HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP Terms & Conditions of Business
HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP
HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership registered in England No OC332853.
A list of members is available for inspection at our Registered Office: The Old Vicarage, Bedford Road, Kempston, Bedford MK42 8BQ, United Kingdom.
The VAT Registration number of HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP is GB 865 4870 82.
HilliersHRW Solicitors is a trading name of HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP.
All references to "we", "our", "us", "the firm", "HilliersHRW" and the like should be read as referring to HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP. Any reference to "partner" means a partner or partners in HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP. The term "partner" is used to refer to a member of HilliersHRW Solicitors LLP.
Offices and Hours of Business
Our Kempston, Bedford Office is at: The Old Vicarage, Bedford Road, Kempston, Bedford MK42 8BQ.
Our Stevenage Office is at: Mindenhall Court, High Street, Stevenage, Herts SG1 3UN.
Our normal business hours are between 9:00am and 5:15pm on Mondays to Thursdays and 9:00am to 5:00pm on Fridays.
Messages can be left on the answerphone outside those hours and appointments can be arranged at other times when this is essential.
Our aim
We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost.
Our commitment to you
We will:
a) Represent your interests and keep your business confidential in the best tradition of solicitor and client relationships with appropriate legal privilege but subject to the appropriate money laundering obligations.
b) Explain to you the legal work which may be required and the prospects of a successful outcome.
c) Make sure that you understand the likely degree of financial risk which you will be taking on.
d) Advise you on tax matters (but only if specifically requested to do so).
e) Keep you regularly informed of progress or, if there is none, when you are next likely to hear from us.
f) Try to avoid using technical legal language when writing to you.
g) Deal with your queries promptly.
Identity and Knowing you as our client
The law now requires solicitors, as well as banks, building societies and others, to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wishing to launder money. In order to comply with the law on money laundering, we need to obtain evidence of your identity as soon as practicable. We should be grateful, therefore, if you would provide us with documents to verify your identity and address.
People responsible for your work
You will be allocated a member of staff who will be responsible for dealing with your work. Their assistant or secretary may be able to deal with your queries and will be pleased to take any message for you. We will try to avoid changing the people who handle your work but if this cannot be avoided, we will tell you promptly of any change and why it may be necessary.
The final responsibility for any work done lies with the partner who heads the department.
Charges and Expenses
Our charges will be calculated mainly by reference to the time actually spent by the solicitors and other staff in respect of any work which we do on your behalf. This will 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 when this is necessary. From time to time we may arrange for some of this work to be carried out by persons not directly employed by us. Such work will be charged to you at hourly rates not exceeding those set out below.
Routine letters and e-mails are charged as 6 minute units of time and we charge for the time spent on making and taking telephone calls in 6 minute units and considering incoming letters and e-mails at units of 6 minutes per page.
The current hourly rates are set out below. We will add Value Added Tax (VAT) to these at the rate that applies when the work is done.
Partners and Consultants and Solicitors who are Law Society Panel members or have been qualified for 8 years or more, and any other members of staff with a particular expertise and / or equivalent experience in the area instructed: £190 - £215
Solicitors or Legal Executives who have been qualified for 4 years or more, and any other members of staff with a particular expertise and / or equivalent experience in the area instructed: £168 - £180
Solicitors or Legal Executives with less than 4 years post qualification experience and Case Managers: £145
Trainee Solicitors and Trainee Legal Executives: £105
These hourly rates have to be reviewed periodically to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation. Normally the rates are reviewed with effect from 1st January each year. If a review is carried out before your matter has been concluded, we will inform you of any variation in the rate before it takes effect.
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 has to be taken, any particularly specialist expertise when the case may demand. In particular, in property transactions, in the administration of estates and in matters involving a substantial financial value or benefit to a client, an additional charge may be made to that calculated on the basis of time spent. This may reflect a percentage of the value of the Estate or the price of the property or other financial benefit. This value element reflects the importance of the transaction and the consequent responsibility falling on the firm. Where a value element is added we will be happy to explain the calculation to you.
Our charges for debt collection cases are based on a percentage of the amount of the debt actually recovered (excluding any interest and/or penalties for late payment payable to the debtor to you). Fixed costs and court fees are payable regardless of whether the debt is actually recovered. Fixed costs are set by the courts and recoverable from the debtor in any enforcement. You will be informed as to the fixed applicable costs and court fees before issue of proceedings. The rates of charges are calculated as follows, Where the value of the debt:
(a) exceeds £100 but does not exceed £5,000 - 8%
(b) exceeds £5,000 but does not exceed £10,000 - 10%
(c) exceeds £10,000 but does not exceed £15,000 - 12%
(d) exceeds £15,000 but does not exceed £20,000 - 15%
(e) exceeds £20,000 but does not exceed 30,000 - 18%
(f) exceeds £30,000 but does not exceed £40,000 - 20%
(g) exceeds £40,000 but does not exceed £50,000 - 22%
(h) exceeds £50000 - 25%
The above basis applies from sending the letter before action to the entering of default judgement. If the debt collection case becomes contested at any time following issue of the proceedings then our charges will be calculated by reference to the time actually spent by the solicitors and other staff in respect of any work carried out on your behalf. Similarly following entering of default judgement all subsequent work including enforcement of the judgment will be charged by reference to the actual time spent on the case as referred to below.
Solicitors have to pay out various other expenses on behalf of clients ranging from Land or Probate Registry fees, experts' fees, and so on. We have no obligation to make such payments unless you have provided us with the funds for that purpose. VAT is payable on certain expenses. We refer to such payments generally as 'disbursements'. We will require a payment in advance from you in respect of any search fees payable on your transactions.
If, for any reason, this matter does not proceed to completion, we will be entitled to charge you for work done and expenses incurred.
Payment Arrangements for our fees
Property transactions: We will normally send you our bill following the exchange of contracts and payment is required on a purchase prior to completion; and at completion; on a sale. If sufficient funds are available on completion, and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds.
Administration of Estates: We will normally submit an interim bill at regular stages during the administration, starting with the obtaining of a Grant. The final account will be prepared when the Estate Accounts are ready for approval.
Other cases or transactions: It is normal practice to ask clients to pay sums of money from time to time on account of the charges and expenses which are expected in the following weeks or months. We find that this helps clients in budgeting for costs as well as keeping them informed of the legal expenses which are being incurred. If such requests are not met with prompt payment, delay in the progress of a case may result. In the unlikely event of any bill or request for payment not being met, this firm must reserve the right to stop acting for you further.
Payment is due to us within 28 days of our sending you a bill. Interest will be charged on a daily basis at 4% over Barclays Bank Plc base rate from time to time from the date of the bill in cases where payment is not made within 28 days of delivery by us of the bill.
The common law entitles us to retain any money, papers or other property belonging to you which properly come into our possession pending payment of our costs, whether or not the property is acquired in connection with the matter for which the costs were incurred. This is known as a "general lien". We are not entitled to sell property held under a lien but we are entitled to hold property, other than money, even if the value of it greatly exceeds the amount due to us in respect of costs.
Money Laundering Regulations
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of clients confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: recent legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the solicitor may be required to make a money laundering disclosure.
If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make a money laundering disclosure, we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or of the reasons for it. Where the law permits us to do, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we may need to take. SOCA potentially will retain financial information that ultimately may be forwarded to HM Revenue and Customs.
As a result of the Money Laundering Regulations this firm:
(a) will only accept up to £10,000 in cash for any transaction
(b) sums over that limit will not be accepted
(c) will insist on proof of ID of the source of the third party cheques or payments
(d) may ask for background information or seek a better understanding of your background or transaction
(e) may insist that all financial matters and receipts of funds are effected well in advance of the date of expected use or requirement of those funds and refuse to exchange or complete your contractual obligation until fully satisfied as to relevant circumstances and / or deemed or actual consent to the transaction has been obtained by us from SOCA
(f) reserves the right to charge for any additional checks we may deem necessary concerning the source of any funding.
Other Parties' Charges and Expenses
In some cases and transactions a client may be entitled to payment of costs by some other person. It is important that you understand that in such circumstances, the other person may not be required to pay all the charges and expenses which you incur with us. You have to pay our charges and expenses in the first place and any amounts which can be recovered will be a contribution towards them. If the other party is in receipt of legal aid, no costs are likely to be recovered.
The other person will not be liable to pay the VAT element of your costs if you are able to recover the VAT yourself.
If you are successful and a court orders another party to pay some or all of your charges and expenses, interest can be claimed on them from the other party from the date of the court order. We will account to you for such interest to the extent that you have paid our charges or expenses on account, but we are entitled to the rest of that interest.
You will also be responsible for paying our charges and expenses 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 charges and expenses. That money would be payable in addition to our charges and expenses. Arrangements can be made to take out insurance to cover liability for such legal expenses. Please discuss this with us if you are interested in this possibility.
Interest Payment
Any money received on your behalf will be held in our 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 Barclays Bank Plc 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.
Where a client obtains borrowing from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to arrange that the loan cheque is received by us a minimum of 4 working days prior to the completion date. If the money can be telegraphed, we will request that we receive it the day before completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Such clients need to be aware that the lender may charge interest from the date of issue of their loan cheque or the telegraphing of the payment.
Insurance Cover
This firm is regulated by the Law Society and to enable us to practice we are obliged to have in place Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover any negligence or errors that we may make where the minimum compulsory indemnity figure is £2,000,000. The premiums paid for this insurance cover are very costly and depend in part upon the perceived risk of particular transactions the monetary value or consideration or price involved. In general the higher the value the higher the risk and for transactions with an obvious value in excess of £2,000,000 we may need to raise our fees or ask clients for an additional payment as a contribution for extra insurance risks or cover as required. We believe that having regard to the circumstances known when this firm agreed to act for you and from the details you have supplied to us that it is fair and reasonable for us to limit our potential liability to you at £2,000,000 and that your understanding and acceptance of that limitation is recorded hereby and therefore Except only to the extent that the law does not permit us to exclude or limit our liability, the total liability of this firm, its partners and employees in connection with or arising, directly or indirectly, from this matter, will be limited to an aggregate amount of £2,000,000. This limit will cover all claims of any sort whatsoever whether arising in contract negligence or otherwise and all losses or damages including interest, costs and expenses.
Wills & Deeds
We are happy to store your Will or title deeds for you at our storage facility. Historically we have done this without payment as we hope that clients continue to regard us as their “Family” or “Business” solicitors and approach us and instruct us to deal with any issue concerning those Wills or title deeds.
In relation to Wills our retainer or instructions are to prepare your Will in accordance with your instructions, and the relevant law at that time they are made and dated and therefore it is your responsibility to change or amend your Will as your circumstances or Inheritance Tax limits or legislation change and therefore you must contact us and give us fresh instructions to review or prepare a new Will for you periodically or when your circumstances do change.
This firm holds over 10,000 original Wills for its clients and also has laser scanned copies of each one but even with our excellent computer systems it is just not possible for us to communicate with you personally to update you about legislation changes when they happen. If you feel that your circumstances have changed from before and that Inheritance Tax has become an issue for you please contact our Private Client Department for further advice.
Storage of papers and documents
After completing the work we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. In addition, we will keep your file of papers for you in storage for not less than one year. After that, storage is on the clear understanding that we have the right to destroy it after such period as we consider reasonable or to make a charge for storage if we ask you to collect your papers 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.
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 will make a charge based on time spent for producing stored papers or documents to you or another at your request. We will also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.
External Audit
We have the benefit of the Law Society's Quality Mark Lexcel and LSC Franchise and as a result your file may be subject of an audit by an external auditor. If you object to your file being audited by an external auditor kindly advise us at the outset of the matter
Insurance Contracts
We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Services Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly 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 Law Society. The register can be accessed via the Financial Services Authority website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.
Termination
You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time but we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. If at any time you do not wish us to continue work and / or incurring charges and expenses on your behalf, you must tell us this clearly in writing.
We may 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 or where we in our sole discretion consider there is a conflict of interest we will notify you formally in writing but we will not go into any detail as to why we will no longer act for you.
We will not be liable for any loss, damage or delay arising out of this firm's compliance with any statutory or regulatory requirements.
Limited Companies
We are pleased to accept instructions to act on behalf of a limited liability company or partnership. As the obligation is then on the company or Partnership as the separate legal entity to settle our fees, to avoid default we will only take on such clients if a Director and / or controlling shareholder or Partner personally sign a copy of these Terms & Conditions. By signing, you as a Director and / or controlling shareholder or Partner jointly and severally agree that in the event of any default by the Company or Partnership you will personally be responsible for all fees and costs payable by the Company or Partnership and you agree to personally guarantee the payments due by the Company or Partnership and will indemnify or pay all fees and costs due personally on behalf of the Company or Partnership.
You hereby personally warrant and confirm that you personally have the appropriate authority permission and power to appoint Lawyers on behalf of the Company / Partnership and that you are unaware of any issues affecting the ownership or control of the Company / Partnership which might affect this warranty and you agree to personally indemnify and guarantee HilliersHRW for any costs or losses which may otherwise accrue if this is not ultimately correct.
Excluded Tax Advice
Any work that we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. We may not be qualified to advise you on the tax implications of a transaction that you instruct us to carry out, or the likelihood of them arising. If you have any concerns in this respect, please raise them with us immediately. If we can undertake the research necessary to resolve the issue, we will do so and advise you accordingly. If we cannot, we may be able to identify a source of assistance for you. We otherwise do not consider it our function to give you specific tax advice on any transaction we carry out for you.
For land transactions where you acquire an interest in land it is necessary to have prepared for you for each transaction a “Land Transaction Return” to HM Revenue and Customs in respect of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) which we can complete from the details you give us. As for all tax returns it is your responsibility to ensure that the details are true and correct and you must report to HM Revenue & Customs any linked transactions if they form part of a single scheme arrangement or series of transactions between the same seller and purchaser or with persons connected to them including your spouse (civil partner) a relative being a brother sister or lineal descendant or spouse thereof. Whilst we will assist you in completing the necessary return and indicate on the same that we are your agents for this purpose we are not your general agents and are only assisting the completion of necessary forms from the information and details you have supplied to us. We have no ongoing responsibility to prepare complete or advise on any further or additional returns or subsequent returns that maybe required on your matter after the initial return has been sent to HM Revenue & Customs and shall not be your agent therefore.
For land transactions involving leases SDLT is usually calculated on the amount of rent payable and is often aggregated to arrive at the tax payable. There may be instances for example where there are rent reviews where further or additional Land Transaction Returns and tax payments are required during the life or term of the lease. It is your responsibility to ensure that such returns or payments are made at the appropriate time and unless we have been specifically asked or instructed in writing to assist further we shall be unable to do so and therefore we shall have no further liability or responsibility after the initial advice given to you and return made.
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”. This deals strictly with the property you are buying and not any other land or property in the general area, village or town.
Communication between you and us
Our aim is to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service at all times. We hope that you will be pleased with the work we carry out for you. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concern in the first place with the person you have been dealing. If you still have queries or concerns, please contact our Client Relationship Partner, Martin Addrison to whom any final difficulty can be reported.
We will aim to communicate with you by such a method as you may request. We may need to virus check discs or e-mail. Unless you withdraw consent, we will communicate with others when appropriate by e-mail or fax, but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by e-mail or fax.
The Data Protection Act requires us to advise you that your particulars are held on our database. We may, from time to time, use these details to send you information which we think might be of interest to you.
Property Transactions
Where we are acting for clients who are husband and wife or living partners or who are joint owners of property where joint authority is normally required in cases of need for urgency or otherwise you agree and accept that confirmation from one such party only shall be sufficient authority to proceed and advance that transaction.
It is not our responsibility to carry out a physical inspection of any property you may be buying or selling, but if you wish us to do this for any reason please make a specific request. We shall not 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.
Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of the current hourly rates, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this firm. Although your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to an acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of Business, it may not be possible for us to start work on your behalf until one copy of them has been signed and returned to us for us to keep on our file.
I confirm I have read and understood, and I accept these Terms and Conditions of Business.
Name (in full)...............................................................................................................................................
Signed..........................................................................................................................................................
Date................................................................. Ref......................................................................................
