Terms of Business
Please take time to read our terms of business. They form part of our contract with you and may answer some of your initial queries. Feel free to contact us if you require an explanation of any of the terms.
1. Our obligations:
1.1. We will provide quality legal advice tailored to your objectives regarding the matter in which we are instructed, within the bounds of our professional duties and responsibilities as Solicitors.
1.2. We will advise you and keep you regularly informed on the work which may be required to achieve your objectives. We will deal with your calls and letters promptly.
1.3. We will NOT be responsible for any matters about which you have not asked for advice from us. In particular, whilst we can advise you on tax matters, we will only do so if specifically requested.
2. Your obligations are to:
2.1. Provide us with full, true and up to date information in respect of your matter or case and provide us with your reasonable instructions to allow us to carry out your work effectively.
2.2. Deal with us in good faith and respect our professional rules and obligations.
2.3. Pay all invoices within the stated period or according to any agreement we may have confirmed with you in writing.
2.4. Raise any query or complaint within a reasonable period and if any such complaint is in relation to an invoice, within one month of the date of the invoice.
3. Your acceptance of these terms of business [back to top]
3.1. By instructing us to provide legal services to you, you are deemed to have accepted these terms of business.
3.2. Any variation to these terms must be in writing and agreed by the parties.
4. Commercial clients [back to top]
4.1. When accepting instructions to act on behalf of a limited company, we may require you, as director and/or controlling shareholder, of the client company to sign a form of personal guarantee in respect of our charges and expenses.
4.2. Instructions received from an individual in a company, partnership or limited liability partnership shall be deemed to be the liability of both the corporate entity and the individual, on a joint and several basis. By accepting these terms of business, the director/partnership/members/authorised persons agree to be personally liable for payment of our fees on behalf of that company, partnership or limited liability partnership.
5. The legal status of the LLP
5.1. Scott Walby LLP is a limited liability partnership.
5.2. A limited liability partnership has its own legal identity, similar to a limited company. The persons responsible for running a limited liability partnership are called “Members” who are not personally liable for the debts of the LLP. The LLP carries professional indemnity insurance cover limited to £5,000,000 (FIVE MILLION POUNDS) per claim. Any liability of the LLP in contract or tort will be limited to such sums as may be recovered by you from the LLP's professional indemnity insurers subject to the above maximum amount of £5,000,000.
5.3. If you wish us to carry more, please let us know but any increase must be agreed in writing. By accepting these terms of business, you are entering a binding legal agreement to accept legal services provided by the Members, consultants and employees of the LLP. At no time will any Member, consultant or employee of the LLP who provides you with legal services pursuant to these terms of business do so as an individual or partner. Nor will such persons do so on behalf of any third party or in any capacity other than as a Member, consultant or employee of Scott Walby LLP, being a limited liability partnership.
6. Time
6.1. Time will not be of the essence in any matter unless you specifically state that time should be of the essence and a Member of the LLP confirms in writing or e-mail that we accept such a stipulation. Otherwise, in the absence of such a specific agreement between us, we accept your instructions strictly on the basis that time is not of the essence.
7. Termination
7.1. You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time.
7.2. If we decide to stop acting for you, for example, if you do not pay an interim bill or comply with the request for a payment on account, we will explain why and give you notice, if possible.
8. Jurisdiction
8.1. All matters between us will be governed by English law and subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts and both of us irrevocably consent to the enforcement of an English judgment in any jurisdiction.
9. Our hours of business [back to top]
9.1. The normal hours of opening at our offices are between 9.00am and 5.00pm on weekdays, although we may sometimes be available outside these times.
9.2. If you are given a mobile number to call, please do so but we cannot guarantee that it will always be answered.
10. Intellectual property
10.1. Our work is licensed to you for the sole purpose of your current instructions. All other copyright and moral rights are reserved and asserted but such licence may be withheld for non-payment of fees. Our logo is a trademark and is hereby asserted.
11. Dealing with your files, papers and documents
11.1. After completing the work, we are entitled to keep all of your files, papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses.
11.2. We will store your file for the period required by the Law Society, in our archive, at no additional charge. After that, will offer the file back to you for collection or we reserve the right to destroy your file, if you do not collect it. Alternatively, we may charge for storage if we ask you to collect your file and you fail to do so. We will not of course destroy any documents such as wills, deeds, and other securities, which you ask us to hold in safe custody. No charge will be made to you for such storage unless prior notice in writing is given to you of a charge to be made from a future date which may be specified in that notice.
11.3. If we retrieve papers or documents from storage, in relation to continuing or new instructions to act in connection with your affairs, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, we may make a charge based on time spent for producing stored papers or documents to you or another at your request. We may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.
12. Client care [back to top]
12.1. If you are unhappy with the service provided to you by us or any other matter relating to our service, please first raise your complaint in writing (not by e-mail) to the person responsible for your work, inviting him/her to attempt to rectify any problem(s) which have occurred. Please allow the person responsible for your work 14 days to consider your complaint.
12.2. If you are unhappy with the response received from the person responsible for your work, please refer your complaint to the Senior Designated Member of the LLP, who will review your complaint and the response provided by the person responsible for your work.
12.3. If your complaint remains unresolved, after the review by the Senior Designated Member, the dispute may be submitted to the ADR Group Mediation Procedure or, if you prefer, you may refer your complaint to the President of the Bournemouth and District Law Society, whose address will be supplied to you upon request.
12.4. If your complaint still remains unresolved to your satisfaction, you may refer your complaint to the Consumer Complaints Service (“CCS”) the recognised complaints body for the Solicitors’ profession.
12.5. The services provided by the LLP are regulated by the Solicitor’s Act 1974.
13. Communication by e-mail
13.1. E-mail communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free and may be lost or delayed. If you wish to communicate with us by e-mail you do so at your own risk. We are not responsible for and cannot accept liability for any losses suffered as a result of the use of e-mail to communicate with us. Important instructions should be confirmed by post.
14. Use of information relating to you for marketing purposes
14.1. Just like any other business, marketing plays a pivotal role in our success. It is extremely helpful to us to be able to use your details for its marketing purposes. In order to do so, we need your consent.
14.2. If you prefer to withhold your consent, work on your file will not be affected in any way. Since very few of our clients do object to this use of your details, we will assume that you do consent unless you notify us to the contrary. We will also assume, unless you indicate otherwise, that consent on this occasion will extend to all future matters which we conduct on your behalf. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can explain this further. If you would prefer to withhold your consent, please confirm this in writing to us.
15. Our charges [back to top]
15.1. Fixed fee work: in some cases, for example some property transactions, we may agree to provide legal services for a fixed fee (exclusive of disbursements and VAT). In these circumstances, the accompanying letter will state the fixed fee which has been agreed. We will only exceed this fixed fee with your permission and if it is unavoidable.
15.2. In all other cases, we will inform you (in the accompanying letter with these terms of business) of our estimate of fees and disbursements and the type of work involved and status of the person responsible for dealing with your work. From time to time, other persons may assist with your work. You will be charged at the hourly rate appropriate to the type of work and to the status of the person(s) concerned. This work will often include meetings with you and perhaps others, reading and working on papers, correspondence, (including e-mails) preparation of any detailed costs calculations, and time spent travelling away from the office and waiting, when this is necessary.
15.3. We will update you with regard to your legal costs and disbursements at regular intervals (not less than every six months).
15.4. We have a duty to record our time and expenses accurately. Routine letters and telephone calls are charged as 6 minute units of time. Non-routine letters, telephone calls, meetings, drafting, preparation and perusal of documents, travel and waiting and any other chargeable work are charged according to the actual time spent in six minute units for every six minutes. For example, you will be charged two six-minute-units for a letter which takes anything over 6 minutes and under 12 minutes to draft.
15.5. In addition to the time spent, we may take into account a number of factors including any need to carry out work outside our normal office hours, the complexity of the issues, the speed at which action needs to be taken, and any particularly specialist expertise which the case may demand. In particular, in matters involving a substantial financial value or benefit to a client, a charge reflecting the value of the financial benefit may be considered.
15.6. The amount charged for the work done for you by an employee, consultant or Member is calculated at the rates applicable to the type of work (“the Rates”) which are set out below:
15.7. Rates for Company/Commercial work from 1 April 2008 are as follows:
15.7.1. Solicitors £205
15.7.2. Commercial property solicitors £205
15.7.3. Trainees, paralegals and clerks £110
17.7.4. Litigation at the current statutory court rate rates available on request - contact us for further details of litigation payment options
15.8. The Rates applicable to the work done for you:
15.8.1. These hourly Rates are reviewed periodically to reflect increased overheads and inflation. Normally, the rates are reviewed with effect from 1 April each year. We will inform you of any variation in our Rates applicable to the work we do for you before that variation takes effect.
15.9. VAT
15.9.1. We will add VAT to our charges, at the rate which applies when the work is done, currently 17.5%.
16. Expenditure incurred by the LLP to third parties on your behalf (“disbursements”).
16.1. The LLP may have to pay out various expenses on behalf of clients such as Conveyancing Searching, Company Searches, Land Registry fees, expert’s fees, stamp duty and so on. VAT is payable on certain expenses. We refer to such payments generally as ‘disbursements’.
16.2. You are entirely responsible for paying for any disbursements in advance if required to do so. This is so even if your matter is being funded by way of legal expenses insurance or is funded on a conditional fee basis.
16.3. We may ask for payment on account of disbursements, and if so, we will bill you the actual amount, itemising each disbursement, as soon as possible. All funds on account of disbursements are held in our Client Account. Please note that failure to pay for your disbursements may delay your matter.
16.4. If we are holding sufficient funds to cover any outstanding legal costs and disbursements, at the conclusion of your matter, and we have sent you a bill, we may deduct any outstanding legal costs and disbursements from the funds held on your behalf. This deduction is subject to your right to ask for the Court to assess our bill, together with your other statutory rights.
17. Payment arrangements [back to top]
17.1. We will invoice you monthly in connection with ongoing work unless specifically agreed otherwise by us in writing.
17.2. In the case of property conveyancing work, we reserve the right to raise an interim invoice by agreement. Otherwise the invoice will be raised and settled upon completion.
17.3. If any bill or request for payment is not met, we reserve the right to stop acting for you further and, if necessary, apply to be removed from the Court record (if any) as your solicitors.
17.4. Payment of bills is due to us within 30 days of receipt of the invoice from us. We reserve our rights under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 with respect to invoices which remain unpaid after 30 days.
17.5. Please raise queries on bills promptly. You have the right to have a bill assessed by the court provided you request such an assessment within one month of receipt of the invoice and you have paid half of the fee, all the VAT due on the invoice and all of the expenses. We do not recognise unofficial assessments by third parties.
17.6. We are unable to accept more than £500 in cash in respect of any payment, disbursement or deposit.
17.7. If any direct transfer of funds is made from our bank account to any external account using the bank’s transfer system (to ensure that the funds are credited as cleared funds immediately on receipt), we will make a charge to offset against those bank charges.
18. Interest on any money held on your behalf in the LLP's client account
18.1. Any money received on your behalf will be held in the Scott Walby LLP's Client Account. Subject to certain minimum amounts and periods of time set out in the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules 1998, interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate from time to time payable on The Royal Bank of Scotland Designated Client Accounts. The period for which interest will be paid will normally run from the date(s) on which funds are received by us until the date(s) of issue of any cheque(s) from our Client Account.
19. Third party rights
19.1. The Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 is excluded from this agreement.
20. Losses incurred by you as a result of the LLP's compliance with any statutory or regulatory requirement
20.1. We will not be liable for any loss, damage or delay arising out of the LLP’s compliance with any statutory or regulatory requirement.