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As Part of our open approach to our Practice we have included our Terms of Business on our Web Site so that you can see them before you choose to contact us. OUR TERMS OF BUSINESS
This document sets out the general terms and conditions upon which we undertake work on behalf of clients.
This document is a legally binding contract between you and us. Please read it carefully.
1. Allocation of Work The Name of the Practice is Conveyancing South West and its address is Fradornic, Exbourne Cross, Exbourne.Devon. EX20 3SE.. The Principal of the Practice is Mr Nick Larcombe who is a Licensed Conveyancer. The Practice is regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers of 16 Glebe Road, Chelmsford, essex. CM1 1QG. The name and status of the Person who will be dealing with your affairs for you will be given in the Appendix. Any support Staff who will be assisting will be named in the Appendix and they will be fully conversant with your affairs, will be at the office each weekday and you can contact them if you need assistance.
2. Acting for two or more Clients jointly: Where we are acting for two or more Clients jointly authority is given by these terms of business by all such Clients that we may receive instructions from and communicate with or report to any one or any combination of such Clients unless we have been notified to the contrary in writing. Should you wish duplicate correspondence to be sent to more than one Client the charge for this will not have been included in any Estimate given to you and will be charged for separately.
3. Charges Usually our charges reflect only the time spent working on your affairs. In some cases we may have to take into account also a number of other factors such as the complexity of the matter; if this applies in this case it will be stated in the appendix.
The hourly rate of charge is calculated by reference to the costs of running our Practice and the hourly charge relevant to your affairs is shown in the Appendix. Time is charged in units of six minutes.
When an estimate is given as to fees this will be on the basis that the transaction proceeds without unexpected complications or problems. In a Conveyancing matter there will be set out on the back of the Estimate the steps which are the usual or normal steps in that type of transaction. If the only work required to conduct the particular transaction is that shown on the back page of the Estimate the estimated fee will be the fee charged to you. If additional work is required it will be charged for in addition to the estimated fee. The estimate, therefore, may be subject to variation and we will advise you as appropriate if such circumstances arise. The estimate however forms part of these terms of business. You are asked please to take note of the Warning given at the bottom of the back page of the Estimate
Where work is done that could not have been contemplated at the time of giving the estimate it will be charged to you at the current charge out rate set out in the appendix. This rate is reviewed regularly to take account of changes in overhead costs. You will be notified of any change in the charge out rate and the date from which it becomes effective.
In Conveyancing matters a value element will only be charged if it is included in the fees estimated in the Estimate of expenses or you are specifically informed that such a charge will be made.
If the transaction is not completed for whatever reason then we will calculate the charge as a proportion of the estimated fee which reflects the stage in a normal transaction which has been reached at the time that the transaction is brought to an end.
4. VAT This Practice is not registered for VAT so no VAT will be added to my charges. If we should register the Practice for VAT we will give you advance warning and from the date of registration VAT at the prevailing rate will be added to our charges.
5. Payment of expenses to others During the course of a transaction there will be certain additional expenses which will be paid or incurred on your behalf by ourselves. These include Search fee or, Land Registry fees, Company Search fees etc. We have no obligation to make such payments unless funds have been provided by you for that purpose and we reserve the right, therefore, to request a payment on account at the beginning or any stage of a transaction. VAT is payable on certain expenses. We will need the amount set out in the appendix before we start work. Once those fees have been paid or an obligation has been created to pay those fees to a third party we cannot refund them to you.
6. Invoicing and Payment We will be entitled to submit invoices at intervals during the course of any matter at our discretion, probably quarterly, but it can be more frequently if you so require.
7. Property Transactions – Our charges and other payments are due by completion of the transaction. We will provide a statement of account in advance of completion and require payment either in cash or by bank transfer, at latest, on the working day before completion or by cheque or banker's draft four working days before completion (all payments are subject to our ant-money laundering Policy . If we have monies in hand we will deduct payments due to us at completion and account to you for the balance as soon as possible after completion (depending on when we receive any incoming monies this will usually take place on either the completion day or the next working day thereafter.
8. Other Transactions It is our practice to ask you to make payments on account of charges and disbursements as the matter progresses and we reserve the right to request a payment on account at the beginning of the transaction. We are happy to discuss methods of payment such as monthly invoicing or standing orders. Prompt payment will avoid delay in the progress of the transaction and we reserve the right to stop work (and instruct our agents to stop work) in the event of non-payment, whereupon the total amount of work done to that date and expenses paid will be invoiced to you.
If an invoice is not paid within 14 days from delivery we reserve the right to charge interest on the balance outstanding at the rate for the time being payable on judgement debts from fourteen days from presentation of the Invoice until payment in full is made.
9. Payment of costs by third parties The primary responsibility for payment of our charges rests with you as our client even where an order for charges can be obtained against another party or another party has agreed to pay our charges. If such an order is obtained the Court may reduce the amount of our invoice for work legitimately done on your behalf in which case you will be liable for any shortfall.
If the Charges for the matter fall to be paid by the other party we will be able to claim interest on those charges as from the date on which the order for payment was made. To the extent that any of our charges have not been asked for and paid on account we will retain this interest.
Special provisions apply if Legal Aid is involved for your opponent. We will provide separate, detailed information as appropriate.
We do not act for Client’s under Legal Aid within the Practice Conveyancing Service Online.
10. Clearance of cheques We are required by professional rules only to draw on cleared client funds. This means we cannot and will not pay out against an incoming cheque until six clear working days after the cheque has been received by us (in time to bank it on the day of receipt).
11. Undertakings A Licensed Conveyancer’s undertaking is a commitment by the Licensed Conveyancer personally to pay certain monies or discharge certain obligations. These may be requested on your behalf in or to facilitate a number of situations. We will during the course o f the conduct of your affairs give and receive such undertakings as are usual or reasonable in the ordinary conduct of that type of business without specifically notifying you. Authority for the giving and receiving of such undertakings shall be regarded as included in you instructions to us. In some situations we shall require your express and irrevocable instructions before we enter into such undertakings and if they are of a financial nature we will require payment up to the amount of the undertaking from you prior to entering into the undertaking. Monies so paid by you to us will be held in our Clients Account and only used to discharge the undertaking: any monies not required for this purpose will be returned to you when the undertaking has been discharged..
12. Interest We are not bankers and only handle Clients’ money in the necessary course of our business as a Property Lawyers. We will however account to you with interest when substantial cleared funds are held by us on your behalf. Unless a specific arrangement is requested by you funds will be held in my General Client’s Current Account which only pays the usual low rates of interest paid on current accounts. The interest rates paid vary from time to time and the current rates and limits will be notified to you on request. We will not account to you with interest when the gross interest earned does not exceed £20.00p 13. Financial Services and Commission We are not regulated by the Financial Services Authority. However we are included in the Register maintained by the Financial Services Authority so that we can carry on Insurance Mediation Activities, which is broadly advising on, selling and administration of insurance Contracts. Part of this business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. The Register can be accessed via the Financial services Authority Web site at www.FSA.gov.uk/register
We may receive introductory commission from financial advisers and other organisations in the ordinary course of our work. Our policy is to retain such commissions in full but the level of commission will be disclosed to you where it exceeds £150.00.
14. Storage of documents We are unable to offer a facility for the storage of Deeds, Probates, Wills and other documents on behalf of Clients. The originals of all such documents will be sent to you (or made available for you to collect) at the end of the transaction.
When a transaction is concluded we will retain the working papers as follows:
Once a matter is concluded and our charges paid in full it is your right to request that your file be sent to you, or as you direct.
15. Identity of a Client: We are required, by law, to ensure that all funds which pass through my hands have not been associated with any illegal activity. A copy of our Anti-Money Laundering Policy is included in these Terms of Business and that Policy Forms Part of these Terms of Business.
16. Termination You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time. For example, you may decide that you wish to withdraw from the transaction, you cannot give us clear instructions on how to proceed, or you may loose confidence in our work. We are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while money is owing to us.
If in a property purchase transaction we expect to receive instructions from your lenders to act on their behalf we will have to pass them information you give us that might be relevant to their decision whether to finance the purchase. If you tell us things that you do not want the lenders to know and they are relevant to the lenders, we may have to stop acting for the lenders and possibly also for you and it could be that we have to make a Report to NLIS under the anti-money laundering legislation.
We reserve the right to withdraw from acting for you in a particular matter if you were to instruct us to take any action or to refrain from taking any action which might in our opinion bring us into conflict with our professional rules or which we consider to be unethical or illegal. We also reserve the right to withdraw from acting for you in a particular matter if, in our view, the necessary trust between Licensed Conveyancer and Client has broken down due to your action or omission.
We reserve the right to withdraw from acting for you immediately should a conflict of interest arise. In such circumstances, we will be pleased to suggest alternative firms of Licensed Conveyancers or Solicitors and to co-operate with them in passing the papers over to them providing the newly appointed Licensed Conveyancer or Solicitor gives an undertaking that we will be paid at the end of the transaction for work completed up to the date of handing over such papers.
If you or we decide that we will stop acting for you, you will have to pay our charges on an hourly basis and expenses as set out earlier.
17: Conduct of Work and Confidentiality: In the conduct of work on your behalf we will act in accordance with the Rules, usual practices and procedures adopted by the Licensed Conveyancer’s Profession prevailing at the time and that is specifically approved by you. As lawyers, we are under a general professional and legal obligation to keep your affairs private. However, we are required, by current legislation, to make a report to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) where we know or suspect that a transaction involves Money Laundering or Terrorist Financing. By instructing us to act on your behalf in accordance with these terms of engagement you give us irrevocable authority to make a disclosure to SOCA if we consider it appropriate. You agree that this authority overrides any confidentiality or entitlement to legal professional privilege. We shall be unable to tell you if we have made a report.
During conveyancing (either a sale or a purchase) we will keep the Estate Agent who negotiated the sale /purchase and any Financial advisor who is arranging your Mortgage informed of progress unless we receive from you a written notification that we am not to do so or am to cease doing so. If you give us such an instruction we will inform the Estate Agent or Financial Advisor that we have received that instruction from you.
18. Quality of Service Our aim is to provide our clients with a friendly, efficient and effective service. If, however, you have any concerns about the service that we offer to you we would ask you to contact Nick Larcombe in the first instance in an attempt to resolve your concerns. If he is unable to resolve your concerns to your satisfaction a Copy of our Complaints Proceedure is included of these Terms of Business
If you make a valid claim against us for a loss arising out of work for which we are legally responsible, and we are unable to meet our liability in full, you may be entitled to claim from the Compensation fund administered by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (from whom details can be obtained)
19. Other Documents included in these Terms of Business Any Estimate of Expenses and any Guide (e.g. Property Buying and Selling Guide) and our Anti-money laundering Policy which have been supplied by us to you are included in and form part of these Terms of Business. We recommend that you read any such documents carefully and raise any queries which you may have with us.
Anti-Money Laundering Legislation - Our Policy
The Money Laundering and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 [and Regulations 2003] impose a duty on all firms of Licensed Conveyancers to report any SUSPECTED cases of MONEY LAUNDERING to SOCA [Serious Organised Crime Agency]. It is a criminal offence not to do so.
Therefore, we at Conveyancing South West, have created a strict POLICY for the benefit of ourselves and our clients.
Part 1 - Receipt of client's money
1. Personal Cheques NOT IN EXCESS of £1,000 drawn on your own bank account will be accepted. 2. Funds in EXCESS of £1,000 [other than Personal Cheques as above] will only be accepted by the firm by the following means: o By BACS payment direct from your own bank account to the firm's client account; o By TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER direct from your own bank account to the firm's client account;
3. CASH payments up to £500 will be accepted no later than 2pm on the day of payment.
NON-COMPLIANCE with OUR POLICY will lead to a report being made to SOCA if we have reason to suspect MONEY LAUNDERING - It is the LAW.
Part 2 - Requirements relating to proof of identity and address Proof of Identity We must by law obtain satisfactory evidence of your identity and address. Please help us to do so by giving us the information and documentation we ask for. We are unable to proceed with your transaction and will not be able to exchange contracts until this has been provided.
We are required to positively identify every client, including established clients, in accordance with the POLICY. We have two ways of making this check:
Method 1: We have a Facility in place to make an Identity Check online which can be done instantly and without the need for you to bring or send to us Identity Documents. There is a charge for this service of £7.00 per person checked and, if you choose this method, the fee will be added to our final Statement.
(PLEASE NOTE that in the event that the online verification service cannot verify your identity Method 2 can be used).
Method 2: Please either bring into the office the following original documents:
· A valid full passport; or · A valid Photocard UK Driving Licence · A valid HM Forces identity card with the signatory's photograph.
Together with any two [for each of you] of the following:
· A cheque guarantee card, credit card [Mastercard or Visa], American Express, Diners Club card, debit or multi-functional card [Delta or Switch] issued in the UK together with an original account statement less than three months old; · A receipted utility bill less than three months old; · A council tax bill less than three months old; · A council rent book showing the rent paid for the last three months; · A mortgage statement for the mortgage accounting year just ended; · A firearm and shotgun licence.
If you are not able to supply sufficient identification in accordance with this list please choose to use Method 1.
PLEASE NOTE: If any funds are being provided by any Third party (e.g. as a loan or a gift ) proof of Identity of that Third Party (in the same format as for a Client) and Evidence of the source of the Funds (e.g. Bank Statement from a UK Bank) are required).
Our Complaints Procedure From 6 October 2010.
A complaint is an oral or written expressions of dissatisfaction which alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, distress, inconvenience, or detriment.
This is a Guide to our complaints procedure.
We hope that we will have been able to resolve any of your concerns about our service to you at the time they arose but, if not, and if you feel that you still have a complaint, please contact Nick Larcombe, who is in charge of Client Care, in writing. You can write to him at the above address.
What will happen next? 1 We
will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm
or explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the
person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our
letter within seven working days of us receiving your complaint. · we may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within seven working days; · we may examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask them for more information. This will take up to fourteen working days from receiving the reply and the file. The assessment of the complaint will be based upon a sufficient and impartial investigation.
5 We may
invite you to meet Nick Larcombe to discuss or offer you an appointment to
discuss with him by telephone and, it is hoped, he can resolve your complaint.
We will do this within five working days of receiving all the details we need
from the member of staff who acted for you. will
offer remedial action or redress .This will also include our suggestions for
resolving the matter. This will happen within seven working days of us
completing the investigation. · Nick Larcombe will review his own decision within five days; · we will invite you to agree to independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take.
8 We will let you know the result of the review within seven working days days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
9. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
10. If after following the review process you remain dissatisfied with any aspect of our handling of your complaint, you may contact directly the Legal Ombudsman to ask them to consider the complaint further: ~
Tel no: 0121 503 2930 Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or enquiries@officeforlegalcomplaints.org.uk Website: www.officeforlegalcomplaints.org.uk http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/
Legal Ombudsman Baskerville House Broad Street Birmingham B1 2ND
Unless it agrees there are good reasons not to do so, the Legal Ombudsman will expect you in the first instance to allow us to consider and respond to your complaint in accordance with the procedure set out above. You can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman up to 6 months after you have received our final written response to your complaint (or within 12 months after you have discovered a problem, whichever is later).You can also refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman if we have not resolved your complaint within 8 weeks after we received it. The Legal Ombudsman deals with service related complaints only; it will refer any conduct-related complaints it receives to the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.
THE APPENDIX
1. The Person handling this matter for you is: Nick Larcombe 2. The Status of the Person handling this matter for you is: Licensed Conveyancer. 3. The Person assisting in this matter is: 4. The Status of the Person assisting in this matter is:. 5. Other Charging factors (Paragraph 2): none. 6. Charge out rate (Paragraph 2): £140 per hour. 7. Value Element (Paragraph 2): none. |
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