GREENCHURCH LEGAL SERVICES LIMITED
1 Our working relationship
2 Who is responsible for your work?
3 What are our charges?
4 Estimated fees
5 Payment on account of costs
6 Invoices – issue and payment
7 Funding legal services in litigation matters
8 Your file
9 Confidentiality
10 Data protection
11 Anti-money laundering
12 Anti-bribery
13 File review and quality assurance
14 Limitations on liability
15 If you have questions or concerns about the services we are providing
16 How to end your contract
17 Financial advice and specialist tax advice
18 Meetings away from the office
19 General
1 Our working relationship
1.1 In these terms and conditions, “we” or “us” or “our” refers to Greenchurch Legal Services Limited. “You” or “your” refers to you as the client who is instructing us. These terms and conditions apply to work that you have instructed us to undertake on your behalf and, together with our client engagement letter, they form our contract with you. Insofar as there may be any inconsistencies between these terms and conditions and our client engagement letter, the client engagement letter will take precedence.
1.2 These terms and conditions will apply to all future instructions we receive from you, unless we notify you of any significant change during our working relationship. By continuing to instruct us, you are deemed to accept them. However, we ask you to sign our client engagement letter to confirm you are clear about the basis of our working relationship.
2 Who is responsible for your work
2.1 Your client engagement letter tells you who will carry out most of the work for you on your matter and who is responsible for the supervision of that work. The solicitor working for you may be supported by paralegals or case workers where appropriate. This enables us to be sure we are delivering a cost-effective service for you. We remain responsible for the work carried out by all members of our staff team, both solicitors and non-solicitors.
3 What are our charges?
3.1 Our anticipated charges are set out in your client engagement letter. Usually our charges will be calculated on the basis of the amount of time spent on your matter, although on occasion, we may agree a fixed fee arrangement with you.
3.2 In addition to our fees, you may incur disbursements. These may be court fees, counsel’s fees, expert’s fees, search fees, bank charges or costs draftsman’s fees, or travel. Such expenses will be itemised on your bill. We will not charge you separately for routine telephone calls, postage or photocopying.
3.4 We charge VAT on all our fees. The VAT rate will be the applicable rate at the time the bill is raised.
3.5 The charging rates are set out in your client engagement letter. Our rates may be reviewed from time to time. We will advise you immediately of any rate change and secure your consent to continue to act for you at the revised rate. Should your matter not reach a conclusion, our fee will be based on the work nevertheless carried out on your behalf.
4 Estimated fees
4.1 We will provide you with an estimate of our likely costs and any disbursements in your client engagement letter. This estimate is intended as a guide only. If additional unforeseen work becomes necessary, we will discuss this with you and agree additional or revised costings with you in writing or by email.
5 Payment on account of costs
5.1 On occasion, we ask clients to make a payment in advance, on account of anticipated costs, or to cover a court fee or similar disbursement. If we agree to instruct an agent, an expert or counsel on your behalf, we will ask you to make a payment on account of their anticipated fees in advance. If we do instruct other professionals on your behalf, with your agreement, we will not be liable for any act or omission of those professionals.
6 Invoicing – issue and payment
6.1 We will agree with you whether we invoice you at the end of your matter, monthly or at other intervals. Any payments made on account of costs or disbursements will be included on your invoice. Our invoices generally require settlement within 28 days. We reserve the right to charge interest on invoices which are not paid in full within that time period at the fixed rate of 4% a year above the base lending rate of the Bank of England. Interest will accrue on a daily basis from the due date until payment is made. If you are experiencing difficulty in settling our invoices within the required period, we encourage you to discuss this with us as soon as possible. We also reserve the right to pass your details on to a tracing agent or credit reference agency if invoices remain unpaid for more than 3 months.
If we agree to any request you may make to issue an invoice as payable by a third party, you will remain liable for any VAT due on that invoice and the invoice itself should the third party fail to make payment by the due date.
We reserve the right to retain your papers and documents until such time as all outstanding invoices are settled in full.
If you have any questions or concerns about any invoices raised, we ask you to contact the director with ultimate responsibility for your work immediately. We will do everything we can to resolve the issue to your satisfaction.
If we cannot resolve any question regarding your invoices or your account to your satisfaction, you have a right to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO). Their service can be found at:
Alternatively, you could apply to court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. You need to be aware that the LeO may not be able to consider your complaint if you have also applied to court for this assessment.
7 Funding legal services in in litigation matters
7.1 We would advise you to check if you have a legal expenses insurance policy. This may be a policy that you have taken out on the back of another policy, such as buildings or household contents, motor insurance, or credit card insurance. It is always critical to first of all check with your insurers the level and extent of your cover before instructing us, as cover is rarely provided retrospectively.
7.2 In Court of Protection proceedings, in property and finance matters, the general rule is that the funds of the person whose affairs are under consideration, “P” are used to bear the costs of all parties. Costs in these proceedings are usually assessed by the Senior Courts Costs Office. However, the Court can depart from this general rule in certain circumstances, leaving a party liable for some or all of their own costs and expenses, or indeed the costs and expenses of P or of other parties. We will advise you if we believe these circumstances may arise in relation to your matter. We will of course endeavour to recover the maximum amount of legal charges and expenses from P’s funds. You will, however, need to be mindful that you may be responsible for any shortfall.
If you withdraw from Court Proceedings, you need to bear in mind that other parties may be entitled to apply to the Court to recover the costs they incurred up to the date of the withdrawal.
8 Your file
8.1 We will keep a comprehensive record of your matter in electronic form in a secure Case Management system. All matters will contain a record of key dates which are also simultaneously recorded in Outlook in the form of appointments, critical dates or tasks. We will try to avoid holding original documents, preferring scanned copies of forms in electronic form. Any original documentation shall be retained in a named client folder within the safe store facility. At the end of your matter, any papers will be returned to you, or destroyed and our electronic file will be archived. We will not destroy documents you ask us to keep in safe custody, but we reserve the right to charge a fee for storage. We will use e-mail facilities when acting for you. If you have any concerns about email security, please contact us to discuss this.
9 Confidentiality
9.1 All client matters will be kept confidential. No confidential material will be released without your consent to a third party except where required by the regulator, by law or by an order of the court. All our staff are trained to keep client information confidential.
Any devices used for business purposes, namely laptop and mobile phone, are password protected, as is access to the hosted desktop, so as to minimize risk of breach of confidentiality if such device were stolen.
Your files will be kept secure when not in use. During the conduct of a case, any paper records shall be stored in a lockable filing cabinet.
At the conclusion of your matter, any original documents shall be returned to you. Any duplicate documents and paper correspondence file shall also be offered to you client for storage. If such offer is declined, the paper file shall be destroyed. We will respect the confidentiality of information we receive from you and any third parties while acting for you. We will only disclose information to others with your prior consent, unless disclosure is required for legal reasons or by a regulator.
10 Data protection
10.1 We will be registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We will abide by the stringent accountability and transparency obligations on data controllers including mandatory reporting of data breaches. We will follow the ICO 12 step guide and checklist and carry out an information audit to ensure compliance with GDPR.
10.2 Electronic documents will be stored on a Case Management system and access to the system is password protected.
We understand that we must have consent and a purpose to store information about you. We will only store personal information where there is purpose of doing so and for a defined period of time, which is appropriate to meet that purpose.
11 Anti-money laundering
11.1 As solicitors, we must comply with UK requirements to identify you for the purpose of anti-money laundering legislation. This will include asking you to provide us with evidence of your identity (such as your passport or photo driving licence) and up to date evidence of your address (such as a utility bill or bank statement that is less than 3 months old). If we have not met with you face to face, further checks may be needed, such as electronic verification. If you cannot provide adequate evidence of your identity we will reserve the right to stop acting for you.
11.2 Although we have a duty of confidentiality, in certain circumstances we are required to disclose information to the National Crime Agency. If at any time during our working relationship, we must make a money laundering disclosure, we may not be permitted to inform you of that disclosure.
12 Anti-bribery
12.1 We abide by legislation regarding anti-bribery and anti-corruption. If, in acting for you, we find that we may be compromised in relation to, say, the Bribery Act 2010, we may need to stop working for you.
13 File review and quality assurance
13.1 To enable us to monitor and continuously improve the quality of service we provide, our files are subject to review by our director. On occasion, external organisations may also carry out reviews. If you do not want your file to be reviewed, please contact us.
14 Limitation on liability
14.1 We will endeavour to carry out work for you with all reasonable skill and care. Our employees and directors will be acting for you, for and on behalf of Greenchurch Legal Services Limited and as such, by accepting our terms and conditions of business, you agree that any claim arising out of or in connection with the services we provide shall be brought against Greenchurch Legal Services Limited only, and not against any of our directors, employees or consultants individually.
14.2 Further, any liability we may have in respect of loss or damage (including acts or omissions of third parties) shall be subject to the following provisions:
14.2.1 our liability shall be limited to that share of loss and damage which is just and equitable, having regard to your own responsibility for such loss and damage (and that of any third party). This is irrespective on any inaction on your part to enforce remedies against third parties, or the third party’s impecuniosity or reliance on liability exclusions or limitations;
14.2.2 our maximum liability shall not exceed the aggregate limit of three million pounds (inclusive of interest and costs) or, if different, the figure set out in our client engagement letter, or any variation to the letter
14.2.3 our liability in respect of losses of money placed on your behalf in a bank or building society and arising from banking failure, shall not exceed the minimum level of cover required for the time being by the Solicitors’ Indemnity Insurance Rules for a policy of qualifying insurance;
14.3 If you would like the details of our Professional Indemnity Insurer please contact us.
15 If you have questions or concerns about the services we are providing
15.1 We are committed to providing you with the highest quality of services. If, at any time, you have questions or concerns about the work we are undertaking or the fees we are charging, we would ask you to speak to the person providing those services first of all. If your concerns cannot be resolved, then please speak to the person with ultimate responsibility for your work, as set out in your client engagement letter. If you remain unsatisfied, please speak to our complaints’ director, Sheree Green.
15.2 We have a complaint handling policy and, as we value you as a client and our working relationship with you, we would wish to work with you to resolve any concern effectively, and to your satisfaction. If, however, you feel we have not responded and addressed your complaint fully, you are entitled to contact the Legal Ombudsman (Leo). Any complaint to the LeO should be made following our final and formal written response to your complaint. Please note that any referral to the LeO must be made within six months of our formal written response.
15.3 You need to be aware that any complaint must be made no more than 6 years from the issue giving rise to the complaint or no more than 3 years from when you should have known there was cause for complaint. The LeO can be contacted on 0300 555 0333, at [email protected] or at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ.
16 How to end your contract
16.1 While we hope to work with you until your matter has completed, you can of course end your contract with us at any time, in writing.
16.2 We can end our contract with you, on the giving of reasonable notice. We would usually only do so, with good reason. You will be responsible for meeting our costs for the work already undertaken on your behalf, and, if appropriate, costs and expenses incurred in transferring the matter to another advisor.
16.3 Once a matter has concluded, you will thereafter be responsible for meeting future dates and deadlines.
17 Financial advice and specialist tax advice
17.1 We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and so we cannot provide advice generally on investments. However, as solicitors regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, we may provide some limited investment services if closely aligned to the legal services we are providing.
17.2 If you require financial services, we would advise you to consult an independent adviser who is appropriately regulated.
17.3 We will only provide tax advice in prescribed circumstances and by specific agreement with you.
18 Meetings away from the office
18.1 If our initial meeting with you has been at your home or otherwise away from our premises, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2014 apply. We will then need you to sign and return a copy of our client engagement letter incorporating these terms and conditions, before we will consider ourselves to be acting on your behalf.
18.2 In these circumstances, you generally have the right to cancel your instructions without incurring any cost, within 14 days. Cancellation may be communicated by post or email.
19 Interest on client account monies
19.1 If you have paid money into client account, taking not account the sum paid in and the length of time the funds have been held, you may be entitled to a payment of interest, if the cumulative total
19.2 As client funds are held in an instant access account, the appropriate rate of interest will be relatively low.
19.3 Any payment of interest made will be gross and as such must be declared on any income tax return.
19.4 If money is paid into a separate designated deposit account, all interest will be accounted for and paid net of tax.
20 General
20.1 These terms and conditions of business, together with our client engagement letter shall be governed by English law and be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales only.
20.2 Every provision within these terms and conditions of business is separate and distinct from all other provisions.
Greenchurch Legal Services Limited
Suite 3 The Forecourt
12 Albion Street
Hanley
Stoke-on-Trent ST1 1QH