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

Our hours of business

• Our normal opening hours are from 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays. Messages can be left on our answerphone outside these hours, and you can email staff members anytime. Appointments can be made outside our normal working hours when necessary.

People responsible for your work

• The name of the legal adviser responsible for dealing with your work is confirmed in the accompanying letter. 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.

Charges and Expenses

• We charge for the work we carry out in various ways, depending on the type of matter. We will either charge a fixed amount which has been agreed with you at the outset of your matter, or we will charge by the hour.

• Where our charges are calculated by reference to the time spent on your matter, this will be based on the time spent by the solicitors and other staff in respect of any work which they do on your behalf. This may include meetings with you and perhaps others; reading, preparing and working on papers; making and receiving calls, emails, faxes and text messages; preparation of any detailed cost estimates, schedules and bills; attending court; and time necessarily spent travelling away from the office. Routine letters, emails, and texts we send and routine telephone calls that we make and receive are charged at one-tenth of the hourly rate. Routine letters, emails and texts received are charged at one-twentieth of the hourly rate. Other letters, emails and calls are charged on a time-spent basis.

• The current hourly rates are set out below.
Partners and Consultants with over 10-year experience £250

Trainee Solicitors £111

Paralegals £111

• These hourly rates must be reviewed periodically to reflect increased overhead costs and inflation. Normally the rates are reviewed with effect from 1 January each year. If a review is carried out before this matter has concluded, we will inform you of any variation in the rate before it takes effect.

• In addition to time spent, we may occasionally consider several factors, including any need to carry out work outside our normal office hours, the complexity of the issues, the speed at which action must be taken, any specialist expertise the case may demand. An increase in the rates may be applied to reflect such factors. We will inform you if an increase in the rates is likely.

• Solicitors often must pay out various other expenses on behalf of clients, ranging from search, probate, court, and so on. We have no obligation to make such payments unless you have provided us with funds for that purpose. VAT is also payable for certain expenses. We refer to such payments generally as ‘disbursements’.

• If, for any reason, this matter does not proceed to completion, we will be entitled to charge you for work done and expenses incurred.

Payment Arrangements

• Property transactions. We will normally send you our bill following the exchange of Contracts, and payment is required on a purchase prior to completion; and at the completion of a sale. If sufficient funds are available on completion and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds.

• Administration of estates. We will normally submit an interim bill at regular stages during the administration, starting with obtaining a Grant. The final account will be prepared when the Estate Accounts are approved.

• Other cases or transactions. It is normal practice to ask clients to pay interim bills and sums of money from time to time because of the expected charges and expenses in the following weeks or months. We find that this helps our clients in budgeting for costs and keeping them informed of the legal expenses being incurred. If such requests are not met with prompt payment, a delay in the progress of a case may result. In the unlikely event of any bill or request for payment not being met, this firm must reserve the right to stop acting for you further.

• Payment is due to us within 30 days of sending you a bill. Interest may be charged daily at 4% over the Bank of England’s base rate from time to time from the date of the bill in cases where payment is not made within 30 days of the delivery by us of the bill.

• The common law entitles us to retain any money, papers or other property belonging to you that properly comes into our possession pending payment of our costs, whether the property is acquired in connection with the matter in 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 to us in respect of costs.

• We do not accept payment to us in cash more than £1000 on any matter. Any sums over £1000 can be made by cheque or banker’s draft payable to Graham Fear & Co Solicitors by Bank Transfer (our bank details are available on request). Monies due to you from us will be made by cheque or bank transfer.

Interest payment

• Any money received on your behalf will be held in our Client Account. Subject to a minimum amount of £50 and a minimum period of two weeks, in line with the SRA Accounts Rules 2019, interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate from time to time payable on Barclays Bank Designated Client Account. The period for which interest will be paid will normally run from the date(s) on which funds are received by us until the date of issue of any cheques or electronic payments from our Client Account.

• Where a client obtains borrowing from a Lender in a property transaction, we will ask the Lender to arrange that the loan cheque is received by us a minimum of four working days prior to the completion date. If the money can be telegraphed, we will request that we receive it the day before completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Such clients need to be aware that the Lender may charge interest from the date of issue of their loan cheque or the telegraphing of the payment.

Storage of papers and documents

• After completing the work, we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. In addition, we will keep your file for a period of 15 years in relation to a purchase and 6 years for a sale file, but in any event, for not less than one year. After that, storage is on the clear understanding that we have the right to destroy it after such period as we consider reasonable or to make a charge for storage if we ask you to collect your papers and fail to do so. We will store Lasting Powers of Attorney and Probate files for 6 years and Will files indefinitely. 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 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 affairs, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, we may charge based on time spent at the lowest hourly charging rate (i.e. the paralegal rate) for producing stored papers or documents for you or another at your request. We may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.

• Graham Fear & Co Solicitors are regulated by the SRA, and we may be able to provide certain limited investment services whether these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you.

• SRA Accounts Rules 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 services, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority’s website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.

Limited Companies

• When accepting instructions to act on your behalf of a Limited Company, we may require a Director and/or 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 will be entitled to stop acting and require immediate payment of our charges on an hourly basis and expenses set out earlier.

Tax Advice

• Any work we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. We may not be qualified to advise you on the tax implications of a transaction you instruct us to carry out or the likelihood of them arising. If you have any concerns, please raise them with us immediately. 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 assistance for you.

Identity, disclosure and confidentiality requirements

• We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or any principal you may represent. We may arrange to electronically verify your identity if we consider that a saving of time and cost will be achieved. The cost of any such search will be charged to you. We will seek your prior agreement if the amount is more than £10, including VAT.

• Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the client’s affairs confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed Solicitors under a legal duty to disclose information to the National Crime Agency and the Money Laundering Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the payer) Regulations 2017. Where a Solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the Solicitor must disclose it to the NCA. We will not be able to inform you that it has been made or the reasons for it because the law prohibits ‘tipping-off’, and the Solicitor would be imprisoned for this.

• From time to time, we may ask other Companies or people to work on our files (typically typing, archiving or costing files). Information from your file may therefore be made available in such circumstances. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. Please tell us immediately if you do not want your file to be outsourced.

• External firms or organisations may conduct audits or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files. If you do not want your file inspected, please inform us as soon as possible.

• To comply with court and tribunal rules, all documentation relevant to any issues in litigation, however potentially damaging to your case, must be preserved and may be required to be made available to the other side. 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 must meet obligations to reveal details of the case to them and to the court.

Confidentiality

Communication between you and us

• We aim to always offer all our clients an efficient and effective service. 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 place with your legal adviser. If you still have queries or concerns, please contact Mr S M Fear at sean@grahamfear.co.uk , or by post to our Burnley office. We have a procedure that details how we handle complaints which is available on request. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. You can contact the Ombudsman by telephone on 0300 555 0333, by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by post to The Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6808, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. Normally, you must bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint. If your complaint concerns your bill, you also have the right to object to it and apply for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

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

• Emails will be treated as written correspondence. We are entitled to assume that the purported sender of an email is the actual sender and that any express or implied approval or authority referred to in an email has been validly given. You consent to us monitoring and reading any correspondence exchanged between you and any mail recipient at Graham Fear & Co Solicitors.

• 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.

Data Protection

• We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and 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

Marketing Promotions (to opt out of all future promotions, please contact our Business Development Manager)

• 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.

Limitation of Liability

• The liability of Graham Fear & Co Solicitors for any loss or damage suffered by you arising out of or in connection with this matter; however, the loss or damage is caused, including our negligence. Still, not our wilful default shall be limited to the aggregate amount (including interest and costs) of £2,000,000.00 unless we expressly state a higher amount in the letter accompanying these business terms.

• We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to loss of profit or opportunities. As a limited company, liability rests with Graham Fear & Co Solicitors.

• We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

• Any dispute or legal issue arising from our terms of business will be determined in accordance with the Laws of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh Courts.

• Please ask if you would like us to explain the above in more detail.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

• We are required by the Code of Conduct to maintain adequate insurance coverage to provide additional protection for you. Our professional indemnity insurance details are available on written request to Mr. Sean Fear

Termination

• You may terminate your instructions to 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 our charges and expenses. If, at any stage, you do not wish us to continue doing work and/or incurring charges and expenses on your behalf, you must tell us this clearly in writing.

• If we decide to stop acting for you, for example, if you do not pay an interim bill or comply with a request for a payment on account, we will tell you the reason and give you notice in writing.

• If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated hourly plus expenses or by proportion of the agreed fee (if we have agreed to carry out your work on a fixed fee basis), as set out earlier.

Off-premises and distance Contracts

• If we have not met you or were not present at our offices when we entered into a contract to provide legal services, then the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 will apply to our agreement.

Right to Cancel

• If the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 apply to our agreement (see above), you must note that you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.

• The cancellation period will expire after 14 days, starting the day after the contract (our agreement to provide legal services to you) is entered.

• To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us, of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or e-mail) or by completing and returning the cancellation notice attached to our client care letter. A list of our postal addresses, fax numbers and email can be found at the end of these terms.

• To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired.

Effects of cancellation

• If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse you all payments received from you.

• We will reimburse you without undue delay and not later than 14 days after the day we are informed about your decision to cancel this contract.

• We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; otherwise, you will not incur any fees because of the reimbursement.

• If you requested us to begin the performance of services during the cancellation period, you shall pay us an amount which is in proportion to what has been performed until you have communicated to us your cancellation of this contract.

Equality and Diversity

• Graham Fear & Co Solicitors is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us for a copy of our equality and diversity policy.

Our Regulators

• We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. You may view a copy of the Code of Conduct, which sets out the outcomes we must deliver, by visiting www.sra.co.uk.

Terms and Conditions of Business

• Unless otherwise agreed and subject to the application of the current hourly rates, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions you give to this firm.

• Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to an acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of Business.