Terms of Business

1. Our agreement with you

1.1 These Terms of Business (as updated from time to time and are updated on our website at [insert link]) apply to all work we do on your behalf. It is an important document, please read and keep it in a safe place for future reference.

1.2 Each time you instruct us on a new matter we will send you a letter confirming your instructions and setting out the scope of the work we will carry out for you, our fees and individual contact details. This is called the Engagement Letter. These Terms of Business should be read together with the Engagement Letter, together they form the entire agreement between us (“Agreement”).

1.3 If there is any inconsistency between our Terms of Business and the Engagement Letter, the Engagement Letter will take priority.

1.4 Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms of Business.

1.5 Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms of Business will apply to all future instructions you give us on this or any other matter.

1.6 This agreement and any dispute or claim arising out of, or in connection with, it, its subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales.

2. About us

2.1 Where we say ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘firm’ and ‘Gu Legal Ltd’ in these Terms of Business, we mean or refer to Gu Legal Ltd (a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales with registered number 16748609) and any successor practice and any service company owned or controlled by or on behalf of Gu Legal Ltd or any of its directors and, as the context requires, all directors of, consultants to and employees and agents of, Gu Legal Ltd and of any service company owned or controlled by or on behalf of Gu Legal Ltd or any of its directors. “You” and “Your” refer to our client.

2.2 GU Legal Ltd trading as GU LEGAL is a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales with registered number 16748609. Its registered office is at 124-128 City Road, London, England, EC1V 2NX. We may from time to time use the term ‘partner’ to refer to a director or a senior staff member or a senior consultant with equivalent standing and qualifications of Gu Legal Ltd, but this does not mean that they are necessarily a Director of the company.

2.3 We are a firm of solicitors authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and our legal services under this agreement are regulated by the SRA. The SRA is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society of England and Wales, our professional body. and Registered Foreign lawyers are governed by Codes of Conduct and other professional rules, which you can access on the SRA’s website at www.sra.org.uk or by calling 0370 606 2555. Our SRA authorisation number is [insert number].

2.4 Please note that owing to our professional duties as solicitors there are some limits on what we can do to help clients achieve their goals. We cannot, for example, break the law, act in a conflict of interest, mislead the Court or act in a manner deemed ‘unethical’ by our regulator.

2.5 We are registered for VAT purposes. Our VAT registration number is 505249604.

3. About you

Where we say ‘you’ or ‘your’ in these Terms of Business, we mean the client identified in the Engagement Letter and anyone authorised to give instructions on that client’s behalf.

4. Our responsibilities and your responsibilities

What you can expect of us:

Treat you fairly and with respect
Communicate with you in plain language
Review your matter regularly
Advise you of any changes in the law that affect your matter
Advise you of any reasonably foreseeable circumstances and risks that could affect the outcome of your matter

What we expect of you and you agree to:

Comply with our Terms of Business.
You will ensure that we are provided with all material information and documents relating to your matter necessary to perform our instructions and respond promptly to any proper request for further information or instructions that we may make to you in a timely, clearly and accurate manner. We will not and you agree that it is not our duty to check the accuracy of any information supplied to us by you or by a third party on your behalf unless asked to do so and we shall be entitled to rely upon any such information.
Notify us immediately if your contact details change.
Tell us immediately if your expectations change or if you are not sure you understand what we have discussed.
Inform us of any time limits or objectives that might not be obvious to us.
Notify us immediately if you receive any email or other communication purporting to be from the firm stating that we have changed our bank details or payment arrangements
Let us know about any other changes that may affect the way we deal with your matter, including any changes that may affect your tax status in any jurisdiction
Pay all of our bills, the disbursements and other charges in accordance with our Terms of Business.
Not ask us to do anything which would breach our legal, professional or regulatory duties.
Give us authority to act on your behalf in connection with your legal matter including incurring expenses on your behalf and instructing other professional advisers or similar.

5. Scope of our legal services

5.1 The scope of the services we will provide is set out in the Engagement Letter.

5.2 We will provide legal advice and services to you with reasonable care and skill. However, the nature of many types of legal work means that it is not possible to guarantee a particular outcome.

5.3 Unless otherwise agreed in writing, we will advise only on English law and on non–English law to the extent that it has any bearing on English law.

5.4 We will not advise on surveying, valuation, commercial viability, trading or marketability issues. We only advise on tax, climate risk and climate-related legal issues when we have expressly agreed in writing to do so. Except as described at section 13 (Financial services), we do not provide financial services or advice.

5.5 If you ask us to obtain advice from another law firm or a barristers’ chamber if applicable, that firm or that chamber will be responsible for the service and advice they provide.

5.6 Unless otherwise agreed in writing, our advice and any documents we prepare:

5.6.1 are for use only in connection with the specific matter on which we are instructed, can only be relied on by you; and

5.6.2 reflect the law in force at the relevant time.

5.7 Instructions

5.7.1 In common with all professional practices, we are required to hold verification of your identity and address to comply with anti-money laundering legislation. You are required to provide this information before we are able to proceed with your work.

5.7.2 When verifying your identity, we may use electronic reference agencies to search sources of information relating to you. An electronic note is left on your credit record to say that a check has taken place, but it does not affect your credit rating, is not used as part of the credit vetting process, and the information is not sold to third parties. Only you and any financially associated parties will be able to view this note. If this process is unsuccessful, then we may need to ask for documentary evidence from you, such as utility bill. We will keep copies of the documentation obtained for at least six (6) years after the end of the business relationship.

5.7.3 Information and evidence will be required as to the source of any funding you provide, and in connection with any transaction we are advising you on. We do not accept cash deposits or cash payments. The anti-money laundering procedures we operate are for the protection of our clients.

5.7.4 In certain circumstances we are required by law to report to the appropriate authorities (without informing you) any suspicions we have of money laundering or other illegal activities. These obligations override our duty of confidentiality to you.

5.7.5 Any fees, disbursements and other charges incurred in complying with the above will be charged to you.

5.7.6 If we are making a payment to you, we will ask you for your bank account details. We will need to verify those details and any charges to those details that are notified to us.

5.7.7 Before accepting instructions on any matter, we will request information to undertake a conflict of interest check. We have a professional obligation not to act for you, or any other client, in a situation where there is an actual or significant risk of a conflict with either the interests of another client or this firm. We have internal procedures in place to ensure that any conflict issues can be dealt with as soon as possible. We may be unable to act for you, or we may stop acting for you, if we become aware of a conflict of interest which we are unable to resolve. If we do have to cease acting for you, you will still be liable for our fees, reasonable expenses and any disbursements incurred on your behalf up to that time.

5.7.8 Once we have established that we can accept instructions we will agree with you how to proceed. We shall take instructions, whether oral or written, from you and from any other person we reasonably understand to be authorised by you to give such instructions to us. Where you instruct us jointly with others we may accept the instructions from any/each of you on behalf of you all, unless expressly agreed otherwise. Any information provided by one joint client will be shared with all joint clients.

5.7.9 We may show you a drat of our advice or other document for your comment. You shall not be entitled to reply on a draft until it has been confirmed as final. In the case of discrepancy between copies of documents in different media, the final signed hard copy shall be definitive unless we stated otherwise.

5.7.10 If you are a consumer rather than a business client and we have not met with you or we have met you with away from our premises, you may be entitled to a 14-day “cooling off period” within which you may cancel your instructions without reason. This is in addition to your general rights to terminate our engagement at any time. If you are so entitled and exercise this right, we will return any money paid on account to you and you will not be liable to pay any charges or expenses to us, unless you have expressly asked that we undertake work for you within that cooling off period, in which case you will be charged for that work in accordance with our terms and conditions, If this applies to you, we will provide you with full details of your right to cancel and a cancellation form for your use. If you would like us to commence work within the 14 days, please indicate this clearly in writing to the person responsible for your matter.

5.7.11 You may terminate our instructions in respect of a matter by giving reasonable notice in writing at any time. We may decide to stop acting for you, if we have reasonable grounds to do so, by informing you in writing. In either event, our Terms of Business will continue to apply where relevant. When instructions are terminated, you are liable to pay our charges including fees for time spent, disbursements and tax incurred (or which it will be necessary to incur) up to the time of our ceasing to act, unless otherwise agreed. We also reserve the right to charge you for any costs incurred after notice of termination, if we need to transfer your file to another adviser or remove ourselves from the Court record.

5.7.12 Subject to any applicable data protection rights which may apply, we are entitled to withhold our full file of papers until any charges owed to us have been paid. We retain all intellectual property rights in the advice which we provide and the documents which we prepare but permit you to make use of such work for the purposes of your particular matter only.

6. Service standards

6.1 We are normally open between 9.00 am and 5.30 pm U.K. time zone from Monday to Friday. We may be able to arrange appointments outside of these hours, in cases of emergency. We are closed on all bank holidays and any other public holidays applicable in the U.K. While our staff may sometimes respond to communications and work outside of our normal office hours this is entirely at our discretion and we would ask you to respect that there will be times when we are not available.

6.2 We will update you by telephone or in writing (including by email) with progress on your matter regularly and explain to you the legal work required as your matter progresses. Most clients prefer to use email for written communication, even though email may not be the most secure communication method in general. You consent to us corresponding with you by email and relying upon communications coming from your email account unless you tell us otherwise in writing.

6.3 We take reasonable steps to minimise the risk of our email or computer systems carrying a virus or similar harmful items. You agree to also take reasonable steps to properly secure your communications with us and protect the email and computer systems used for your matter. This is important in order to protect your rights and funds. You can learn more about staying safe and secure online including good password practice at: https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk

6.4 We will update you at appropriate intervals on the likely timescale for each stage of your 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.

6.5 We will update you on the cost of your matter at the intervals set out in the Engagement Letter. If appropriate, we will continue to review whether there are alternative methods by which your matter can be funded.

6.6 We will not accept any instructions from you to alter your banking details or instructions on where money should be sent if received by email. This is due to the risk of fraud by someone impersonating you to divert your money to him or her or instead of you. We reserve the right to take the time to confirm such instructions with you personally by telephone and by other reasonable means before acting on such instructions. Similarly, you agree not to rely upon any change of bank details notified to you in relation to our firm including by email even if it appears to come from our firm. Fraudsters can convincingly impersonate email accounts. If you receive any such email purportedly from us or any other suspicious looking communication which appears to be from us please call us on a known number to speak to us immediately. We will not be liable for any losses or damage resulting from funds being sent to an incorrect account or for the interception of payments made in the normal manner.

6.7 If you are an organisation of some form rather than an individual, we will generally take instructions from the individual named in our client care statement or our Engagement Letter. We reserve the right to insist upon sight of a formal resolution by the client organisation as to whom shall instruct us in the future in the event of potentially conflicting instructions from different individuals connected to a client organisation and any question as to from whom we should take instructions.

6.8 We are committed to acting in a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. If it would assist you for our services to be delivered in a different way, please do not hesitate to let us know and we will investigate how we can assist. A copy of our Equality and Diversity policy, which includes information on reasonable adjustments, is available upon request.

7. Our liability to you

7.1 Your agreement is solely with Gu Legal Ltd, which has sole legal liability for the work done for you and for any act or omission in the course of that work. No representative, partner or director, officer, employee, agent or consultant of Gu Legal Ltd, will have any personal legal liability for any loss or claim. You agree to the limits on our liability set out in these Terms and that these are reasonable in all the circumstances.

7.2 Unless explicitly agreed otherwise, in writing:

7.2.1 we do not owe, nor do we accept, any duty to any person other than you; and

7.2.2 we do not accept any liability or responsibility for any consequences arising from reliance on our advice by any person other than you.

7.3 We are not responsible for any failure to advise or comment on matters falling outside the scope of our instructions, as set out in these Terms of Business and the Engagement Letter.

7.4 Our maximum liability to you (or any other party we have agreed may rely on our services) in contract or tort or under statute or otherwise for any loss or damage suffered by you arising from or in connection with the mater and/or the services provided by us, in relation to any single matter or any group of connected matters which may be aggregated by our insurers will be £3,000,000 including interest and costs unless we expressly state a different figure in the Engagement Letter.

7.5 We will not be liable in contract or tort (including negligence) or under statute or otherwise, for any special or direct or indirect or consequential loss or damage of any kind (whether foreseeable or known or not) including loss of profit, revenue, income, corruption to data, use, production, contract, business, opportunity, savings, discount, rebate (whether actual or anticipated), reputation, goodwill or similar economic loss or damage.

7.6 For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in these Terms seeks to exclude or limit our liability in respect of our liabilities which cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, such as in respect of death, personal injury, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or any other losses which cannot be excluded or limited as a matter of law.

7.7 We will not be liable to anyone who is not our client in respect of professional negligence. These Terms confer no rights on any third parties. The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply.

7.8 Services are provided by our lawyers for and on behalf of our law firm. You agree not to bring any claim against any of our staff including principals (i.e. partners / members / directors) in connection with any loss or damage suffered in connection with our services. Please note that this does not restrict your rights to compensation in appropriate cases from our insurers or from us as a law firm.

7.9 We will only provide advice on matters within the scope of our instructions. We appreciate that this places limits on how we can help but it is important that we do not stray into areas beyond our expertise. Please note in particular therefore that (unless explicitly stated otherwise within your client care letter) tax advice, advice on the law of jurisdictions outside of England & Wales and financial, accounting and commercial advice is outside the scope of our instructions. This means that we will not provide you with any advice on these matters or any other matters outside of the scope of our Agreement with you. We will not take account of any goals sought in respect of matters outside the scope of our Agreement with you even if a relevant issue arises during the course of our work together. You may therefore wish to seek separate specialist advice if you would like assistance with matters outside of the scope of our work together.

8. Our charges and billing

8.1 You are liable to pay legal costs as set out in the Engagement Letter, which also states the arrangements for billing. We will usually discuss this with you at the outset of your matter. You are liable to pay our charges including our fees for our time spent, disbursements and tax (including VAT on our time spent). Our method of charging may be based upon an hourly rate or a fixed fee. We will explain whether we are charging on an hourly rate or fixed fee basis together with the details of our hourly rates in our Engagement Letter.

8.2 Our time spent on a matter is calculated in six-minute units rounded up to the nearest full six-minute unit of time. For example, short or standard letters, emails and phone calls may require less than six-minutes of a fee earner’s time but will still be charged as one six-minute unit. Each six-minute unit is the equivalent of 10% of our hourly rate.

8.3 We reserve the right to vary our hourly rates, for example at the start of a new year. We will give you advance notice of any proposed change. If we feel it is necessary to vary our hourly rates due to the nature of your instructions changing (such as in respect of the urgency of the matter) we will notify you of this and agree an appropriate alternative hourly rate with you.

8.4 When charging on an hourly rate basis we may at the beginning of your matter provide an estimate of the total costs for your matter or for reaching a certain stage in the matter. Similarly, we may publish on our website estimates of our costs or automated quotes. These are estimates only and we may provide you with updated estimates as your matter progresses. The costs estimate is not a cap. You remain liable for all charges whether our original estimate is exceeded or not.

8.5 The cost of our services is subject to VAT. All hourly rates and costs estimates provided by us are exclusive of VAT unless expressly stated otherwise.

8.6 Unless expressly stated otherwise within our Engagement Letter, if we agree to work with you on a fixed fee basis and your instructions are terminated (either by you or because we have grounds to terminate under our Terms of Business) we reserve the right to charge you the full fixed fee. At our absolute discretion, we may alternatively agree to reduce our fee to a sum equivalent to what our charges would have been for the work actually undertaken on a time spent basis applying our standard hourly rates.

8.7 We may require a payment on account of our costs prior to beginning work on your matter and in order to continue work for you. We are not required to use a payment on account of costs to fund interim bills but reserve the right to transfer monies paid on account of costs for payment of outstanding charges upon the raising of a bill.

8.8 We may as your agent ask others to work on your behalf and you will be responsible for their fees as incurred ‘disbursements’. Disbursements are costs related to your matter that need to be paid to other people but we handle the payments on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.

8.9 We may deliver our bills to you electronically means such as email. Please let us know if you have any particular requirements for the delivery of our bills.Unless agreed otherwise in writing we may raise a bill on an ‘interim basis’ (so before the end of your legal matter) which may include disbursement only bills. Paid interim bills will be credited against your final bill. If we raise a bill on a statutory basis (whether interim or final) the invoice will be marked accordingly.

8.10 Our bills become due for payment within 14 of calendar days and in the currency in which they are submitted.

8.11 If you would like a third party to pay our bills or any part of them, you must notify us in advance. Any such arrangement is subject to our prior approval, and we will need the third party’s name, contact details and any other information or identification documents we request. Even where a third-party agrees to contribute to pay our bills, you remain primarily responsible for the full amount, and our invoice will continue to be addressed to you. If someone else does pay some of our bills, you are responsible for paying the rest. Where you instruct us jointly with others you will, unless otherwise agreed, be jointly and severally liable for our fees, expenses, disbursements and any applicable VAT. If you are receiving or anticipate receiving assistance with funding from a third party in connection with your legal matter you nonetheless remain liable for the payment of our charges in accordance with These Terms. This includes where you are seeking to claim back part or all of our costs from an opponent in litigation.

8.12 We reserve the right to charge interest on overdue bills on a daily basis at the rate of 8% above the base lending rate of the Bank of England on any amounts not received by us on their due date. Interest will begin to run prior to securing judgement. We may keep your property, including documents, funds in client account (if applicable) or any other property in our possession until all invoices rendered to you have been paid in full.

8.13 Should we become liable for further expenses incurred on your behalf after sending you our final bill, we reserve the right to raise a further bill for these costs.

8.14 If our bills remains unpaid after 30 days or if our reasonable request of a payment on account of costs is not met, we reserve the right to cease further work for you and to withhold from you any information or items relating to your matter until full payment has been received (subject to such information that may be available to you under data protection laws).

8.15 You have the right to challenge or complain about our bill. Please see section 16 (Complaints) for details of how to complain about our bill.

8.16 You have the right to challenge our bill by applying to the court to assess the bill under the Solicitors Act 1974. The usual time limit for applying to the court for an assessment is one month from the date of delivery of the bill.

9. Confidentiality

9.1 We will keep your information confidential, unless:

9.1.1 you consent to the disclosure of that information;

9.1.2 disclosure of the information is required or permitted by law or regulatory requirements that apply to us; or

9.1.3 these Terms of Business state otherwise.

9.2 Examples of organisations we may be required to disclose your information to include:

9.2.1 the National Crime Agency;

9.2.2 domestic and international tax authorities;

9.2.3 regulatory authorities.

9.3 Unless you instruct us otherwise, email will be our default method of communication. We deploy a range of information security measures, but we cannot guarantee the security of information or documents sent by email. If you do not wish us to communicate information by email, please let us know.

9.4 Sometimes we ask other companies or people to carry out typing, photocopying and courier delivery on our files to help us deliver efficient, cost effective legal services.

9.5 We may also ask other companies or people to provide specific business and compliance support, for example:

9.5.1 cloud based IT services

9.5.2 data protection officer or data protection compliance lead

9.5.3 Anti-money laundering checks, client due diligence assessments and any other relevant compliance audit and ongoing training in accordance with the SRA requirements.

9.6 We ensure all outsourcing providers operate under service agreements that are consistent with our legal and professional obligations, including in relation to confidentiality. Information on outsourcing in relation to your personal data is set out in our Website Privacy Policy—see section 10.3.

9.7 External organisations such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and the SRA may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice from time to time. They may wish to audit or quality check your file and related papers for this purpose. We will require that these external organisations maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited or quality checked.

9.8 Your files may also be reviewed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business, the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new business. If you do not wish your file to be used in this way, please let us know as soon as possible.

10. Privacy and data protection

10.1 We use your personal data primarily to provide legal services to you, but also for related purposes such as administration, billing and record keeping and to inform you of our services and events that we think may be of interest to you.

10.2 Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) other relevant UK legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.

10.3 We take your privacy very seriously. Our Privacy policy contains important information on how and why we collect, process and store your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data. Our Website Privacy Policy is available on our website at here, but please contact us if you would like us to send a copy to you or if you would like us to explain our Privacy policy verbally.

10.4 We may record telephone calls and monitor emails for training, regulatory and compliance purposes.

10.5 We use third party service providers (including ‘cloud’ service providers) to help us deliver efficient, cost effective legal services. This may include document/information hosting, sharing, transfer, analysis, processing or storage. We ensure all third party service providers operate under service agreements that are consistent with our legal and professional obligations, including in relation to confidentiality, privacy and data protection. If you instruct us to use an alternative provider for storing, sharing or exchanging documents/information, we are not responsible for the security of the data or the provider’s security standards.

10.6 We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services. You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time, by:

10.6.1 contacting us by info@gulegal.org;

10.6.2 using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or ‘STOP’ number in texts; or

10.6.3 updating your marketing preferences and notify us in writing by info@gulegal.org or on our client marketing preference section.

11. Banking and related matters

11.1 Changes to our bank details

We will never tell you about changes to important business information, such as bank account details, by email. Please inform us immediately if you receive any email or other communication purporting to be from the firm stating that we have changed our bank details or payment arrangements.

11.2 Payment of interest

11.2.1 We will not pay interest:

(a) on money we are instructed to hold outside a client account in a manner that does not attract interest, eg cash held in our safe;

(b) where the amount of interest is less than £20;

11.2.2 We do not pay interest to clients for money held in circumstances in which we are not required to do so and where we consider that this would be inappropriate. Please ask us if you would like to see our written payment of interest policy.

11.3 Bank failure and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme

11.3.1 We are not liable for any losses you suffer as a result of any bank in which we hold client money being unable to repay depositors in full. You may, however, be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

11.3.2 The FSCS is the UK’s statutory fund of last resort for customers of banking institutions. The FSCS can pay compensation up to £120,000 if a banking institution is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay claims against it. This increased from £85,000 on 1 December 2025.

11.3.3 The limit is £120,000 per banking institution. If you hold other personal money in the same banking institution as our client account, the limit remains £120,000 in total. Some banking institutions have several brands. The compensation limit is £120,000 per institution, not per brand.

11.3.4 The FSCS also provides up to £1.4m of short-term protection for certain high balances, eg relating to property transactions, inheritance, divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership, unfair dismissal, redundancy, and personal injury compensation (there is no financial limit on protection for personal injury compensation). This is called the temporary high balance scheme and, if it applies, protection lasts for a maximum of six months. This increased from £1m on 1 December 2025.

11.3.5 The FSCS (including the temporary high balance scheme) will apply to qualifying balances held in our client account. In the unlikely event of a deposit-taking institution failure, we will presume (unless we hear from you in writing to the contrary) we have your consent to disclose necessary client details to the FSCS.

11.3.6 More information about the FSCS can be found at https://www.fscs.org.uk.

11.4 Receiving and paying funds

11.4.1 Our policy is to only accept cash up to £50 (Fifty British Sterling Pounds). If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may decide to charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to establish the source of the funds and this could also cause delays.

11.4.2 If we receive money in relation to your matter from an unexpected source, there may be a delay in your matter and we may charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary.

11.4.3 Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.

12. Prevention of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing

12.1 To comply with anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and counter-proliferation financing requirements, we are likely to ask you for proof of your identity and we may conduct searches or enquiries for this purpose. We may also be required to identify and verify the identity of other persons such as directors or beneficial owners. If you or they do not provide us with the required information promptly, your matter may be delayed. This may include attending our offices with identification and other documentation for verification but could also involve disclosure of more personal information such as bank statements and evidence of income. We are grateful to our clients for their understanding and patience while we discharge our professional duties. If it is not possible to attend our offices lawful alternatives will be considered with you.

12.2 You agree that we may make checks using online electronic verification systems or other databases as we may decide.

12.3 You must not send us any money until we have told you these checks have been completed.

12.4 We will charge you for these identification and verification checks—we will confirm the cost in our engagement letter.

12.5 We may ask you to confirm the source of any money you have sent us or will send us. If you do not provide us with that information promptly, your matter may be delayed.

12.6 Any personal data we receive from you for the purpose of preventing money laundering, terrorist financing or proliferation financing will be used only for that purpose or:

12.6.1 with your consent; or

12.6.2 as permitted by or under another enactment.

12.7 We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, we may be required by law to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where we know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering, terrorist financing or proliferation 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 of time and may not be able to tell you why.

12.8 Subject to section 7 (‘Our liability to you’), we shall not be liable for any loss arising from or connected with our compliance with any statutory obligation, or reasonable belief we may have, to report matters to the relevant authorities under the provisions of the money laundering, terrorist financing and/or proliferation financing legislation.

12.9 There are strict limits on how we may operate our client account (used to hold money on a client’s behalf in connection with a legal transaction). We generally do not accept cash. We cannot offer a banking facility and there are limits on the manner in which funds can be paid into and out of our client account.

13. Financial services

13.1 We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in relation to consumer credit services. However, because we are regulated by the SRA, we may be able to provide certain limited consumer credit services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you. This is because we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales, which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

13.2 We are also not authorised by the FCA to provide investment advice services. If you need advice on investments, we may refer you to someone who is authorised by the FCA to provide the necessary advice. However, because we are regulated by the SRA, we may be able to provide certain limited investment advice services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you.

13.3 The SRA is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any financial service you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with the SRA or Legal Ombudsman.

13.4 Our role is as legal adviser and therefore it is not generally part of our function to give advice on the merits of investment transactions or to act as a broker or arranger. Accordingly, we have assumed that your decision to discuss or negotiate any particular transaction, and any decision actually to enter into any transaction, will be made by you on the basis of your own assessment of the business, financial and policy aspects of the matter. In any event, it is not part of our role to communicate invitations or inducements to engage in investment activity on behalf of clients, and therefore nothing we say (by whatever means of communication) or do, should be construed as an invitation or inducement to you, or to anyone else, to engage in investment activity.

14. Professional indemnity insurance

14.1 We have professional indemnity insurance giving cover for claims against us. Details of this insurance, including contact details of our insurer and the territorial coverage of the policy, are available on our website, or can be provided on request.

14.2 It is a condition of our professional indemnity insurance that we notify our insurer and/or broker of any circumstances which may give rise to a claim against us. In doing so, we may disclose documents and information to our insurer, broker and insurance advisers on a confidential basis. Our insurers and brokers are contractually obliged to keep all information we pass to them strictly confidential.

15. Complaints

15.1 We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided you should inform us immediately so we can do our best to resolve the problem.

15.2 In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues. If you would like to make a formal complaint, you can read our full complaints procedure. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your matter.

15.3 What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

15.3.1 We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Generally, this applies if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees and turnover or assets not exceeding a certain threshold, a charity or membership organisation with a net annual income of less than £1m, a trustee of a trust with an asset value of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories (you can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman). The Legal Ombudsman will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your matter.

15.3.2 Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

(a) within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint; and

(b) no more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or

15.3.3 If you would like more information, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman by:

(a) visiting www.legalombudsman.org.uk

(b) calling 0300 555 0333 between 10.00 to 16.00

(d) writing to Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

16. Alternative complaints / dispute resolution bodies do also exist (such as Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation) which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services if we both agree to use such a scheme. If we agree to use such a scheme we will inform you when notifying you of our final response to your complaint.

16.1 What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

16.1.1 The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

16.1.2 The SRA’s website contains information on raising concerns about solicitors and law firms.

17. Terminating your instructions

17.1 You may terminate our appointment at any time by giving us notice in writing. We can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for our charges or disbursements.

17.2 We will only decide to stop acting for you with good reason, eg where we feel that the relationship has broken down, if you do not pay a bill, if you provide us with misleading information, or if you act in an abusive or offensive manner. We will give you reasonable notice before we stop acting for you.

17.3 If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, we will charge you for the work we have done and, where appropriate, for transferring the matter to another adviser if you so request. This will be calculated on the basis set out in the Engagement Letter.

17.4 We are not responsible for reminding you about important dates and/or any deadlines after our appointment has been terminated.

18. Storage and retrieval of files

18.1 We may create and hold client files in hard copy (paper), electronically or a combination of both.

18.2 We normally store client files (except any of your papers you ask to be returned to you) for six (6) years after we send you our final bill. Unless you instruct us to the contrary, we will store your file electronically only and will destroy our paper file. We store the file on the understanding that we may destroy it after six (6) years after completing your matter. We will not destroy original documents such as wills, deeds and other securities that we have agreed to hold in safe custody but we may, on reasonable notice, send them to you for safekeeping.

18.3 We reserve the right to charge an annual fee for storing original documents in safe custody, eg wills and title deeds. We will notify you of our storage rates at the appropriate time. If we prepare a deed or a will for you, we will store it free of charge.

18.4 If we retrieve your file from storage (including electronic storage) in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for the retrieval.

18.5 If we retrieve your file from storage for another reason, we may charge you for:

18.5.1 time spent retrieving the file and producing it to you;

18.5.2 reading, correspondence, or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved file; and/or

18.5.3 providing additional copies of any documents.

18.6 We will provide you with an electronic copy of the file unless it is inappropriate to do so.

18.7 We will comply with all applicable rules on data protection. Our Website Privacy Policy contains more information about how long we keep personal data for—see section 10.3.

19. Severance

If any of the Terms is found by any court of competent jurisdiction or other competent authority to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable then that provision shall, to the extent necessary, be severed from the Terms to the extent that it has been held to be ineffective, but that shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the rest of the Terms.

20. Governing law and jurisdiction

Our agreement including these Terms, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales. It is agreed that the Courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute or controversy arising from our agreement and these Terms.

21. Agreement

The receipt of instructions or further instructions from you confirms your acceptance.

Terms of Business

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