Davis & Co Property Lawyers Ltd (“Davis & Co” otherwise “the firm”) is a firm of Licensed Conveyancers regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (“CLC”) under Practice ID Number 11590. The CLC is the governing body of Licensed Conveyancing Practices and in their Code of Conduct which are the professional rules which Licensed Conveyancing Practices agree to be bound by, the CLC require the firm to set out in clear terms the basis of our agreement with our clients. Therefore, the purpose of this document is to confirm the arrangements between us. Although your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms of Engagement, we require you to sign, date and return one copy for our file.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Address and Business hours
- Our responsibilities
- Your responsibilities
- Service levels and frequency of communication
- Limit of liability
- Regulated services
- Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
- Data Protection
- Storage and retrieval of files
- Outsourcing
- External auditing
- Terminating your instructions
- Confidentiality
- Receiving and paying funds
- Payments on account of costs
- Complaints
- Our bill
- Changes to our fees
- Abortive transactions – calculations of our fees
- Stamp Duty Land Tax
- Payment of interest
- Insurance mediation activity
- Equality and diversity
- Applicable law
- Future instructions
- VAT number
- Taxation matters
- Potential conflict of interests
- Crypto Currency
- Harrassment
- Acceptance
- ADDRESS AND BUSINESS HOURS
Davis & Co is based at 19 Union Street, Bingham NG13 8AD. Our usual trading hours are between 9.30am and 4.30pm Monday to Friday however we may be able to arrange appointments outside of these hours. Please contact us if you require an appointment outside of these times. We are closed on all Bank Holidays.
Our telephone numbers are as follows:
Main Office: 01949 485500 or 0115 855 7918
Rose Davis can be contacted directly on 0115 855 7919
Sherrie Powell can be contacted directly on 0115 855 7920
- OUR RESPONSIBILITIES
We will set out in the accompanying letter who will be dealing with your transaction. Your file will at all times be run by a fully qualified Licensed Conveyancer or Solicitor although we may be assisted from time to time by an Apprentice (or other) Trainees.
Rose Davis LL.B Hons and Licensed Conveyancer is the Managing Director of the firm.
Sherrie Powell, Licensed Conveyancer is a Director and Head of Conveyancing at the firm.
We confirm that throughout the course of the transaction we will:
- treat you fairly and with respect
- communicate with you in plain language
- review your transaction regularly
- advise you of any changes in the law that may affect your transaction
- advise you of any reasonably foreseeable circumstances and risks that could affect the outcome of your transaction
- YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
By signing these terms and conditions you accept that you will:
- provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions
- provide all documentation and information that we reasonably request in a timely manner
- safeguard any documents that may be required for your matter, including documents that you may have to disclose to another party
- provide us with your correct full name and other personal details from the outset of the transaction
- tell us your requirements in writing and let us know immediately if there are any significant changes to those requirements, howsoever caused
- allow us to communicate with you or third parties by whichever method that we may prefer, including email or SMS
- authorise us to incur such costs and search fees (including repeat searches) that we consider necessary, in our professional judgment, to protect your interests, and/or those of your mortgage lender
- authorise us to disclose your information and instructions to your intended mortgage lender, if that lender also uses us to carry out legal work in connection with your mortgage
- provide us with proof of your identity and the source of your finance and any other proof required by The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019 (‘the MLR’) and any subsequent legislation in this regard
- allow us to delete the paper and electronic records of your transaction to be destroyed after six years on a sale transaction and fifteen years on a purchase transaction, without further reference to you
- allow us to reduce the 14 day cooling off period under The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, as amended, so that it ends when we begin to carry out work for you; and to waive the thirty day limit for provision of our services as both are inappropriate; and
- generally co-operate with us, and to recognise that failure to comply with these terms will cause additional work for us and additional cost to you
- SERVICE LEVELS AND FREQUENCY OF COMMUNICATION
We pride ourselves on our excellent levels of communication and will update you by telephone or in writing with progress on your matter regularly and will aim to respond to emails received before Midday on the same day. If your email is received after Midday, it will be responded to on the next working day.
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. Whenever there is a material change in circumstances associated with your matter, we will update you on whether the likely outcomes still justify the likely costs and risks.
We will update you on the cost of your matter at the intervals set out in our letter confirming your instructions.
- LIMIT OF LIABILITY
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.
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.
Our liability shall be limited in accordance with the limitations of our Professional Indemnity Insurance Policy which currently stands at £2m but which may vary from time to time. We may act on transactions at a higher value than the current limit of our Professional Indemnity Insurance Policy with your agreement, however we will write to you for confirmation that in those cases you understand that:
- If you ever found cause to make a claim against this firm for negligence or otherwise and your claim was accepted, then the most that would be paid by our professional indemnity insurers in respect of your claim would be £2M.
- Similarly, any successful claim against the Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ (“the CLC”) Compensation Fund (of last resort) would be capped at £2M.
- In both cases, the £2M cap applies even if the loss suffered by you was more than £2M.
- Any successful claim against our professional indemnity insurers would make you ineligible to also claim against the Compensation Fund.
Davis & Co is a limited company. This means that the firm’s 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 director.
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.
- REGULATED SERVICES
Davis & Co Property Lawyers Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, WeWork, 131 Finsbury Pavement London EC2A 1NT (the CLC). This means that we are governed by a Code of Conduct and other professional rules, which you can access on the CLC’s website http://www.conveyancer.org.uk/ or by calling 0207 250 8465 or emailing [email protected].
- PREVENTION OF MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING
We must by law obtain satisfactory evidence of your identity and address. Please help us to do so by providing us with the information and documentation we ask for. We will be unable to proceed with your transaction and will not be able to exchange contracts until this has been provided.
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 National Crime Agency (NCA) 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 NCA 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.
- DATA PROTECTION
You have a series of rights outlined under Data Protection legislation over how your personal data is used, including erasure in specific circumstances. However, we may not always be able to agree with the exercise of such rights, as often your personal data remains necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was originally collected and processed. Further information is available in our Privacy Policy, a copy of which is available on request or can be viewed on our website:
www.davisandcopl.co.uk
What personal information we process
The categories of personal data we process include general personal data (which includes normal
personal data, personal identity, email addresses and personal financial data) and special categories
of personal data if these have been voluntarily provided to us (which includes ethnicity, nationality and
medical history).
How we use your personal information
When your file is open, your personal data is necessary and used only in relation to the purpose for
which it was originally intended. We process your personal information to fulfil our contract with you, or
where you or we have a legitimate interest in doing so, where otherwise permitted by law, or to comply
with applicable law and regulation. We use your personal information for:
- Service provision and internal processing (i.e. to assess and/or provide and to service your matter).
- Management of relationship (e.g. to develop your relationship with us).
- Resolving queries.
- Training and service review (e.g. to help us enhance our services and the quality of those services).
- Statistical analysis (e.g. to help us enhance our products and services or delivery channels to keep costs down).
- Complying with legal obligations (e.g. to prevent, investigate and prosecute crime, including fraud and money laundering).
When your matter is completed and / or your file is closed, we may still process your personal
information where we have a legitimate interest in doing so, where we are permitted by law, or to
comply with applicable laws and regulation.
Examples of such instances will include:
- Complying with legal obligations for statutory and regulatory requirements including for example, HMRC Returns, complaint handling, anti-money laundering, reporting to our
regulatory body – the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.
- Archiving and Storage of your file for six years in the case of a sale file and fifteen years in the case of a purchase file, and for all other files, fifteen years.
- Our legitimate interests to conduct conflict of interest checks, statistical analysis, and
research to help us enhance our products and services.
How We Share Your Information
- We may share your personal data with a range of organisations which enable us to fulfil our
contract with you, or where we have legitimate interests to do so, or otherwise are required by
applicable law and regulation. We can provide more details specific to your personal data on
request.
- You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ww.ico.org.uk ), which regulates the processing of personal data. You may also seek a judicial remedy.
- STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL OF FILES
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 for a sale file and 15 years for a purchase file, except those papers that you ask to be returned to you. We keep files on the understanding that we can destroy them 6 or 15 years after the date of the final bill depending on whether it is a sale or purchase file. 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 instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for the retrieval. However, we may charge you for time spent producing stored papers that are requested, and reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers.
- OUTSOURCING
Davis & Co Property Lawyers employs third party suppliers to provide services including utilising the services of a credit reference agency (https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice).
We reserve the right to ask other companies or people to do typing 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 AUDITING
External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice, e.g. our Regulator (the CLC), 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 Rose Davis, Director Davis & Co Property Lawyers if you do not wish your files to be disclosed to external auditors.
- TERMINATING YOUR INSTRUCTIONS
You may end your instructions at any time, by giving us notice in writing. However, we can retain all your papers and documents while our fees or disbursements are outstanding.
We can only decide to stop acting for you with good reason and we must give you reasonable notice. Such circumstances would be rare but might include the following situations for example, (i) if you do not pay any costs requested or (ii) there is a conflict of interest or (iii) you fail to provide instructions or (iv) you ask us to carry out instructions which are unreasonable or inappropriate; or (v) if there is a breakdown of the trust and mutual respect that needs to exist between us as part of our Lawyer/Client relationship.
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.
- CONFIDENTIALITY
The information and documentation you provide us is confidential and subject to legal professional privilege unless stated otherwise in this document or our letter confirming your instructions, such as in relation to prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing or we advise you otherwise during the course of your matter.
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.
- RECEIVING AND PAYING FUNDS
Conveyancing transactions can only be completed using money that has been ‘cleared’ by the firm’s bank. This means that the money is actually in our account and is not in the process of ‘clearing’ between the paying bank and the receiving bank. For that reason, any monies due to complete a conveyancing transaction, will be required to be in our firm’s bank account in cleared funds at least one working day prior to the date of completion.
The firm will accept payments by Electronic Funds Transfer (CHAPS or BACS) from a UK bank account in your name. We regret the firm cannot accept payments by cheque or in cash and neither will the firm accept any payments from third parties into our client account. Any such payments received which cannot be verified, will be returned to sender.
The firm does not accept payments directly deposited into our bank account(s) (other than by Electronic Funds Transfer as detailed above). If you deposit payments directly with our bank over the counter we reserve the right to charge you for any additional checks we deem necessary to prove the source of the funds and to meet our regulatory compliance requirements. The minimum additional fee in such circumstances will be a minimum of £500 plus VAT.
The firm accepts no responsibility for any losses sustained by clients in respect of money paid to the Firm and/or held in the firm’s client account arising from any failure of a bank or building society or other financial institution to meet its financial obligations.
Where the firm has to pay money to you, it will be made by bank transfer (subject to charge) to a UK bank account. No payments will be made in cash. Payments to a third party (unless they are directly related to the Conveyancing transaction e.g. mortgage redemption or estate agent’s fees) will not be made.
- PAYMENT ON ACCOUNT OF COSTS
We enclose an estimate of the costs and expenses that are likely to be incurred in your transaction. We will normally request a payment on account of our initial costs and expenses at the beginning of a transaction and you will need to arrange to send this to us promptly. This sum should be transferred to us by an electronic payment directly from your bank account however please note we cannot let you have the firm’s bank details until we have dealt with our initial compliance checks. Therefore please deal with the request for your Identification Check and source of funds if this is a purchase transaction as soon as possible. When making payment to us for the first time, please telephone the firm to confirm our bank details. Please also ensure that you cite the matter reference given at the top of our initial letter to you on any payment made to us in order to ensure that your payment is correctly allocated to your matter.
Please be aware of cybercrime. We will NEVER send important details such as a change of our bank details by email. Our bank details will not change before the end of your transaction. If you therefore receive an email purporting to be from this firm requesting that the funds are sent elsewhere, having already verified the bank details with us, this is likely to be a scam. Please therefore check our firm’s bank details by contacting the person handling your file on their direct line, or in their absence please contact Rose Davis or Sherrie Powell on 01949 485500. We cannot be held responsible if the funds are sent to an incorrect account.
The work on your matter(s) will consist of the points below. Numbers 1-5 relate solely to a purchase and points 6-9 relate to a sale and or purchase;
- Investigating title to the property, raising searches and enquiries
- Advising you in respect of your mortgage offer
- Preparing a report on title
- Calculating stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on the purchase and preparing and submitting to HM Revenue and Customs the appropriate SDLT form
- Registering you as the new owner at the Land Registry
- Preparing a contract pack and submitting this to the buyer’s solicitors
- Dealing with any enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors
- Negotiating a contract and transfer
- Transferring funds electronically
Please note our fees have been calculated on the basis that:
The property is currently held under a single title at the Land Registry with no title defects
- There will be only one contract
- The matter will be proceeding on the basis of an unconditional contract and the property will be bought or sold with vacant possession
- Completion takes place on the date agreed in the contract
Sometimes we have to charge more than we have estimated. This happens rarely and only in unforeseen circumstances or where we have additional work to undertake on your behalf which we could not have reasonably been aware of when the estimate was prepared. If that is the case, we will explain why the fees are being increased and we will inform you before we incur any additional costs.
If we find that any additional expenses need to be incurred after we have considered the contract, searches, and title documents, we shall let you know the reason for the extra expense, the likely amount, and when we shall need payment.
If, for any reason, we have to abort the transaction, we will break the transaction down into stages and advise what percentage of the estimated fee will be charged at each stage. Please see the section on abortive transactions below.
- COMPLAINTS
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 Rose Davis, Director Davis & Co Property Lawyers on 0115 855 7919 or by email to [email protected] or by post to Davis & Co Property Lawyers Ltd 19 Union Street, Bingham NG13 8AD. We have a written procedure that sets out how we handle complaints. It is available on request from Rose Davis. Please note we will be obliged to deal with any complaint within 28 days of the receipt thereof however we would always aim to resolve any complaint as quickly as possible.
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. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:-
Telephone no: 0300 555 0333
Email: [email protected]
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH
Unless it agrees there are good reasons not to do so, the Legal Ombudsman will expect you to allow us to consider and respond to your complaint in accordance with the procedure set out above in the first instance. You can refer your complaint up to six months after you have received our final written response to your complaint. You can also use the Ombudsman service if we have not resolved your complaint within eight weeks of us receiving it. A complaint can be referred to the Legal Ombudsman up to one year from the date of the act or omission or up to one year after discovering a problem. The ombudsman deals with service-related complaints; any conduct-related complaints will be referred to the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Further information regarding the Legal Ombudsman can be found on its website http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/.
In addition to the above, 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).
Under EU legislation we are also required to provide you with details of an organisation which offers Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). That organisation is ProMediate, who are contactable via their website www.promediate.co.uk, via e-mail at [email protected], or via telephone on 07824 704826 or 01928732455. However, it is for both parties to agree to use ADR and as you have access to the Legal Ombudsman this firm does not use the ADR process.
- OUR BILL
You are liable to pay legal costs as set out in our letter confirming your instructions. We will also usually discuss this at our initial meeting with you.
When we are at the point of exchange, we will send you a draft bill and completion statement and will require payment of all required funds at least one working day prior to completion of your matter, which will not only include our fees but also all disbursements including stamp duty if it is a purchase transaction. Failure to pay a balance of funds on time may result in additional charges and your work may be suspended. Payment should be made by way of an electronic transfer into our Client Account, the details of which will be notified to you with the draft completion statement. We no longer accept payments by cheque.
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.
We can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses.
- CHANGES TO OUR FEES
When we prepare an estimate of our costs at the outset of the transaction, we will at all times try to keep to this estimate. However sometimes, due to circumstances outside of our control, it is not possible to do so. For example, if we become aware of something which we could not have properly known at the date on which the estimate was prepared (such as the property being leasehold rather than freehold for example), then we will reserve the right to adjust our fees accordingly. We will notify you in writing in advance when we intend to do so.
- ABORTIVE TRANSACTIONS – CALCULATION OF OUR FEES
Our legal fees are payable whether or not a transaction is completed. If any transaction does not proceed to completion for any reason during the period in which the firm is instructed, then the firm shall be entitled to charge for work undertaken on the basis set out above. We try to work with our clients in such circumstances as we recognise that matters become abortive for a whole host of reasons.
If for any reason a transaction does not continue to completion, we will tell you in writing of our charges made for the work we have undertaken up until that point and the disbursements that we have paid out for on your behalf. The main principle is that we will charge you on an apportionment basis, dependent on how far the transaction has progressed. So, for example, if the matter becomes abortive right at the beginning of the transaction, then a nominal fee (subject to a minimum of £100 plus VAT) shall be charged to cover our costs in the setting up of your file and the undertaking of our compliance obligations. If, however, the matter becomes abortive just prior to exchange of contracts, at that point most of the legal work would have already been carried out on the file and therefore most of our fees would accordingly become due.
At all times our charges will reflect the amount of work done and the time taken. They will be based either on the notified rate of charge or a proportion of the estimated fee, corresponding to how much work was done.
If we are acting for you on a purchase, please note that if searches have been ordered, then those fees will be recoverable from you, although we will always offer the searches for sale should the vendor secure a new buyer to purchase their property. Should we receive an offer for your searches we will notify you and should the searches be resold, we will remit the payment received for them to you.
- STAMP DUTY LAND TAX
Buyers of freehold or leasehold property must submit a Stamp Duty Land Transaction Return (or, in Wales, a Land Transaction Tax Return) to HMRC/WRA and, where appropriate, to pay SDLT/LTT on the consideration for the purchase within 14 days of the effective date of transaction. We agree to submit the tax return for you as you agent for which we charge a fee which is included in the overall fee that we charge for the transaction as per the estimate of costs supplied to you.
The agency of the firm does not extend beyond the submission of this form which will have been signed by the acquiring client(s). It should be noted that the Return filed is your Return but by signing the Terms of Engagement, you authorise us to prepare and file the Return on your behalf. It is your responsibility to check the Stamp Duty Land Tax Return provided to you for your signature and to highlight any anomalies or discrepancies within that form as soon as possible. Please note the preparation of the details in the form will in part be based on the information supplied by the client in the Stamp Duty Land Tax Questionnaire provided to you at the outset of the transaction.
Should HMRC, as they are entitled to do, raise enquiries on the Return these will be matters to be dealt with by the client at the expense of the client taking advice as appropriate from their accountant or tax adviser.
We are not tax specialists and in order to assess your Stamp Duty Land Tax liability, we simply use the SDLT calculator facility on the HMRC website. Stamp Duty Land Tax Regulations have become very complex in recent years and there are a number of exemptions and/or reliefs which might apply to your transaction to reduce your tax liability. We recommend that before you exchange contracts you seek specialist tax advice to check your correct liability for any possible changes. We are unable to provide you with tax advice.
- PAYMENT OF INTEREST
Where we hold money in a separate designated deposit account we will account to you for all the interest earned on that account. Income tax is usually deducted at source and interest is therefore paid net of tax unless you have signed a declaration confirming your entitlement to receive gross interest. Under the European Savings Directive regulations 2003/48/EC we are required to inform HMRC of payments of interest to relevant payees and residual entities in prescribed territories.
Where money is held in a general client account (for example, where money is held routinely during the course of a property transaction), we can calculate whether we have held sufficient money for long enough to justify paying you interest on it. Client money must be held in an instant access account to facilitate transactions and is unlikely to earn as much interest as you might obtain if you held and invested the money yourself. In calculating an appropriate rate/amount of interest we will have regard to the factors set out in the CLC Accounts Rules, which can be accessed at https://www.clc-uk.org/handbook/the-handbook/#Accounts-Code.
However, interest will not be paid if the total amount calculated for the period that the money is held is less than £50. It is unusual for us to hold sufficient money on a client matter for long enough for interest to exceed £50. If you think that we may have done so in your case, please ask us for an interest calculation. Interest on money held on our general client account is paid gross, without deduction of income tax. It is your responsibility to declare such interest to HMRC or other relevant authorities.
Interest will normally be paid at the end of a transaction, but we may pay it periodically if it would be fair and reasonable to do so. Should any interest accrue on your client account which is in excess of £50 this will be paid to your client account. Please note the maximum interest payment that will be made during the course of a transaction will be no more than £500 even if the matter has accrued a balance of interest which is higher than this.
- INSURANCE MEDIATION ACTIVITY
This firm is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included in the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on Insurance Mediation Activities, which is broadly advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong is regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at http://www.fca.org.uk/register. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any insurance advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with the CLC or the Legal Ombudsman.
- EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees and all clients will be treated fairly and with integrity no matter what their ethnic origin, gender, and sexual orientation.
- APPLICABLE LAW
Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Engagement will be determined by the law of England and Wales, and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh courts.
- FUTURE INSTRUCTIONS
Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms of Engagement will apply to all future instructions you give us on this or any other matter.
- VAT NUMBER
Davis & Co Property Lawyers Ltd is registered for VAT and our VAT number is 330 650 436.
- TAXATION MATTERS
Work that we carry out for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. Please note we do not provide any form of tax advice whatsoever and advice in this regard should be sought from your Accountant or Tax Advisor.
- POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
Should any actual or potential conflict between your interests and the interests of another client of the Firm, or the Firm itself, arise during the course of your engagement, we will discuss the position with you and determine the best course of action. In such circumstances, our Professional Rules may require us to cease acting for you. We will let you know in writing if this transpires to be the case. If we make a decision to cease acting for you, our decision is final and cannot be appealed.
- CRYPTO CURRENCY
It is this firm’s policy not to accept crypto currency and therefore if the purchase advance comprises partly the proceeds of crypto currency, we will be unable to act for you and will decline your instructions.
- HARRASSMENT OF OUR STAFF
Please note we take the mental health and wellbeing of our staff very seriously and therefore have a zero tolerance approach to the harassment of our staff. Any aggression or abuse directed towards our staff will not be tolerated. Aggressive or abusive behaviour includes language (whether verbal or written) that may cause staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused and may include threats, personal verbal abuse, derogatory remarks and rudeness. The use of swear words in written or verbal communication will not be tolerated and these communications will not be responded to. Swearing at members of staff will not be tolerated. We also consider inflammatory statements, remarks of a racial or discriminatory nature and unsubstantiated allegations, to be abusive behaviour.
Should any client fail to treat our staff with the courtesy, dignity and respect they deserve, we reserve the right to withdraw our services and to cease to continue to act for you.
- ACCEPTANCE
SIGNATURE
Please sign, date and return one copy of these Terms of Engagement to confirm that you have read and understood these Terms of Engagement and are happy to proceed on the basis set out therein.
Signed…………………………………… Signed…………………………..
Your name……………………………… Your name………………………
Date………………………………………. Date………………………………