Terms of business, 1st edition

Applicable up to 24th February 2008.  These terms have been superseded by the 2nd edition.

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1 Personnel

1.1 The name and status of the person who will handle this matter are shown above. We may allocate the matter to a different person in our office if we think this is necessary or desirable. This may be a person of different status from the person shown above. Except where someone leaves the firm, this will usually be done with your approval.

1.2 The person with overall care of the matter may involve other people in the firm. Charging rates for other members of the firm will be different.

2 Costs

2.1 Fees charged for legal work (called "costs") comprise three main things: (a) the actual charge for work done; (b) disbursements and (c) value added tax. "Disbursements" are sums we pay to others in the course of conducting a matter, such as search fees, court fees, expert witness fees.

2.1 Except for work done within the scope of public funding, you as our client are liable to pay our costs. This applies even if you have the right to recover your costs from someone else.

2.2 For work which is publicly funded, your liability is governed by public funding rules. You may be liable to pay a contribution and your costs may be taken out of any money or property recovered for you. Otherwise your costs for this work will be paid from public funds.

2.3 If you are involved in litigation and lose, the court will probably order you to pay the other party’s costs. If you win, the other party may not be ordered to pay your costs. Note that an order for costs against your opponent will not normally provide you with full reimbursement of your costs.

2.4 If you are involved in litigation against a party who is publicly funded, you will probably not recover your costs even if you win.

2.6 Except for publicly funded work, you may set an upper limit on costs which is not to be exceeded without your agreement. If you do this, you must set the limit in writing. This will limit the amount of work we will do for you and if the limit is reached we shall be entitled to decline to do any more work unless the limit is increased or removed. We will tell you if the limit is likely to be exceeded and you may agree (orally or in writing) to remove or increase the limit.

2.7 We shall be entitled to apply monies held on your account towards settlement of costs and other monies payable by you to us.

2.8 We may suspend work if a limit on costs in a publicly funded matter is or is about to be exceeded. We may cease acting if your entitlement to public funding is terminated.

3 Calculation of costs

3.1 We set an hourly charging rate for each of our member of the firm doing legal work. Except where this is a publicly funded matter, the rate for the person currently undertaking this matter is shown above.

3.2 Hourly charging rates change from time to time, usually from 1st October annually, when our rates are reviewed. Rates for publicly funded work are not within our control and are changed from time to time. Because we handle several thousand matters at a time, we shall not be obliged to give notice of changes in rates. You may obtain this information on request.

3.3 The amount of time spent on each matter by each person undertaking legal work is recorded. Time is recorded in units of 5 minutes. This includes meetings, interviews, court appearances, preparation, research, correspondence and telephone work, travelling and waiting time. Travelling expenses may be charged in addition to time spent.

3.4 Normally, we do not charge extra for postage, telephone and photocopying costs. However, we may charge for these items where the amount involved is in our reasonable opinion more than normal.

3.5 Costs are subject to the overriding principle that the amount charged must be fair and reasonable. It is rarely possible to forecast costs accurately in advance.

3.6 For property matters, which includes administration of estates, the costs charged will take into account all relevant circumstances under the Solicitors Remuneration Order 1994 including the value of property involved. This may include a percentage (not exceeding 0.5%) of the consideration or property involved.

3.7 Costs in litigation will normally depend on the hourly rate charged and the amount of time spent.

3.8 You will reimburse us with all disbursements incurred by us. Value added tax is chargeable on our costs and on some disbursements.

3.9 The amount of our costs shall not be limited to the amount or amounts recoverable from the other party in any court proceedings or to the amount of any court scale.

3.10 Where we have agreed a fixed fee for a particular job, value added tax and disbursements are chargeable in addition to the fixed fee. If the matter becomes more complex or time consuming than anticipated we shall be entitled to charge more than the fixed fee.

4 Obtaining information about costs

4.1 At any stage in every matter, you may ask us to give you information regarding the costs incurred so far.

4.2 In complex and long running matters we will write to you approximately every six months to give you a rough guide to the amount of our costs incurred up to that time. We will not do this however in matters where the overall costs are not likely to exceed £500 (excluding value added tax and disbursements), unless you have requested this in writing.

4.3 Guidance as to the amount of costs will not constitute binding limits as to the costs payable at the end of a matter or on an interim bill.

5 Interim bills and monies on account

5.1 During the course of a matter we may request that you pay us money on account of costs for work done, work to be done and disbursements and other monies and liabilities incurred or to be incurred by us in connection with the matter.

5.2 We may render interim bills for work done and disbursements and other monies and liabilities incurred. An interim bill may at our discretion be either an interim bill for the work covered by it or a final bill for that work.

5.3 If a payment on account or interim bill is not paid we may suspend work for you until payment is made, or cease acting for you altogether.

6 Evidence of identity

6.1 From time to time we are required (e.g. by law, duties to others or by good practice) to be satisfied as to the identity of a client. We may ask you to provide satisfactory evidence of identity, and if this is not provided we shall be entitled to stop acting.

7 Documents

7.1 The contents of our files, including all documents generated in the course of our work shall belong to us.

7.2 However, documents containing legally binding agreements, wills, title documents and grants of representation will not be our property.

7.3 We shall be entitled to retain all documents and property in our possession until all money which you owe us from time to time has been paid. The technical word for this is a lien.

7.4 We shall be entitled to destroy our file after such period as we may decide. This is normally at least 8 years.

7.5 Subject to our lien, we will normally be prepared to release our file to you or another firm of solicitors. If we are unwilling to do this then unless a lien being exercised we will prepare a copy for you but you must pay our reasonable copying charges.

7.6 In property purchases where we also act for a lender, our duties to the lender will normally require that the file be retained in our possession.

7.7 We shall not be liable for documents lost or damaged while in the possession of any postal, delivery or courier service.

8 Storage

8.1 If you request us to store documents or other property for you these will be stored free but entirely at your risk. We shall be entitled to require you to remove them. If you request us to send them to a third party, we may at our discretion charge postage. You should ensure that all property we store for you is insured by you.

9 E mail

9.1 We may use e mail in the work we do for you.

10 Property transactions and contamination

10.1 When acting in property transactions we shall not (unless we agree in writing to do so at your specific request) be under a duty to investigate or make enquiries as to whether any land is or is likely to be contaminated or advise as to the consequences of any land actually being contaminated. Additionally we shall not be required to advise on any reports which you may have obtained which indicate the presence of contamination in any land.

11 Status of these terms

11.1 Unless otherwise expressly agreed in writing, these terms apply to the matter in respect of which this statement was issued to you and also to all other work done for you after the date of this statement. If a revised edition of these terms is sent to you, the revised edition will apply.

11.2 While you are requested to sign and return a copy of these terms to us, these terms apply even if you do not do so.

11.3 If we have entered into a conditional fee agreement with you in relation to this matter, then in the event of any inconsistency between these terms and the terms of the conditional fee agreement the terms of that agreement shall prevail (but only in relation to this matter).

11.4 We may change these terms from time to time by giving written notice to you, either in relation to this particular matter or to another matter.

12 Complaints

12.1 If you have a problem with the service provided, please contact any of the partners in our firm. Their names appear on our printed letter paper.

The essence of a good solicitor and client relationship is communication. The person handling your matter will always be happy to discuss the matter with you. We do hope that if during the progress of your matter you feel there is any information you need, you will speak to him or her.