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Our Commitment

Our Commitment

Here we tell you :-

• When the office is open.

• The service we offer.

• How you can help us offer the best service.

• About our charges.

• About our money laundering procedures.

• About our equality and diversity policy.

• About data protection.

• About financial services and insurance mediation.

• What to do if you are not satisfied with our service.

Office hours

• Our office is open from 9.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. each week day.

• Our switchboard is open during those hours and outside those hours there is an answerphone on which you can leave a message.

• Meetings can be at our office or we are happy to come to see you.

The service we offer

at the outset and as necessary during the matter we will:-

• Identify your objectives in relation to the work to be done for you.

• Give you a clear explanation of the issues involved and the options available to you.

• Agree with you the next steps to be taken and the likely time scales involved.

• Agree with you an appropriate level of service.

• Explain our responsibilities.

• Explain your responsibilities including:-

• what action you need to take.

• any further information we need from you.

• Confirm in writing the name and status of the person dealing with the matter and the name of the person responsible for its overall supervision.

• Give you the best information we can as to likely costs.

• Keep you informed of progress, unless otherwise agreed.

• Reply promptly to correspondence and aim to return telephone calls on the same day.

• Advise you of any delays and explain the reasons.

• Inform you if the costs information given to you needs revising.

at the end of your matter we will:-

• Write confirming the conclusion of it.

• Explain any continuing consequences.

• Render our account as promptly as possible.

• Account to you for money due to you.

• Provide you with copies of any completed documents, if requested.

How you can help us

• Give us clear instructions.

• Tell us if you have any important time limits.

• Make sure we have understood each other correctly. Ask if you are not sure about anything.

• Deal with any correspondence from us and important questions that arise promptly.

• Keep in regular touch. Do not hesitate to ask for a progress report if you are concerned about anything or do not hear from us when you expect.

• Help us plan our working day. Make an appointment if you want to see someone.

Information about our charges

we will in writing:-

• Advise you of the basis and terms of our charges.

• Advise you if charging rates are to be increased.

• Advise you of likely payments which you or we may need to make to others.

• Discuss with you how you will pay in particular:-

• whether you may be eligible for public funding

• whether your costs are covered by insurance or may be paid by someone else

• Advise you of any potential liability you may have for any other party’s costs and whether that may be covered by insurance.

• Discuss with you whether the potential outcomes of any legal case will justify the expense or risk involved.

You can:-

• Set a limit on costs being incurred without further agreement with you (not the same as an agreed fee).

• Ask us for details of what costs have been incurred at any stage.

Generally:-

• VAT and all payments out we make on your behalf will be added to our account.

• We may ask you for a payment on account of our costs, especially for Court/Tribunal work.  We may ask you for further payments as the matter progresses.

• Due to administrative costs we will account to you for interest due to you only if the sum exceeds £20.

• All accounts must be paid within thirty days failing which we reserve the right to charge interest on the whole or outstanding part of an account unpaid.

• If you think your account is excessive we will be pleased to explain how it has been calculated.  If you are still not satisfied, we will explain to you the right either to require us to obtain a Certificate from the Legal Complaints Service stating whether the account is fair and reasonable or to have the account reviewed by the Court.

Money Laundering Procedures

•  By law we operate money laundering prevention and reporting procedures which require us to obtain verification of your identity.

• We use an e-id verification system provided by IDYourClient.com.   This programme assists us to verify your identity against various different data sources in line with anti money laundering regulations.  When we attempt to verify your identity the process involves checking the details you supply against those held on a number of specific databases.  IDYourClient.com has access to information from various agencies and organisations.  A record of this process will be kept and may be used to help other companies verify your identity.  A footprint will be logged on your credit file.  This is harmless information and will not affect your ability to gain credit. 

• Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of their 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 Organised Crime Agency.  When we know or suspect that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, we 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.

• We will only accept very limited sums by way of cash in settlement of our costs or other sums payable to or through the firm.  If you circumvent this policy by depositing cash direct with our bank we reserve the right to charge for any additional checks we deem necessary regarding the source of the funds.

• Monies due to you will be paid by cheque (or the equivalent), but not in cash, and will not be made payable to a third party.

• We have adopted and implemented a policy for preventing discrimination and harassment and promoting equality and diversity.  You may request a copy of the policy if you so wish.

Data Protection Notice

• We will use your personal information for administration, marketing and providing legal services to you.  We will disclose your information to our service providers and agents for these purposes.  We may keep your information for a reasonable period to contact you about our services in the future; if you do not want us to do this, you may opt out by informing us that this is the case. You consent to our processing your sensitive personal data for the above purposes.  You have the right to ask for a copy of your information for which we may charge a small fee to correct any inaccuracies in your data.

About Financial Services and Insurance Mediation

• We are not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, but we are able, in certain circumstances, to offer a limited range of investment services to you because we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.  We can provide these investment services if they are an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide. 

• 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 Solicitors Regulation Authority.  The register is accessed via Financial Services Authority website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.   

• The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory body of the Law Society and the Legal Complaints Service is the independent complaints handling body of the Law Society.

 What to do if you are not satisfied with our service

• If you have any problem with the service we have provided for you then please let us know.  We will try to resolve any problem quickly and operate an internal complaints handling system to help us resolve the problem between ourselves.  Mention it first to the person looking after your matter. If you are still unhappy after that you can complain to our Client Care Principal, Paul Butler, who will investigate it and contact you about the problem. It will help if you put your complaint in writing (keeping a copy for yourself) explaining what action you want us to take.  If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us, then we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and complaints and redress mechanisms are provided through the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Complaints Service.