The purpose of this document is to confirm the arrangements between us and should be read together with the client care letter. Any reference to ‘the firm’ means A & Y Law Ltd. Although your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms of Business, we ask that you sign, date and return one copy for our file.
We are normally open between 9.00 am and 5.30 pm from Monday to Friday. We may be able to arrange appointments outside of these hours, in cases of emergency. We are closed on all public bank holidays and operate reduced hours over the Christmas period.
The services we provide for any matter are described in the Client Care Letter or otherwise agreed between us at the outset of the matter and may be varied by agreement during the course of the matter. We shall not be responsible for any failure to advise or comment on any matter which falls outside the scope of your instructions. Our advice to you is provided for the purpose of the instructions to which it relates and for your benefit. It should not be used or relied on for any other purpose or by any other person without our prior agreement.
We will:
You will:
Our members of staff have the right to be treated with dignity and respect at all times. Please be aware that A Y & J Solicitors will not to tolerate verbal or physical abuse towards its staff. We reserve the right to stop acting for you / your Company where we have reasonable grounds to do so.
We will update you by telephone or in writing with progress on your matter regularly. We will explain to you by telephone or in writing the legal work required as your matter progresses. We will update you on the likely timescales for each stage of this matter and any important changes in those estimates. We will update you on the cost of your matter at the intervals set out in the accompanying letter.
The initial Client Care Letter we send you identifies the person who will be involved in your matter from the outset. It may be necessary to involve others as the matter progresses. If there may be a change of personnel in your matter we will endeavour to keep you informed of such changes and the reasons for this. We will be pleased to establish a method of reporting which is specifically suited to your needs (for example monthly or quarterly reports and/or meetings).
Our fees are based on the various criteria required by law which state that our charges are to be fair and reasonable having regard to all the circumstances. VAT will be charged if it is applicable, our VAT Reg. No: GB 255032628.
Where possible we will provide an estimate of the likely overall costs in relation to a matter. If we cannot give an estimate, we will explain why not. Unless our Client Care Letter states otherwise, any estimate or quotation of costs is not an agreement to perform our services within a fixed time or a fixed fee. We will notify you if any estimate of time and/or fees we have given you needs to be revised, for example, because your requirements or the circumstances have changed, or unforeseen additional work becomes necessary.
Generally, we will work on a fixed fee basis which is agreed with you in writing at the outset of a matter. Whether or not a matter proceeds to completion, you will be charged, or work done, and expenses incurred, unless otherwise agreed. If we agree to work on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis and your matter is not successfully completed, you will be charged for expenses incurred on your behalf but will only be charged for our time if the matter could not be completed due to action by you, for example, if you withdraw your instructions or fail to provide essential documents.
In certain circumstances, our charges are based on the time we spend in dealing with a matter. Time spent on your affairs will include meetings with you and others; considering, preparing and working on papers; written and electronic correspondence; making and receiving telephone calls; and any time spent traveling. Hourly rates vary according to the level of seniority of each lawyer and expertise required; your instructions will be carried out at a level appropriate to providing an efficient and cost-effective service. Our Client Care Letter outlines the current relevant hourly rates for the personnel involved in any matter unless you have already been notified of those rates. From time to time we will review our hourly rates and will notify you of any increased rate. In addition to the time spent, our charges may take into account a number of other factors. These include the complexity of the issues, the level of urgency, the expertise or specialist knowledge required and, if appropriate, the value of the subject matter involved.
Our duties are owed only to the client named in any engagement letter, and we disclaim any liability to any other person. If another person specifically requests the right to rely upon our advice, we will consider it, but we reserve the right to decline any such request. You agree that in any matter you will not be acting for another person unless we agree in writing in advance.
The terms on which we agree to conduct your matters (whether or not contained in these terms of business) are not intended to be enforceable by anyone but the parties to that agreement.
We have no liability in relation to services provided by counsel, experts, foreign lawyers or other third parties selected or instructed by us on your behalf.
This provision applies if you make any claim against us and we wish to claim contribution from a third party. If that third party’s liability to you has been excluded or limited, reducing the contribution we can recover from them, you will make an equal reduction in your claim against us. In this provision, “reduce” and “contribution” include a 100% reduction or contribution.
Your case may involve court proceedings. All solicitors have a professional duty to uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice. We must comply with our duties to the court, even where this conflicts with our obligations to you. This means that we must not:
We must also comply with court orders that put obligations on us and ensure that evidence relating to sensitive issues is not misused.
We have professional indemnity insurance giving cover for claims against the firm. Details of this insurance, including contact details of our insurer and the territorial coverage of the policy, can be inspected at our office or made available on request.
Our maximum aggregate liability to you in this matter will be £3 million including interest and costs unless we expressly agree on a different figure. If you wish to discuss a variation of this limit, please contact the person dealing with your matter. Agreeing a higher limit on our liability may result in us seeking an increase in our charges for handling your matter.
We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profit or opportunity.
We will not be liable for:
losses that were not foreseeable to you and us when this contract was formed
A & Y Law Ltd (trading as A Y & J Solicitors) is a limited company. This means that the firm’s members and directors are not personally liable for any acts or omissions by the firm, unless the law requires otherwise. This does not limit or exclude liability of the firm for the acts or omissions of its members and directors.
We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence.
Please ask if you would like us to explain any of the terms above.
Please note that increasingly fraudsters are targeting communications between clients and solicitors in order to try and misappropriate money. Please note that we will never change our bank account details part way through a case and we may need to confirm in discussions with you changes of banking information or similar before acting upon your instructions in this respect.
We hold all client money in Barclays Bank which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We are not liable for any losses you suffer as a result of any such banking institution being unable to repay depositors in full. You may, however, be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
The FSCS is the UK’s statutory fund of last resort for customers of banking institutions. The FSCS can pay compensation up to £75,000 if a banking institution is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay claims against it.
The limit is £75,000 per banking institution. If you hold other personal money in the same banking institution as our client accounts, the limit remains £75,000 in total. Please bear in mind that some banks operate several brands.
The FSCS also provides up to £1m of short-term protection for certain high balances, e.g. relating to property transactions, inheritance, divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership, unfair dismissal, redundancy and personal injury compensation (there is no financial limit on protection for personal injury compensation). This is called the temporary high balance scheme and, if it applies, protection lasts for a maximum of six months.
The FSCS (including the temporary high balance scheme) will apply to qualifying balances held in our client account. In the unlikely event of a deposit-taking institution failure, we will presume (unless we hear from you in writing to the contrary) we have your consent to disclose necessary client details to the FSCS.
A & Y Law Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN (the SRA).
This means that we are governed by a Code of Conduct and other professional rules, which you can access on the SRA’s website (www.sra.org.uk) or by calling 0370 606 2555.
How we use your data is in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulations. PLEASE REFER BELOW A SEPARATE ‘PRIVACY NOTICE’ FOR FULL DETAILS.
After completing the work, we will be entitled to keep your file, papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. Thereafter, we will keep your file, papers and documents for up to 6 years, except those papers you ask to be returned to you. We will not charge for this storage.
We store files on the understanding that we can destroy them 6 years after the date of the final bill. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody.
If we retrieve your file from storage (including electronic storage) in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for the retrieval.
If we retrieve your file from storage for another reason, we may charge you for:
If you have the necessary facilities we will use email for communication with you unless you tell us not to. Communications over the Internet are not completely secure. It is your responsibility to guide us as to what should not be sent over the Internet. Viruses or other harmful devices may be spread over the Internet. We take reasonable precautions to prevent these problems by use of a fire wall and virus checking software. If we are to communicate by email, it is on the basis that you will do likewise.
Although we make reasonable attempts to exclude from our emails and any attachments any virus or any other defect which might affect any computer or IT system, it is your responsibility to put in place measures to protect your computer or IT system against any such virus or defect and we do not accept liability for any loss or damage which may arise from the receipt or use of electronic communications from us.
These terms shall apply to you and your associates, which, for the purposes of these same terms, include all companies which you control, or, if you are a company forming part of a group, all companies in that group.
Sometimes we ask other companies or people to undertake work on our files to ensure this is done promptly and in the most cost-effective manner. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. 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, e.g. our regulator (the SRA), our accountants or assessment bodies for quality accreditations. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files. Please contact us you do not wish your files to be disclosed to external auditors.
You have the right to cancel the signed contract within 14 days without giving any reason if your sign up to our firm considers as a distance sales (Via email, telephone, etc). Please send us cancellation request via an email or a signed letter mentioning your name, contact details, matter details, reference numbers if any.
We will start work on your matter as soon as possible if you expressly ask us to, you would not have a right to cancel the instruction in such instances.
You may end your instructions at any time, by giving us notice in writing. We can keep all your papers and documents while our charges and/or disbursements are outstanding.
We can only decide to stop acting for you with good reason and we must give you reasonable notice.
If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you are liable to pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated on the basis set out in our letter confirming your instructions.
We are required by law to get satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wanting to launder money.
To comply with the law, we need to get evidence of your identity as soon as possible. This is explained the accompanying letter.
We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period and may not be able to tell you why.
Our clients may from time to time include one or more who operate in your area or a related area. We retain the right to act for these clients, subject to our professional duties in relation to conflict of interests and our obligations of confidentiality referred to in the following paragraph.
The information and documentation you provide to us is confidential and subject to legal professional privilege unless:
We cannot absolutely guarantee the security of information communicated by email or mobile phone. Unless we hear from you to the contrary, we will assume that you consent for us to use these methods of communication.
Our policy is to only accept cash up to £500. If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may decide to charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to prove the source of the funds. Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.
We are committed to providing high-quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you receive or about the bill, please contact Mr. Parvez Khan on 020 7404 7933 and [email protected] or by post to Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7QT. We have a written procedure that sets out how we handle complaints. It is available on request.
We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:
PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH
0300 555 0333—from 8.30am to 5.30pm
[email protected]
www.legalombudsman.org.uk
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 six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). Generally, the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints relating to acts or omissions that happened after 5 October 2010.
The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints by consumers and very small businesses. This means some clients may not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, e.g. charities or clubs with an annual income of more than £1m, trustees of trusts with asset value of more than £1m and most businesses (unless they are defined as micro-enterprises). This does not prevent you from making a complaint directly to us about the service you have received or about the bill.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint, and it relates to a contract we entered into online or by other electronic means, you may also be able to submit your complaint to a certified alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider in the UK via the EU ‘ODR platform’.
The ODR platform is an interactive website offering a single point of entry for disputes between consumers and traders relating to online contracts. The ODR platform is available to consumer clients only, i.e. where you have instructed us for purposes outside your trade, business, craft or profession.
The website address for the ODR platform is: http://ec.europa.eu/odr
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
In appointing us to act on your behalf, you are also authorising us, unless you instruct us to the contrary, to incur such expenses and disbursements as we consider necessary. You will be required to pay for or reimburse us for those expenses. Examples of expenses and disbursements which we may have to pay on our behalf include reprographic charges, court fees, barristers’ fees, overseas lawyers’ and experts’ fees, application filing fees and special bank transaction costs. We reserve the right to charge for the expenses of travel, accommodation and meals while working on your behalf away from the office.
We will consult you before incurring any significant expenses or disbursements.
In circumstances where we pay government fees on your behalf, we cannot be liable for problems arising with your application if a payment is declined due to banking error. If you prefer to pay the disbursement directly to UK authorities, please let us know when you instruct us to act for you.
You are personally responsible for all legal costs as set out in our letter confirming your instructions, whether or not you have legal expense insurance. We will also usually discuss this at our initial meeting with you.
We will submit interim bills for our charges and disbursements at set milestones.
Any interim bill we send you is a self-contained invoice for the work done during the period if covers. We will send you a final bill at the end of your matter which will cover our work from the date of the last interim bill.
Bills should be paid within 7 calendar days unless agreed otherwise and confirmed in writing. We may charge interest on overdue bills at 4% above Barclays Bank Rate from the date of the invoice. Interest will be charged on a daily basis.
We may cease acting for you if an interim bill remains unpaid after 90 days or if our reasonable request for a payment on account of costs is not met.
You have the right to challenge or complain about our bill. Please see the ‘Complaints’ section above for details of how to complain about our bill.
You also have the right to challenge our bill by applying to the court to assess the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. The usual time limit for making such an application is one month from the date of delivery of the bill. If the application is made after one month but before 12 months from delivery of the bill, the court’s permission is required for the bill to be assessed.
Unless there are special circumstances, the court will not usually order a bill to be assessed after:
We can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses.
You may be eligible to apply for financial assistance from the Legal Aid Agency (previously the Legal Service Commission) with respect to your immigration matters. For your information, we do not currently operate under a Community Legal Service (CLS) contract and therefore we are unable to advise as to eligibility. If you believe you are eligible to apply, you may wish to consult a firm of solicitors that does operate a CLS franchise. Legal Aid funding is subject to a means test, as well as a prospect of success/merits test.
We will pay a fair and reasonable amount of interest when it is fair and reasonable to do so, on any money held in our client account in accordance with our Payment of Interest Policy. Our policy is subject to any rules laid down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. If, while we are acting for you, you need advice on investments, we may refer you to someone who is authorised to provide the necessary advice.
However, we may provide certain limited investment advice services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you. This is because we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales, which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society.
The scope of our services does not include giving you financial or business advice on the merits of entering into a transaction in investments. No communication either to you, or on your behalf to any other person, during the course of our engagement will be an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity and nothing we say or write should be considered as such.
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to consumer credit services. We may, however, provide certain limited consumer credit services where these are incidental to the professional services we provide. This is because we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales, which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any consumer credit services you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with the SRA or Legal Ombudsman.
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 copy of our equality and diversity policy.
Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Business will be determined by the law of England and Wales, and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh courts.
Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms of Business will apply to all future instructions you give us on this or any other matter.
These terms supersede any earlier terms of business we may have agreed with you and, in the absence of express agreement to the contrary, will apply to the services referred to in any Client Care letter accompanying these terms and all subsequent services we provide to you.
From time to time it may be necessary to amend or supersede these terms by new terms.
Where this is the case we will notify you of the changes and, unless we hear from you to the contrary within 14 days after such notification, the amendments or new terms will come into effect from the end of that period.
It is essential that you contact this firm immediately in writing if you do not wish to be bound by these Terms of Engagement.
A & Y Law Ltd (trading as A Y & J Solicitors) is a limited company registered in England and Wales (number 10256361). Registered office Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7QH. Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA ID: 633686). A list of directors may be inspected at our registered office.
We will collect information about you and keep this on our computers, in our email, in cloud storage and on paper for a certain period of time. The main reasons for this are to:
In some cases we may hold more ‘sensitive’ information about you such as about health. This will often be necessary to pursue your legal matter. However by agreeing to work with us for your legal matter you are also agreeing to us using your information in this way. You can withdraw consent to your information being used in a particular way but this may limit what more we can do for you (if anything).
As a client we may also in the future send you a newsletter or similar and find that most clients find this helpful. We rely upon the ‘legitimate interest’ we have in maintaining contact with former clients to do this in data protection law and your agreement for the purposes of the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (which can be implied under these Regulations). However, we will never share your information with third parties to market to you and will not contact you about non-legal services. We will make it quick and easy to ‘opt out’ of future communications in every communication sent. If you already know that you don’t want to receive these messages, then you can opt out now by emailing the person responsible for the conduct of your case or [email protected]
Your information may be kept on computer servers within the European Union. [If at any point information is stored on computer servers outside of the EU we have selected countries which are either approved for this purpose (under Article 45 of the General Data Protection Regulation or ‘GDPR’) or are located where we are happy that the safeguards in place in that country to protect your information are appropriate (under Article 45 of the GDPR).
We do not use your personal information to make ‘automated decisions’ which affect you.
Anyone choosing to use our WhatsApp messaging service has consented to our sharing their contact details with WhatsApp which is part of the Facebook group of companies. Although their contact details are shared with WhatsApp in the US, the content of any messages sent through WhatsApp are end-trend encrypted and, as we understand it, sent through servers in the EU and subject to the privacy provisions in the General Data Protection Regulation. For more information on WhatsApp’s privacy policy, please see: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/?eea=1#privacy-policy
Will you share my information with anyone else?
Generally speaking we will not share your information with third parties unless this is part of the work on your legal matter and to collect feedback from our customers on our behalf via ‘Trustpilot’. For example, we may need to send certain information about you to other lawyers working on the case, to Court or to government bodies such as the Home Office or Entry Clearance Officers. In rare circumstances we sometimes need to make reports of suspicious activity to the NCA. We do also work with some trusted contractors or consultants who may have access to your information such as service providers or copiers. All contractors have a contract with us which requires that your information is accessed appropriately and kept confidential (among other GDPR requirements).
How long will you keep my information?
Generally speaking files are destroyed after six years. Certain original documents or files may need to be kept longer if there is a big risk of destroying something which is needed.
We will also always keep a small amount of information after file closure to do conflicts of interest searches in the future to comply with our professional duties.
Can I see what information you hold about me?
We do normally have a right to payment of any outstanding costs before releasing a whole file, but you do have a separate right under the GDPR to access your ‘personal data’ without charge. This may include having it in a particular electronic format (‘portable’ format).
Please contact Mr. Yash Dubal; Managing Director, email: [email protected] if you would like to request a copy of your personal data.
What if I have other questions or concerns?
Our general contact details are set out on our headed paper, and our information officer is: Mr. Yash Dubal; Managing Director, email: [email protected]. Contact this individual if you:
If you have a complaint about how your personal information is being used which we have not been able to address, please note that you may be able to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) directly.
It is essential that you contact this firm immediately in writing if you do not wish to be bound by these ‘Privacy Notice’.
