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WhiteField Solicitors LTD 1st Floor 4 Bury Old Road, Manchester. M8 9JN

Whitefield Solicitors ltd

1st Floor, 4 Bury Old Road

Manchester

M8 9JN

T: 0161 740 4446

F: 0161 740 6446

www.whitefieldsolicitors.co.uk

Email: info@whitefieldsolicitors.co.uk

 

 

Whitefield Solicitors Ltd

TERMS & CONDITIONS

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Your Instructions
  2. Our Advice
  3. Submission of your case
  4. What You Can Claim For
  5. Steps Which You Should Take
  6. Steps Which We Will Take
  7. How Long Will It Take?
  8. Responsibility For The Work
  9. Complaint Procedure
  10. Funding Your Case
  11. Charges and Expenses
  12. Success Fee
  13. Conditional Fee Agreement as “No Win No Fee”
  14. Disbursements are expenses
  15. Estimates of Costs & Time
  16. Interest
  17. Interest on Client Money
  18. Insurance Mediation Activities and After The Event Insurance
  19. Cancellation
  20. Termination
  21. Storage of Papers
  22. Equality and Diversity
  23. Data Protection Act 1998
  24. Money Laundering
  25. Professional Rules
  26. Vetting and Confidentiality
  27. Applicable Law
  28. Authorities
  29. NORMAL OFFICE HOURS & APPOINTMENTS
  30. Acceptance of Terms

We write to give you some general advice about how we deal with legal matters and also to provide you with certain information as required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regarding our terms of business.

  • YOUR INSTRUCTIONS

You instruct us to represent you in connection with your legal matter for example, Personal Injury claim, Immigration Matter, Family law matter, OR property matter etc.

  • OUR ADVICE

Upon preliminary consideration of facts narrated by you and perusal of your documentations, we believe that we are in a position to represent you OR not in your matter, we shall also advise you about the chances of success in your matter.

  • Submission of Claim or Legal Matter to relevant authority

 

Upon gathering information’s, documentations and with your approval we will submit your legal matter to relevant authority.

 

  • What You Can Claim For

You can claim your legal rights in all legal matters, like damages in PI matters or right to live etc in immigration matters if you are entitle to.

  • Steps Which You Should Take

It is very important that you provide us all required information, documents etc.

It is important that you keep us informed of any changes in address / telephone numbers (home or work). When you write or telephone, please ensure that you always quote the reference that appears at the top of our letter as this will help avoid delay.

  • Steps Which We Will Take

If your claim involves a Road traffic Accident and you are injured it is likely (unless your injuries are of a serious nature) that your claim will be submitted to the defendant via their insurers through the RTA Low Value Claims Portal.  If you have instructed us for any other legal matter like immigration matter your case will be submitted to home office or relevant courts in other matter like family law etc. we will keep you updated during pendency of your matter with us.

  • How Long Will It Take?

It is very difficult to predict how long your legal matter will take. As you will appreciate from the above, much is dependent on documentations and on third party, your medical situation and on the attitude taken by insurers. At present, our “best guess” is that your claim might take between 12 and 24 months to reach conclusion although if liability is conceded early and there are no complication this period can be lot less.

  • Responsibility For The Work

Person responsible for the dealing with case will be one of our staff member under the supervision of Mr Mazhar Aslam (Solicitor/Director). 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 director at this firm with final responsibility for work done in the personal injury department is Mazhar Aslam.

We will endeavor to adhere to following service standards, we will keep you regularly informed of progress, communication to you in plain languages, explain the legal, work that may be, required advise regularly of the costs/risk benefit of pursuing a matter and advise you of the likely time scale. These standards will have been adhered to within this document and/are ongoing basis throughout the continuances of your claim.

Our offices hours are between 9.00 am to 5.00 pm Monday to Friday, please make appointment to visit our offices. Please quote our reference mentioned at the top of this letter when you contact us.

 

  • Complaint Procedure

If you are Dissatisfied (General or About Our Bill of Costs), the Firm is committed to high quality legal advice and client care.  We have a complaints procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available on request to our complaints manager, the details of who are provided below.  The firm may at any time raise an interim bill pending the action or raise a final bill at the end of the matter. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received or about the bill, you are entitled to:-

  • If you are dissatisfied you need to follow our internal complaint procedure
  • To complain to the case handler first in writing.
  • If you are still dissatisfied then please complain to the Principal of the firm the complaints manager of the firm (Mr Mazhar Aslam).
  • If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 15870 Birmingham B30 9EB, to consider the complaint
  • By applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under Part lll of the Solicitors’ Act 1974; and
  • The complaint should be made within six months from the end of the retainer or within six months from the circumstances resulting in the complaint being identified.
  • You will normally need to bring the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint.

 

Note that if all or part of the bill remains unpaid the firm may be entitled to charge interest at the base rate of NatWest Bank.

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 and the result at we achieve. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy about, please raise your concern firstly with case worker. If you still have queries or concerns please contact manager of our firm. Whilst we are confident we can resolve any complaints you may have amicably we do have written complaints procedure, a copy of which is available upon request. Your right to complain or raise a concern includes the right to complain about a bill.

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint provided you do so within 6 months of the date of our final written response. In addition, there are time limits relating to the date you first became aware or should have become aware of the problem. The relevant time limits are set out in the version of the Legal Ombudsman’s Scheme. Rules in force from time to time (which can be accesses at: http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/aboutus/scheme rules.html) and may only be extended by the Legal Ombudsman in exceptional circumstances. The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted in writing to Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ or alternatively by phone on 0300 555 0333 and e-mail at enquiries@legalmobudsman.org.uk.

(10). FEES

 

We feel it is in our mutual interest that the position regarding the funding of your case is explained.  Our Fees are explained in two head (A) . Fees in all legal matters – (B) – Fees in personal Injury Matters

 

(A) . Fees in all legal Matters

 

We work out our fees on the basis of time spent by our staff in respect of the case. This includes advising, meeting the client and others, dealing with the documentation, correspondence and telephone calls, carrying out research as well as preparing for any hearing to include travelling and time spent waiting at the courts etc. However, our fees does not include disbursements incurred on your behalf i.e., Counsel’s fees, Court fees or expenses incurred in obtaining reports / expert opinions etc.

 

We keep our clients informed of the current level of the costs incurred at any one time by the delivery of the interim bills and it is our usual practice to submit interim bills at three monthly intervals without further reference to you, or alternatively invoice can be delivered to you on your request.

 

  1. i. Fixed Fee Arrangements:

 

A fixed fee is payable on the perusal and consideration of your documents and conducting your representation. This also covers the cost of any correspondence, telephone calls etc., that are made on your behalf. However, if the matter requires further oral representations to the Superior Courts / Tribunals and becomes more complex, then further costs will be discussed.

 

If at any time before the completion of the matter you wish to withdraw your instructions then we will calculate our cost on non-fixed fee basis.

 

  1. ii. Non – Fixed Fee Arrangements:

 

Unless and until an alternative fee arrangement has been agreed and confirmed in writing, the calculation of our fees is described below.

 

These rates are reviewed from time to time and therefore, if this matter has not been concluded before the date of the next review, they will change and we shall attempt to inform you of the new rates which will apply to work done from the date of the review as soon as they have been set.

 

Solicitor Directors and Litigation Managers : £201.00 per hour

 

Solicitors and legal executives with over

: £177.00 per hour 4 years post qualification experience

Including at least 4 years litigation

Experience Other Solicitors and

Legal executives and: £146.00 per hour

Fee earners of equivalent experience

 

Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee :

£111.00 per hour earners

 

Both incoming and outgoing routine letters and routine telephone calls will be charged as units of 1/10th of an hour.

 

iii. Disbursements:

 

By instructing us you authorize us to use our discretion in instructing counsels, experts etc., to conduct your matters and to incur disbursements on your behalf i.e., Counsel’s fees, Court fees or expenses incurred in obtaining reports / expert opinions etc.

 

  1. Fee Agreed:

 

You may be eligible for legal aid, however we do not have legal aid franchise and your matter is privately funded that means you are responsible for the payments of our fees and all disbursements.

 

In your case, we will inform you our agreement with you is fix fee or time spent hourly rate have agreed time spent currently hourly rate as mentioned above.  Please note that our fees are exclusive of any VAT & disbursements. We will also confirm how much you have paid on account of costs.  Please note that this cost does not cover any other work.

 

It is our normal practice to ask clients to make payments on account of anticipated costs and disbursements. It is helpful if you can meet requests promptly and if there is any difficulty, please let us know as soon as possible.

 

As previously mentioned we shall deliver bills at regular intervals for the work carried out during the conduct of the case. This assists our cash flow and enables you to budget for costs. I am sure you understand that in the event of payment not being made we must reserve the right to decline to act any further and to charge you for the full amount of the work done up to that date. Accounts for disbursements incurred or to be incurred should be settled immediately. Accounts in respect of our fees should be settled immediately. Accounts in respect of our fees should be settled within 30 days of the delivery of the bill. Interest will be charged on bills that are not paid within that time at the existing Court Judgment Rate or 3% over the Base Rate of NatWest Bank whichever is the higher. Furthermore, we retain a lien over all papers held for and on your behalf and entitled to exercise that lien against any outstanding bills for work done on your behalf.

(B) – Fees in personal Injury Matters – Funding Your Case

There are a number of ways in which your liability for legal costs may be met:

  • It is not uncommon for people to have legal expenses insurance either as an extension to a motor insurance policy, a home contents policy or specialist legal expenses insurance. We have already asked you to check all your policies if insurance and to let us have copies in order that we may ascertain whether you have legal expenses insurance. If you have insurance of that nature your legal expenses insurers may agree to our being instructed on your behalf but that is not always the case. It may also be the case that any such insurance may be unsuitable to your needs. We will make such enquiries on your behalf.

 

  • Legal Aid (more properly known as Community Legal Service Funding) is not normally available for accident compensation claims, and we have considered your possible eligibility for such funding before writing this letter to you.

 

  • If you are a member of a trade union you may be entitle to free legal advice .some employers provide legal costs insurance cover for employees.

 

  • You may of course choose to be personally responsible for our charges and expenses in which event we shall submit an interim bill from time to time .clients often find that monthly payments of legal fees enable them to keep a close track on their spending . Details of our current hourly rates, charging structure and overall post and time estimates are set out below.

 

  • Conditional Fee Agreement: You may wish to fund your claim by entering into a Conditional Fee Agreement with us. These agreements are often referred to as ‘no win no fee’ agreements because under such an agreement you will not have to pay our legal costs if your claim is unsuccessful.

If your claim is successful you will be liable to pay our legal costs and disbursements plus a ‘success fee’ (to reward our firm for the risk we take when we make our fees conditional upon the success of your claim). You will usually be able to recover part or all of our costs and disbursements from your opponent but you cannot recover our success fee, this must be paid by you.

The success fee will never be more than 100% of our costs and cannot be equal to more than 25% of the damages (as specified by law) that you are awarded.

If your claim is unsuccessful you will still have to pay our disbursements. You will not normally have to pay your opponent’s costs and disbursements unless;

  • Your claim is found to be fraudulent on the balance of probabilities;
  • You have failed to beat your opponent’s Part 36 Offer to Settle i.e. your opponent offered you a payment to settle out of court which was higher than the amount of damages that you were awarded at court;
  • The case has been struck out because you have disclosed no reasonable cause of action or where it is otherwise an abuse of the court’s process.

We may advise you to consider After Event insurance (see below) to cover the risk that you fail to beat a Part 36 offer, if this become necessary.

We have assessed the strengths and weaknesses of your claim and we are prepared to enter into a Conditional Fee Agreement with you. Should the case change, arid particularly if it transpires that you have failed to disclose any relevant information to us, we reserve the right to withdraw from the Condition Fee Agreement and you may become liable’ to pay our past and future fees on a private basis:

Substantial information about this type of funding is provided in the terms of our Conditional Fee Agreement and the attached CFA terms and conditions. If you are interested in this type of funding then please read the terms carefully before signing the agreement. Please do not hesitate to ask us to clarify any term of this agreement for you.

  • Damages-Based Agreement: We must make you aware that it is now possible to fund personal injury claims on the basis of a Damages-Based Agreement. However, Whitefield Solicitors does not offer this type of funding to clients. You may of course, find other firms who do offer this type of funding for your claim.

We have nevertheless, set out a brief explanation of how a Damages-Based Agreement would work, to allow you to make an informed decision about the best way to fund your claim.

A Damages-Based Agreement is also a ‘no win no fee’ agreement us under such an agreement you will not have to pay our legal costs if your claim is unsuccessful and you do not recover any damages from your opponent.

If your claim is successful and you are awarded damages, then you would pay us a percentage of the damages recovered as our payment. The law sets a limit on the percentage of your damages that we can take as our payment. The maximum percentage of your damages that we can take is 25% of the damages awarded to you relating to:

  • General damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; and
  • Damages for pecuniary loss other than for future pecuniary loss

You will also be expected to pay any disbursements that we incur on your behalf.

You will usually be able to recover some of the basic costs and some disbursements from your opponent. Where this happens, the amount payable to us will reduce the amount of damages that you will have to pay us.

If your claim is unsuccessfully you will still have to pay our disbursements. You will not normally have to pay you opponent’s costs and disbursements unless;

  • Your claim is found to be fraudulent on the balance of probabilities;
  • You have failed to beat your opponents Part 36 Offer to Settle i.e. your opponent offered you a payment to settle out of court which was higher than the amount of damages that you were awarded at court;
  • The case has been struck out because you have disclosed no reasonable course of action or where it is otherwise an abuse of the courts process.

We may advise you to consider After the Event insurance to cover the risk that you fail to beat a Part 36 offer, if this becomes necessary. This is of course, provided that you do not have any existing Legal Expenses Insurance in place (as discussed above).

You will be liable for the cost of the insurance policy premium should you accept our advice to take out After the Event insurance.

If we do recommend that you obtain such a policy, we will recommend a suitable policy to you, and on your instruction, recommend those needs in a “Demand and Needs’ statement. We are not financial advisers and do not conduct an analysis of the insurance markets when making any recommendations and only do so because we are confident that that policy will meet your requirements.

(11). Charges and Expenses

In pursuing your claim and acting on your behalf, we will be incurring legal costs and expenses, for which you will be primarily liable.

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 they do on your behalf. This will include meetings with you and perhaps others, reading a working on papers; correspondence, including emails, telephone calls, 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. For all such work, our charges will be calculated at a rate of £201.00 per hour. This rate is normally reviewed with effect from 1st January each year. Routine letters and telephone calls will be charged as units of one tenth of an hour. Other letters and phone calls will be charged on a time basis.

You should also be aware that if we do ask you to pay any charges, expenses or success fee to us, you have a right to challenge whether the amount we are claiming by seeking assessments of costs from the courts.

Where your case arises out of a Road Traffic Accident and settles within the MOJ Portal then there is a basic fee of £200 following Stage 1 and an additional fee £300 for cases which settle at Stage2. If the matter settles at Stage 2 and within Stage 3, then a further sum of either £250 or £500 may be awarded dependent upon how and at which point during Stage 3 your case successfully settled.

Where your case arise out of a Road Traffic Accident and settles outside the MOJ Portal but prior to the issue of the Court Proceedings, then there is a basic fee of £800 plus VAT together with a sum equal to 20% of the first £5000 of damages and a sum equal to 15% of the balance (“Fixed Recoverable Costs’).

If either of these costs regimes applies to your case then our costs will be the costs recovered under either ‘scheme’.

In addition to the above we are also entitled to recover a success fee from you as explained in paragraph 8 (v).

We may also incur other costs and expenses on your behalf that may include the following:

  • Medical reports estimated between £450-£550 plus;
  • Engineer reports estimated at £120 +VAT;
  • Hospital notes estimated at £50 +VAT;
  • GP records estimated at £50 +VAT;
  • Police reports estimated at £32- £150 if appropriate
  • Court fees estimated at £150-£1000

Barristers’ fee estimated at £300 – £1000 +VAT if appropriate, dependant on involvements and complexity

The above expenses are recoverable from your opponent if your claim succeeds.

If your opponent fails to pay any of the compensation or costs to you, we have the right to take recovery action in your name to enforce any judgment, order or agreement. The charges of this action become part of our basic charge.

  1. Success Fee

 

As part of the “No Win No Fee Agreement” you have agreed that this firm may charge a success fee, which is calculated as a percentage of the basic fee.  In your particular case we have agreed that there be a success fee of 25 % the success fee will be taken out of your compensation award on the conclusion of your claim.

 

  1. Conditional Fee Agreement as “No Win No Fee”

 

Our fees will be calculated on an hourly rate basis exclusive of VAT.  We have entered into a Conditional Fee Agreement “No Win No Fee” with you which allows for a success fee to reflect the risk of not being able to recover our costs.   This letter should therefore be read in conjunction with the Conditional Fee Agreement entered into with ourselves and the explanation document “Conditional Fee Agreements: which will be relevant in the event that your claim is successful and will provide the basis for the calculation of our costs. Our agreement to offering you the funding option of a Conditional Fee Agreement is qualified as follows: Should a court rule for any reason that any part of our costs in accordance with the Conditional Fee Agreement entered into with ourselves are not enforceable then you will be responsible for our costs on a private paying basis in accordance with our hourly charges.

No win, no fee agreements in most cases you cannot get financial help (legal aid) to claim compensation for a personal injury, and you will need to pay expensive legal fees upfront which you are unlikely to get back if you lose your case. If you are unable to get legal aid, or do not have an insurance policy to cover your claim, one option is to enter into a ‘conditional fee’ or ‘no win, no fee’ Agreement”.

 

If you enter a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement, you won’t have to pay your solicitors’ fees if you lose (although you may still have to pay some expenses). If you win, you will have to pay your solicitors’ fees and these will be much higher than if you lost your case.

 

You should think very carefully before entering a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement as, win or lose, you may still have something to pay, and this can often be much higher than you might expect. We have agreed in your case as No Win No Fee basis.

 

  1. Disbursements are Expenses

 

Disbursements are expenses which may need to be incurred during the claim and include, but are not limited to medical reports etc.  If it becomes necessary to incur disbursements then we may require payments on account in this respect.  Such payments may include an element of VAT.  Please note that you are personal responsible for the payment of any disbursements incurred in your case.  Such disbursements although not limited to medical reports, include engineer’s fee, after the event insurance (see below), locus reports, medical records and Court fees.  The disbursement in your case will only be incurred when it is absolutely necessary to progress your matter.

 

  1. Estimation of Cost and Time

Although we have explained in this letter, that subject to limited exceptions, that you will not end up with a liability to pay our basic charges and expenses for our work, it is right that you should be aware of the amount of the level of costs which might be incurred by us in pursuing your claim.

There are many factors that can influence the cost of personal injury cases. For example, the conduct of the other party and their insurers, the nature of your claim, the seriousness of your injuries/rate of recovery, the speed and clarity with which you provide us with information etc. We can advise you that the average total (including basic charges, disbursements, success fee and VAT) for a claim arising from a road traffic accident is in the region of £6000(we have found that total charges usually fit within a range of £3000 to £8000 where the injuries are minor to moderate).

In cases where the injuries sustained are serious; the total cost is, as you would expect more. It can range from £9000 to £25000 because often many different experts may be required to assist in promoting and quantifying the damages claim. In very serious cases, where a person’s livelihood is affected, then total cost could exceed £25000 through rarely save catastrophic injury cases would we expect total costs to exceed £50000. For other types of Personal Injury Claims the charges tend to be around 50%greater than they are in road traffic cases.

A claim of this sort if settled without proceedings should be concluded within 12 months and occasionally much sooner. If the proceedings have to be issued it may take about another year to resolve the dispute finally.

It is very difficult to predict how many hours we will spend on your case as each case is very different. However, we can say that on average a straightforward case of this nature, without proceedings, would usually require a minimum of 10 hours to conclude. Obviously, cases with which proceedings are required will be substantially in excess of this figure.

If the other driver turns out to be an untraced motorist then we will normally be happy to continue to ac for you in bringing a claim to the Motor Insurers Bureau. In those circumstances, we may continue on the basis that we will charge you as the MIB only makes a contribution towards the legal costs. We will of course advise you straight away if this situation were to occur.

 

  1. Interest

If you win your claim through court proceedings, you opponent may be required to pay interest on the charges and disbursements incurred by us on your behalf. Since you will have not been paying our charges through the duration of the case, we will be entitled to retain such interest.

  1. Interest on Client Money

Interest paid will be a fair and reasonable amount calculated on the basis of the interest rate on the general client account applicable at the time and will be for the whole period that the money is held. No interest will be payable if the amount calculated on the balance held is £20 or less. Where the interest calculated exceeds £20 the full amount of the interest will be paid to you.

  1. Insurance Mediation Activities and After the Event Insurance

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we 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. This part of our business including arrangements for the completion or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the SRA. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at www.fca.org.uk/register

The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purpose of the Financial Service and Markets Act 2000, but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions.

As stated previously, if you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. For further details of our complaints procedure we would refer you back to paragraph 7 of our Client Care & Terms & Condition.

In event that After the Event insurance is required, we will usually recommend 80e After the Event Insurers who is required will arrange any such policy on your behalf.

  1. Cancellation

If we have not met with you the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 apply to your file.

This means that you have the right to cancel your instructions to us within seven working days of receiving this letter. However, such cancellation notice must be in writing or by other durable medium and be addressed to our office. It is important that any cancellation notice should include your name address and should quote your reference as shown at the head of this letter.

The period during which you may cancel ends on the expiry of seven working days beginning with the day after the day on which you receive this letter.

If you do cancel your instructions within the said period the law will treat the contract between us for the provision of legal services as rescinded and we will be unable to send you a bill in respect of our fees.

Once the said period has elapsed and you have not cancelled your instructions, you will only be able to terminate your instructions as per the paragraph/clause below.

  1. Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time, but we may be entitled to keep any of your papers and documents whilst there is still money owing to us for our charges and expenses.

Similarly, we may decide to stop acting for you but only with good reason. We must give you reasonable notice that we will stop acting for you and give you reasons why, if we can.

If you or we decided that we no longer act, you will be liable to pay our expenses and charged on an hourly basis, as indicated earlier.

  1. Storage of papers

After completing the work we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We will keep our file of your papers for up to 6 years, except those papers that you ask to be returned to you. We keep files on the understanding that we can destroy them six 6 years after the final bill. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody. If we take papers or documents out of storage in relation to continuing or new instruction to act for you, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, in any other circumstances we may you charge you for:-

  • Retrieval
  • Time spent producing stored papers that are requested
  • Reading/correspondence or other work necessary to comply with you instructions in relation to the retrieved papers.

 

  1. Equality and Diversity

This firm is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all us dealing with clients, third parties and employees [please contact us for a copy of our equality and diversity policy].

  1. General Data Protection Regulations 2018

We can assure you that any information you provide us will be dealt with in accordance with our legal obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 and Data Protection Act 2018. We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including:-

  • Updating and enhancing client records
  • Analysis to help us manage our practice statutory returns
  • Legal and regulatory compliance

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information the third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. You have a right of access under the data protection legislation to the personal data that we hold about you. Please see our privacy Policy notice as attached.

We may from time to time send you information which we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office in writing.

  1. Money Laundering

We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the Serious Organized 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 not be able to tell you why. Money Laundering Regulation requires us to apply procedures to guard against the risk of money laundering.  It will help us avoid any problems with your legal work if you bear in mind the following points.

  1. Identification Checks:

We are required to obtain formal evidence of your identity.  This may be necessary even though we have acted for you in the past, or even if you are personally known to a member of staff.  To verify your identity please provide us with your Passport or Driving Licence and 2 documents to establish your address, such as Bank Statement, recent household bills e.g. electricity, gas, Council Tax bill.

  1. Cash:

We are normally only able to accept cash up to a limit of £2000.00 in any 28 days period.

iii. Source of Funds:

At the start of any matter we will ask you to tell us the source of any funds you will be using.  It is simplest for us if the source is an account, in your name, in a UK bank or building society.  If the source is an unusual one, such as an account in another country, or in the name of someone other than you, please tell as early as possible, including the reason.

  1. Destination of Funds

Where we are to pay money out to you, we will normally do so by cheque in your favour, or into an account in your name.  If instead you want us to pay surplus money out into the name of someone other than yourself, please tell us as early as possible, including the reason.

  1. Confidentiality:

We have always sought to keep our clients affairs confidential. It is likely to that during the course of retainer certain information have to be disclosed to third party. We will disclose this information after having discussed with you or obtain your consent to disclose information or where we are professionally under obligation to do so. However, the Proceed of Crime Act 2002 can OBLIGE US TO REPORT INFORMATION about financial offences to the National Criminal Intelligence Service.  In particular, if it seems that any assets involved in your matter were derived from a crime we may have to report it.  This can include even small amounts of money, and covers all offences, including for example tax evasion. Where the Solicitors knows or suspects a transaction on behalf of the client involves money laundering, Solicitor may be required to make a money laundering disclosure. If this happens we may not be able to inform you that the disclosure have been made or for the reason for it because law prohibits ‘’ Tipping off’’

  1. Professional Rules

The Professional Rules relating to solicitors’ firms, including the Code of Conduct can be accesses on the website of the Solicitors Regulation Authority at www.sra.org.uk/code-of-conductpage.

  1. Vetting and Confidentiality

External firms or organizations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organizations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.

  1. Applicable Law

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.

  1. Authorities

By accepting and signing these terms you agree that we will handle all aspects of your claim including discharging the invoices of all third parties to which you are liable for the costs. We will discharge such invoices on your behalf, using any damages and/or expenses that you recover unless you instruct us otherwise.

  1. NORMAL OFFICE HOURS & APPOINTMENTS

Our usual office hours are 9.30 am until 5.00 p.m. each weekday and we would not be available for appointments without prior arrangement. However, appointments can be arranged outside normal office hours with prior arrangements but subject to a fee charged at enhanced hourly rate.

If you fail to keep up the appointment, we reserve the right to charge a fee for the missed appointment. Should an appointment need to be cancelled a 24 hours’ notice is required.

However if you have any enquiries please contact us.

Yours faithfully

Whitefield Solicitors Ltd

  1. Acceptance of Terms

Although your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to an acceptance of these terms and conditions of business. We would be grateful if you would sign and return the acceptance sheet attached in confirmation that you have read, fully understand, and agree to all of the terms and conditions contained within.