SEYMOURS + SOLICITORS
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Terms & Conditions of Business

 Our aim

  • We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost. As a start, we hope it is helpful to set out in this statement the basis on which we will provide our professional services.

Our mutual responsibilities

  • We will review your matter regularly and update you accordingly. We will notify you if there are any changes in the law which are relevant to your matter or if any circumstances arise which are likely to affect the outcome of your matter. We will update the cost and timescale information given at the outset when and where necessary.

  • In return we require you to provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions with all information and documentation relevant to your matter. When we request documents or information this must be produced timely and in an orderly way to prevent delay.

  • You should keep safe all original documents that may be required in the future.

Our hours of business

  • The normal hours of opening at our offices are between 9.00 am and 5.00 pm on weekdays. Messages can be left on the answer phone outside those hours and appointments can be arranged at other times when this is essential. As a retained Client you will have your lawyers’ mobile telephone number which if necessary you can use during the evening, at weekends and on public holidays.

People responsible for your work

  • The team responsible for dealing with your work will be Anthony Seymour, Mark Seymour, Elaine Rutledge and Daniel Blackman. Any of these lawyers should be able to deal with your queries, but if not a message will be taken from you. If the matter is urgent you must say so. We will try to avoid changing the lawyers who have conduct of your work to preserve continuity, but if this cannot be avoided, we will tell you promptly and why it may be necessary.

  • The Principal of this firm with final responsibility for your matter is Anthony Seymour.

Charges and expenses

  • Our charges are calculated mainly by reference to the time actually spent by the lawyers in respect of any and all items of work which they carry out on your behalf. This may include meetings with you and others; reading, preparing and working on documents; research on your matter; making and receiving telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and text messages; preparation of any detailed costs estimates, schedules and bills; attending Court; and time necessarily spent travelling away from the office. 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 the hourly rate which would be charged if we had done the work ourselves.

  • Routine letters, e-mails and texts that we send and routine telephone calls that we make and receive are charged at one-tenth of the hourly rate. Routine letters, e-mails and texts received are similarly charged at one-tenth of the hourly rate. Other more detailed and draft letters, e-mails and calls are charged on a time spent basis.

  • The current hourly rates are set out below:

    Partners/Consultants - £400
    Solicitors - £350
    Trainee Solicitors - £250
    Junior Executives/Personal Assistants/Paralegals/Graduate Research Assistant - £175

  • You will be charged a blended rate of £300 for all work carried out by the lawyers working on your matter. A blended rate is where a single hourly rate is used for charging work carried out by us. The hourly rate charged to you is always the same – whether the work is done by an experienced solicitor or a junior solicitor. This ensures that you always have certainty of the rate you are being charged.

  • We will add VAT to the blended rate that applies when the work is done. At present, VAT is 20%.  Our VAT number is 889 8748 21.

  • These hourly rates are reviewed periodically to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation. The rates are reviewed with effect from 1st April 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.

  • If proceeding on an agreed fee basis, which fee will not increase or decrease, the fee must be credited in full via CHAPS or ‘bills payment’ directly to this practice’s office account.  We will not be able to act on your retainer or commence work on your instructions until the agreed fee is credited to our account and treated by our Bank as cleared funds. We cannot accept payment by cheque. Nor do we accept payment by credit/debit card or crypto currency.

HSBC Bank Plc, 69 Pall Mall, London, SW15 5EY
Account Name: SEYMOURS SOLICITORS
Account Number: 41544365
Sort Code: 40-05-20

  • In addition to the time spent, we may take into account a number of other factors including any need to work outside our normal office hours, the complexity of the issues, the expedition at which action has to be taken, any particular specialist expertise which the matter may demand. An increase in the rates may be applied to reflect such factors. In Property and Company transactions, Administration of Estates, Tribunal and or Court proceedings and in other matters involving a substantial financial value or benefit to a client, a charge reflecting, for example, the price of the property, the size of the Estate, or the value of the financial benefit may be a factor to consider. It is not always possible to indicate how these aspects may arise but on present information we would expect them to be sufficiently taken into account in the rates which we have quoted above. Where an increase in the rates or a charge reflecting any value added element is to be added we will explain this to you.

  • Solicitors have to pay various expenses on behalf of clients ranging from Land Registry, Probate Registry fees, Court fees, Barrister’s fees, Experts' fees, and other professional fees. We have no obligation to make such payments until you have provided us in advance with the funds for that purpose. VAT is payable on certain expenses. We refer to such expense payments generally as 'disbursements'.

  • If, for any reason, your matter does not proceed to completion or a conclusion, we will charge you for the abortive work and expenses incurred.

Payment arrangements

  • Property Transactions. We will normally send you our invoice following the exchange of contracts; payment is required on a purchase prior to the completion date; and at completion on a sale. If sufficient funds are available on completion, and we have sent you an intimation of costs or an invoice, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds. Similarly, if working on an agreed fee.

  • Administration of Estates. We will submit interim bills at regular stages during the Administration (unless we are retained on a fixed fee), and usually when the Grant is applied for. The final account will be prepared when the Estate Accounts are ready for approval.

  • In some matters when we are working on an hourly rate basis we ask you to pay advance monthly payments on account of work done and to be done rather than monthly interim billing.

  • Other cases or transactions. It is normal practice to ask clients to pay interim bills and sums of money from time to time on account of the charges and expenses which are expected to be incurred. We find that this helps clients budget for costs as well as keeping them informed of the costs which are being incurred. If such requests are not met with prompt payment, delay in the progress of your matter may result. In the unlikely event of any bill or request for payment not being met, this firm will stop acting for you further, will not represent you and our retainer is discharged.

  • We reserve the right, in accordance with SRA Accounts Rule 4.3, to offset outstanding invoices against client monies we hold on account for you. We will notify you.

  • Payment is due on receipt of our invoice or intimation of costs. Interest is calculated on a daily basis at 8% over the HSBC Bank plc base rate from the date of the invoice in cases where full payment is not made.

  • If an intimation of costs has been provided but not responded to by return, we will presume it is agreed.

  • 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 in respect of our costs.

  • If we are conducting litigation for you, we have additional rights in respect of any property recovered or preserved whether it is in our possession or not in respect of all costs incurred, whether billed or unbilled.

  • In normal circumstances we do not accept cash payments. If there is an attempt to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may have to charge you for any additional checks we wish to make to establish the source of the funds.

  • Monies due to you from us will be paid by direct bank transfer or cheque, not in cash, and will not be made payable to a third party.

  • You have the right to object to our bill and apply for an assessment of the bill under Part II of the Solicitors Act 1974.

  • You must not send money to either our office account or our clients’ account or our deposit account unless specifically requested to do so.

  • Please be aware of cybercrime. We will NOT notify changes to our bank account details by email. If you receive any communications suggesting that the firm's bank account details have changed, you should contact the firm via the number on the firm's website or headed notepaper immediately to confirm the details before making payment. We will not take responsibility if you transfer money to a wrong account.

Other parties' charges and expenses

  • In some cases and transactions a client may be entitled to payment of costs by some other person usually on the ‘standard basis’ and rarely on an ‘indemnity basis’. It is important that you understand in this situation, the person liable to pay 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 instance and in any event. Any amounts which are recovered will be taken as a contribution towards any balance outstanding. If the other party is in receipt of public funding no costs are likely to be recovered.

  • If you are successful and another is directed or ordered to pay some or all of your charges and expenses, interest can be claimed from the other party usually from the date of the order. We will account to you for such interest to the extent that you have paid our charges or expenses on account, but otherwise we are entitled to the rest of that interest.

  • You will also be responsible for paying our charges and expenses in attempting to recover any costs that another is directed to pay to you. Also for any enforcement of an Order of the Court or Tribunal, but this will have to be the subject of a new specific retainer.

  • A client who is unsuccessful in a court case may be ordered to pay the other party's legal fees, charges and expenses. That money is payable in addition to our fees, charges and expenses.

  • Arrangements can be made to incept ‘Before The Event’ and ‘After The Event’ insurance to cover liability for adverse costs orders and legal expenses, for which a premium is charged. 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 other than money paid in respect of an agreed fee or disbursements for which we are personally liable. Subject to certain minimum amounts and periods of time set out in the Solicitors' Accounts Rules 2018, interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate from time to time payable on HSBC Bank plc Client Accounts. The period for which interest will be paid will normally run from the date(s) on which funds are cleared through our bank account until the date(s) of issue of any cheque(s) from our Client Account.

  • Where a client obtains funding from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to arrange that the advance is received five working days prior to the completion date. If the money can be electronically dispatched, we will request that we receive it not less than the day before completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Clients need to be aware that the lender may charge interest from the date of issue of their loan cheque or electronic transfer.

Data protection, privacy, storage of papers and documents

  • Please see our Data protection and privacy policy on our website for details regarding how we use and secure your personal data.

  • After completing the work, we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for fees and expenses. In addition, we will keep your file of papers for you in storage for not less than six years on the clear understanding that we will destroy the papers after such period as has elapsed , we a charge for storage if we ask you to collect your papers and you fail to do so. We will not 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 matters, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, we may make a charge based on time spent at the junior executive hourly rate for producing off site stored papers or documents to you or another at your request. We will charge for reading, correspondence or undertaking other work necessary to comply with your instructions or request.

Financial services and insurance contracts

  • If, while we are retained by you and you need advice on investments, we will have to refer you to a professional who is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, as we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, we may be able to provide certain limited investment services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you.

  • We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, but are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts.

  • We are able to provide in certain limited circumstances credit related services relating to the payment of our professional fees and disbursements such as a Sears Tooth agreement.      

  • Insurance mediation activities, investment services and credit related services, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at https://register.fca.org.uk/s/.

Termination

  • You may terminate your retainer with 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 fees, disbursements and expenses. If at any stage you do not wish us to continue working and/or incurring charges, disbursements and expenses on your behalf, you must tell us clearly in writing.

  • We may decide to stop acting for you, but only for good reason. We must give you reasonable notice that we will stop acting for you. If we decide to stop acting for you, for example if you do not pay an interim bill, an intimation of fees, or comply with the request for a payment on account, we will tell you the reason and give you notice in writing. You must pay our charges up to this point in time.

  • If working on an agreed fee basis, the retainer will terminate on completion or conclusion of the item or piece of work identified in our Client Care letter of engagement, (which must be read in conjunction with these Terms and Conditions of Business), which will detail the limited scope and extent of our retainer. Your retainer will not extend beyond work which we deem necessary and appropriate to achieve a reasonable outcome on each aspect of your instructions. For the avoidance of doubt the items of work covered by your retainer will be set out in the Client Care letter. On termination (as above) of your retainer, a further payment will be required from you to extend the scope and extent of your new retainer, which fee we will endeavour to agree with you. As set out above, we will not be able to act on your retainer or commence work on your further instructions until the agreed fee is credited to our account and treated by our Bank as cleared funds.

  • In contentious matters we will ask you to sign an undated Notice of Change of solicitor removing us from the Court record as your solicitors. In the event that you fail to provide us with instructions or we are otherwise unable to act we will file this document at Court. We will notify you if we have to take this step.

Limited companies

  • When accepting instructions to act on behalf of a limited company, PLC or Limited Liability Partnership we will require a Director and a controlling shareholder to sign a form of personal guarantee in respect of the charges and expenses of this firm. If such a request is refused, we cannot and will have to stop acting for you.

Tax advice

  • Any work that we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. We do not advise on the tax implications of a transaction that you instruct us to carry out, by an Order of the Court or Tribunal or the likelihood of them arising. Our strict policy is to instruct a suitably qualified professional, Accountant or similar, to advise. If you have any concerns in this respect, please raise them with us immediately and also speak with your Accountant. 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 advice and assistance for you.

Identity, disclosure and confidentiality requirements

  • The law requires solicitors to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their client can be used by criminals to launder money.

  • To comply with the law, we must have evidence of your identity before starting work. If you cannot provide us with the specific photographic and the written identification documentation requested, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss other ways to verify your identity and residence.

  • We are entitled to refuse to represent you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent. We will arrange to carry out an electronic verification of your identity. The cost of any such search will be repaid by you.  

  • If your instructions relate to a property purchase transaction then we are required to check how the purchase of the property is to be funded. You will be sent our Source of Funding Declaration Form for completion. If you are unable or refuse to complete the Form then we will be unable to accept any further instructions from you and our retainer will terminate immediately.

  • Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the Serious Organised Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing.

  • Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering or terrorist financing, the solicitor may be required to make a disclosure. If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure, we will not inform you that it has been made or the reasons for it. Where the law permits us, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we will take.

  • Sometimes we ask others to do certain work on client files e.g. word processing, photocopying, costings etc. We will seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. By entering into a retainer with us you are deemed to have given us your authority to do so. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.

  • External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in all matters.

  • In order to comply with court and tribunal rules, all documentation relevant to any issues in litigation, however potentially damaging to your case, have to be preserved and may be required to be made available to your opponent. This aspect of proceedings is known as ‘disclosure’. Subject to this, we will not reveal confidential information about your case except as provided by these terms of business and where, for example, your opponent is ordered to pay your costs, we have to meet obligations to reveal details of the case to them and to the court.

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 do for you. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concern in the first instance with Anthony Seymour. We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available on our website and upon request. We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time frame or you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the issue. Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within a year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or you becoming aware of it). Their contact details are:

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ

  • We will aim to communicate with you by such method as you may request. We may need to virus check discs or email. Unless you withdraw consent, we will communicate with others when appropriate by e-mail but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by e-mail.

  • We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes such as:

o   Updating and enhancing client records.
o   Analysis to help manage our practice.
o   Statutory returns.
o   Legal and regulatory compliance.

  • Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as Expert witnesses and other professional advisers. You have a right of access under data protection legislation to the personal data that we hold about you. We may from time to time send you information that we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office in writing.

  • Where we act for two or more clients jointly it is on the clear understanding that we are authorised to act on instructions from either, both or any of them.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

  • Our Professional Indemnity Insurance provider is Sompo International who can be contacted at:

Sompo International
1st Floor, 2 Minster Court
Mincing Lane
London EC3R 7BB 

Equality and Diversity Policy

  • We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a printed copy of our equality and diversity policy, which can also be viewed on our website.

Terms and conditions of business

  • Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of the then current hourly rates, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions / retainer 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 for or on your behalf until a copy has been signed and in our possession to retain.

I confirm I have read and understood, and I accept, these Terms and Conditions of Business.

Signed……………………………….................

File Reference:

 

Dated:             2023 (this document was last updated in March 2023)