable for us to do so, it is in the best interests of all clients and we are satisfied that the benefit outweighs the risks.
In any such case no individual within the firm will act for or be responsible for the supervision of work done for more than one of the clients. Appropriate safeguards will be in place to ensure each clients’ confidential information is protected. If for any reason we subsequently cease acting for one of the clients they will be required to pay the costs and disbursements incurred on their behalf up to that point.
Money held on your behalf is paid into a client account at such bank as we reasonably employ in accordance with our regulator’s rules.
We will pay money due to you by bank transfer or cheque as agreed where reasonably possible, or as we think appropriate.
Interest will be paid on certain balances in accordance with our regulator’s rules.
Where after completion of our work, or for any other reason, we retain a balance of your money we will return it to you on termination of instructions and completion of the matter.
We will at all times take all reasonable steps to keep your money safe.
We do not accept liability for any loss or damage caused by negligence, non-performance or breach of duty to a value in excess of £3 million unless we have made a special arrangement with you at the outset of your matter.
No member or employee of our firm will be liable to you for breach of contract or negligence in their personal capacity.
Other than in respect of liability arising from fraud, personal injury or death, we do not accept liability for claims received more than 12 months from the conclusion of our work or, if not apparent within that time, more than 6 months after it becomes apparent.
Your statutory rights remain unaffected.
When accepting instructions to act on behalf of a limited company we may require a director or controlling shareholder to sign a form of personal guarantee in respect of the legal costs and disbursements of this firm.
Any work that we do for you may have tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. We are not qualified to advise you on any tax implications of a matter that you have instructed us to deal with, or the likelihood of them arising. We therefore cannot provide tax advice to you. We strongly recommend that you take independent tax advice if required.
We also do not provide any accounting advice and again you should take independent accounting advice if required.
Any and all liability in relation to tax and accounting matters is excluded.
We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service or about the bill, please contact Mrs Maxine Johnson so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. If you still have queries or concerns, please contact Mrs Maxine Johnson who is the client care partner to whom any final issues can be reported.
We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and complaints and redress mechanisms are provided through them and the Legal Ombudsman.
All law firms are obliged to attempt to resolve problems that clients may have with the service provided. It is therefore important that you immediately raise your concerns with us.
If we are unable to resolve any such concerns to your satisfaction within eight weeks you are entitled to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman: www.legalombudsman.org.uk or PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ.
The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about legal services. Normally complaints need to be made to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving our final written response to your complaint.
Complaints about a client’s rights under the General Data Protection Regulation must be submitted to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk.
Any disputes or legal issues arising from our Client Care and Terms of Business will be determined by the laws of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh courts.
In accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 law firms are obliged to obtain certain information to establish the correct identity and address of clients. In certain circumstances we may be under an obligation to submit a report to the authorities if we have reason to suspect offences concerned with money laundering may have been committed or might be committed.
By accepting this Client Care and Terms of Business you accept that we are entitled to require you to produce appropriate evidence of your identity and address, that we may submit reports to the relevant authorities concerning your business and that we shall not be liable in any circumstance for any losses which you might incur as a consequence of any such steps which we might properly take in pursuance of our statutory obligations under anti-money laundering legislation.
In carrying out our statutory obligations we may incur certain expenses in order to verify the identity of a client to the satisfaction of the authorities, for example company search fees.
Acceptable identification documents
Acceptable evidence of personal identity includes:
- Current valid passport with a UK residence permit if appropriate;
- EU member state identity card;
- Current EU or UK photocard driving licence; or
- Armed Forces ID card.
Evidence of address can be determined by:
- Confirmation from the electoral register;
- Recent utility bill, bank statement or mortgage statement with the current address;
- Local authority rates or council tax bill;
- Current UK driving licence, but only if not used as evidence of personal identity; or
- Local council rent card or tenancy agreement.
The anti-money laundering guidance which UK banks and other finance services firms must adhere to is issued by the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group (JMLSG).
The JMLSG does not require banks to routinely identify the beneficial owners of law firm’s pooled accounts as they do with most other accounts on the proviso that this information is available upon request.
In the event of our bank requesting information about the beneficial owners of our pooled client account you agree to us disclosing your details to them. If further information including verification documentation is required from you in order to identify the owners of funds held by us, you agree to provide it.
We use the information that you provide to us 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;
- Statutory returns; and
- Legal and regulatory compliance.
Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation and our duty of confidentiality.
The Data Protection Act 2018 requires us to advise you that your particulars are held on our database and from time to time we may use these details to send you information which we think might be of interest. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office in writing. We do not make such information available to any other provider of products or services.
If you are an individual you have the right under the Data Protection Act 2018 to obtain information from us, including a description of the data that we hold about you. Should you have any queries concerning this right please contact our data protection officer Mrs Maxine Johnson.
Handling your personal data
We confirm the following:
- The fee earner handling your matter, their secretary and any legal assistant within the firm may handle your data.
- Your personal data will remain confidential.
- Your personal data will be used to carry out an identification check as is usual in this type of transaction, to make contact with you for the duration of the matter and to ensure that funds are sent or received to facilitate the transaction.
- The processing of your personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the firm or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of an individual which require protection of personal data, in particular where the individual about whom data is held is a child.
- It may be necessary to provide third parties with your data to effect the transaction, namely other law firms, search providers, government departments including HM Revenue & Customs, the Land Registry and IT service suppliers.
Fair and transparent processing
We confirm the following:
- Your personal data will not be retained for any longer than is necessary to fulfil the firm’s statutory obligations.
- Upon signing the client care documentation provided to you at the outset of the matter you will be confirming that the contract which exists between us gives us the right to process your data in relevant and applicable ways.
- You have the right to request from the firm access to and rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing concerning your personal data.
- You have the right to object to processing.
- You have the right to data portability.
- You have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in relation to any concerns you may have with regard to the processing of your personal data.
By accepting this Client Care and Terms of Business you agree to provide personal data and consent to our use of it accordingly.
We must observe a general duty of confidentiality.
Subject to data protection legislation and our duty of confidentiality we may share your personal data with:
- Third parties and other persons who help us provide our products and services;
- Companies and other persons providing services to us;
- Our legal and other professional advisors, including our auditors in the conduct of audit or quality checks on our practice;
- Fraud prevention agencies, reference agencies and debt collection agencies during your service management;
- Government bodies and agencies in the UK and overseas;
- Courts to comply with legal requirements and for the administration of justice;
- To other parties connected with your matters; and
- Anyone else with your consent or as required by law.
Circumstances where it may be necessary for our firm to disclose information about you other than as a result of the normal conduct of your matter include:
- In an emergency or to otherwise protect your vital interests;
- To protect the security or integrity of our business operations.
External firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.
We use cloud storage for client files. Our cloud software provider is LEAP. LEAP’s cloud infrastructure is provided and maintained by industry leading cloud platform provider Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services demonstrates a commitment to information security at every level of the organisation and complies with internationally recognised standards, the EU Data Protection Directive, the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.
We will monitor and maintain on file, be it paper, electronic or both, records of our calls, letters, emails, text messages, social media messages and other communications in relation to your dealings with us. We will do this for regulatory compliance, self-regulatory practices, crime prevention and detection, to protect the security of our communications systems and procedures, for quality control and staff training and in preparation for circumstances where a record of what has been said becomes necessary.
After completing the work we will be entitled to keep all of your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for costs and disbursements.
Our retention period for storage of files is 6 years.
On the completion of the retention period the file is destroyed.
Time limits imposed by for example, limitation (the time limit for a claim to be issued at court before it becomes time-barred – time-barred means that you will be prevented from pursuing your claim) is your responsibility to diarise. The firm does not take responsibility for diarising dates which occur after we have ceased working for you.
We shall not be responsible for advising you of any future changes in the law which may impact upon you.
If we take papers 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 and reading and related work to comply with your instructions.
We have professional indemnity insurance in accordance with statutory requirements. Our professional indemnity insurer is Travelers Insurance Company Limited.
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to give financial advice. We can provide services in relation to for example after the event insurance and debt collection, provided they are closely linked with our legal services as regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
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 fee 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 third party without your consent. We will not act for the referrer in connection with the same transaction in any way and you are under no obligation to instruct us in connection with the transaction.
If a court orders another party to pay some or all of your legal costs and disbursements it is important to appreciate that you have to pay the legal costs and disbursements in the first place and any amounts then recovered will be repaid to you.
The other person will not be liable to pay the VAT element of costs if you are able to recover the VAT yourself.
It is possible to claim from the other party interest on these amounts from the date of the court order and we will account to you for such interest to the extent that you have paid our costs and disbursements.
You will be responsible for paying our costs and disbursements of seeking to recover any costs that the court orders the other party to pay to you.
A client who is unsuccessful in a court case may be ordered to pay the other party’s legal costs and disbursements which would be in addition to our legal costs and disbursements. You may be able to take out insurance to cover liability for these circumstances. Please discuss this with us if you are interested in this possibility.
You may end your instructions to us in writing at any time but we can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for costs and disbursements.
We will only cease acting for you on good reason and after giving you reasonable notice. Possible reasons for our firm to terminate our retainer with you may include:
- Failure to respond twice to requests for instructions;
- Failure to respond to a request for information required by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002;
- Failure to comply with a request for payment on account of costs and disbursements;
- Failure to pay an interim account;
- If a conflict of interest arises whereby we are no longer able to continue acting for you.
We also reserve the right to stop acting at any time in the event of rude or abusive conduct being directed against any member of staff.
If we stop acting for you, you must pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated by proportion of the agreed fee.
- Distance selling – The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013
If we have not met you in person, because for example instructions and signing of the contract documentation is taking place by telephone, mail, email or on-line – by way of a ‘distance’ contract – or we have taken instructions and a contract has been concluded away from our business premises, because for example we have met with you at home – by way of an ‘off-premises’ contract and the contract was entered into on or after 14 June 2014, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 calendar days of entering into the contract without giving any reason. The cancellation period will expire after 14 calendar days from the day of the conclusion of the contract.
To exercise your right to cancel you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement, for example a letter sent by post or email. We will acknowledge receipt of such a cancellation on a durable medium, for example by email, without delay. To meet the cancellation deadline you must send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired.
Should you require the work to be commenced within the 14 calendar day cancellation period you must provide your agreement to that in writing, by email, post or fax to enable us to do so. However, by signing and returning one copy of this document, you are confirming that we can begin work immediately. Where you have provided your consent for work to commence within the 14 calendar day cancellation period and you later exercise your right to cancel, you will be liable for any costs, VAT and disbursements incurred up to the point of cancellation.
When you instruct us, we will send a confirmation of the person dealing with your matter and an estimate of the costs and timescale. Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of then current hourly rates, those details and these Terms of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this firm.
Although your instructions to us will amount to an acceptance of our Terms of Business, it may not be possible for us to start work on your behalf until certain documents have been returned to us and funds have been provided if we have requested them.
If you require clarification on any of these points please do not hesitate to let us know.
Thank you for visiting our site.