As we are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, our professional rules make it an obligation on us to bring certain important issues to your attention and this is the aim of these Terms of Business. You should take time to read and understand these as they contain valuable information such as for example, how fees are calculated and billed, how files are managed etc. Please note that these also contain a limitation of our liability.

Contents

1. Hours of Business
2. Our Responsibilities
3. Your Responsibilities
4. Reponsbility for Work
5. Scope of our Services
6. Provision of Information
7. Safe Working
8. E-mails & Cybercrime Awareness
9. Basis of Charging
10. Paying your bill
11. Disbursements
12. Value Added Tax
13. Payment Arrangements
14. Payment of your Legal Fees by others
15. Legal Aid
16. Professional Indemnity
17. Insurance Cover
18. Your Liability to pay other parties Legal Fees
19. Your Liability to pay tax, interest or penalties
20. Interest
21. Tax and Pension Advice
22. Investment Advice and the FCA
23. Insurance Mediation
24. SRA Standards and Regulations
25. Referred Matters
26. Confidentiality & Disclosure Requirements
27. Intellectual Property Rights
28. Opinion from Barristers and other Third Parties
29. Limited Companies
30. Joint Instructions and Instructions by Companies and/or Partnerships
31. Data Protection Act 2018 & General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018
32. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“the Act”)
33. The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (as amended by the Regulations 2019).
34. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013
35. Force Majeure
36. Ending This Agreement
37. Disclaimers
38. Third Party Access to Court Documents
39. Conflicts of Interest
40. Storage & Copying of papers & documents
41. Changes in the Law and Critical Dates
42. Retention of files
43. Retention of deeds and documents
44. Reporting Concerns
45. Audit
46. Limitation of Liability
47. Financial Services Compensation Scheme
48. Wills
49. Lasting Powers of Attorney and Deputyships
50. Discrimination
51. Monitoring Telephone Calls
52. Environmental Policy
53. Newsletters
54. Applicable Law
55. Terms and Conditions of Business

1. Hours of Business

Our office is located at 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS. Our hours of business are Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm.  If you need to contact us in an emergency please try us on info@greystonesolicitors.co.uk and we shall endeavour to help.

2. Our Responsibilities

Our responsibilities may / will include reviewing your matter regularly and keeping you updated at the appropriate stage. Our work does not include tax, or any other ancillary advice, unless instructed by you, and for which there will be an additional fee. Should you require detailed tax planning or trusts advice we would be happy to advise you, or refer you to a tax adviser that may be able to assist.

3. Your Responsibilities

As the client(s) your responsibilities may / will include providing us with clear, timely and accurate instructions, and providing all documentation required to complete the transaction in a timely manner.

4. Reponsbility for Work

The name of the person who will carry out most of the work in this matter and, if different, the Director with overall responsibility for your matter will be confirmed in our Client Care Letter. They may from time to time, be assisted by other members of our team i.e. trainees, paralegals etc. However, you will be notified of this either in the Client Care Letter or in writing when applicable.

We try hard to avoid changing the people who are handling your work but if this cannot be avoided, we will notify you promptly of the name and status of the person who will be dealing with your case.

5. Scope of our Services

The scope of the services we have agreed to provide for you in any matter will be agreed between us and confirmed in our Client Care Letter. You agree that you do not require us to provide you advice or further services in relation to any aspect outside of the scope of the services so agreed.

6. Provision of Information

Our firm relies on the accuracy and completeness of all information provided by you and shall not be liable for any errors or omissions that result from inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information supplied by you.

To assist us in carrying out the work as efficiently as possible, you will need to ensure that all information provided is to the best of your knowledge complete, accurate and up to date. You should also notify us of any changes or variations to that information which may arise after the date it is passed to us and of any new circumstances that might be relevant to the work we are undertaking.

Where any information is provided to us that has been generated, in whole or in part, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, please be aware that such tools may generate inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information. Our firm will not independently verify the factual accuracy of that information and will not be liable for any errors or omissions that result from its use. Wherever possible, you should disclose to us when any information or documents provided to us have been generated or modified by AI, so we can be alert to any safeguards or risks this may pose and consider if any additional verification may be required.

7. Safe Working

It is our aim to maintain a good working relationship with all of our clients.

Please note, however, that we will not tolerate violence and aggression. We understand that our clients may be experiencing stressful times and we will endeavour to support our clients throughout this but no member of our staff should be subjected to unreasonable, violent, threatening and abusive behaviour, whether verbal, physical or written.

If, at any time, a member of staff encounters unreasonable, violent, threatening and/or abusive behaviour from you (or by a third party on your behalf), whether verbal, physical or written, then we reserve the right to take immediate action to protect our staff. This may include imposing restrictions or controls, whether temporary or longer-term, on how we engage with you going forward. Violence or threats of violence will also be reported to the police where appropriate. In some circumstances, the firm may determine that we have to cease acting for you and terminate your retainer.

8. E-mails & Cybercrime Awareness

It is our duty as solicitors to keep your affairs as our client confidential.  We have the facility to send and receive communications by e-mail.  This form of communication is not secure and you should be aware of the risk to the confidential nature of information sent in this way being the subject of attack from the outside.

It is unfortunate that Cybercrime and email fraud targeted at law firms and their clients is on the increase. Fraudsters are using very sophisticated methods to manipulate IT and intercept communications.

Confirmation of our bank details

Our bank account details are will be confirmed to you at the outset of the matter in our client care letter. We will NOT change our bank account details during the course of dealing with your matter so stay the same throughout the lifetime of your matter.

It is very important that you are aware that we will NOT notify you of changes to our bank account details by email. We will only notify you of changes to important business information, including bank account details, in official correspondence which will be sent by postal mail.

If you ever receive any other communication purporting to come from us and which purports to change our bank account details or to request that you send funds to another account, please do not rely on this and immediately contact the person at this firm handling your matter by telephone. Even if the request appears to have come from us, you must never send funds to another account.

We will NOT take any responsibility for any losses where funds are transferred to other accounts.

Sending funds to our bank account(s)

Prior to transferring any funds to our account, we recommend you contact us to verify our account details. Wherever possible, you should contact the contact the person at this firm handling your matter by telephone.

Our firm sending funds to you

We may not agree to send any funds to you unless it is to a pre-agreed bank account which we have verified.

You must take care to protect your own data and bank account details. Confirming your bank details by email should be avoided.

For all new matters, the person with conduct of your matter will contact you by telephone to verify your bank account details, prior to our sending funds to you. We are sorry if this causes any delay to the processing of payments but we do consider that these steps are necessary to help protect you and your money from fraud.

If you are a long-standing client of the firm and/or a client to whom we have previously transferred funds and your bank account details have not changed we will rely on our previous transactions rather than contact you via telephone for verification unless circumstances exist which increase the level of risk or we otherwise consider it appropriate to do so.

Unless you instruct us to the contrary it is implied that we may conduct your affairs by e-mail.

We cannot accept responsibility once an e-mail with any attachments leaves us.  We have an anti-virus system installed in our Network and therefore any communication sent by e-mail will be checked for known viruses.  We reserve the right not to receive an e-mail until it has been checked for viruses and provision may be made for incoming e-mail and attachments to be quarantined.

9. Basis of Charging

Please refer to the engagement letter for details of fees quoted, or our estimate of fees, or the hourly rates of the fee earner(s) concerned.

Otherwise, our charges will be calculated mainly by reference to the time actually spent by the solicitors and other staff in respect of any work which they do on your behalf. This will include but not limited to:

– Advising you in meetings and on the telephone.

– Negotiating with others on your behalf in meetings, by letter

and by telephone.

– Considering, drafting and completing documents, deeds

etc.

– Preparing for and attending court or tribunal hearings,

including travelling and waiting time.

– Instructing third parties on your behalf.

– Legal and factual research.

– Preparation of any detailed costs calculations.

Hourly rates are reviewed periodically to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation. We will notify you of any variation to the hourly rate.

All work will be charged in units of 1/10th of an hour (i.e. 6 minute units). For example, we charge for the time spent on making and taking calls in 6 minute units. Please note that we may uplift the rates if we have to work outside the normal working hours of the business, for complex issues, the speed at which actions need to be taken and the importance and value of the work. All time spent on a file (including telephone calls and travelling) is charged. We can agree at your request a limit on our fees which will not be exceeded without your authority but in those cases we cannot guarantee the work will have reached any particular stage when we reach this limit. If we cannot agree a further fee arrangement we will be entitled to terminate our instructions.

Where fixed fee estimates are provided, this is based on the information available to us now. We reserve the right to revise the charge if we are required to do work which is additional to that which can be anticipated at this stage. You will be notified if this situation arises.

In property transactions, in the Administration of Estates, cases involving particular complexity or requiring specialist expertise, an additional charge may be made to that calculated on the basis of time spent. This may reflect a percentage of the price of the property, the value of the Estate or other financial benefit. This value element reflects the importance of the transaction and the consequent responsibility falling on the firm. Where a value element is added, we will be happy to explain the calculation to you.

You are entitled to request an estimate of our charges at any stage of your case. We shall update you with a costs estimate every six months or whenever any estimate we have provided is likely to be exceeded, whichever is the sooner.

If we are acting for you under the terms of a Conditional/Contingency Fee Agreement, please refer to that agreement for all essential information in relation to legal costs.

All fees (including fixed fees) will be varied if there are changes in the work or unforeseen or exceptional circumstances arise or the work becomes more time consuming than originally expected. We will discuss this with you when this arises and if you do not wish us to act then we will send you a bill for the works and disbursements to that date.

In certain circumstances, there may be an expectation that a third party (including an insurer) will pay your costs. We may at our discretion issue invoices to a third party funder and accept payments from them but you will remain liable to us for all charges. In the event that the third party does not pay the sums due, you will be required to pay them.

Payment on account for our fees or disbursements

We may ask you for advance payments on account for our fees and/or to enable us to pay disbursements on your behalf as and when they become due. Money paid by you on account of our costs and/or unpaid disbursements will be treated as client money and paid into our client account (see above for details).

We will confirm in writing (by letter or email) whenever we need to make a transfer of all or some of those sums to our business account to cover our fees for work that we have undertaken.

We may need to draw upon sums held for you in the client account to reimburse us for payments we have made on your behalf, for example, where we pay a court or search fee on your behalf using our own money. You will have been informed at the outset (or updated during your matter as necessary) of likely disbursements we will need to make on your behalf and some of the monies we ask you to pay on account will reflect those anticipated costs. Where it is appropriate to do so, we will deduct money from sums paid by you into our client account to reimburse us for those payments after they have been paid by us. We will not issue a bill each and every time that we make a transfer but we will ensure that you are provided with information as and when appropriate (not least a final bill at the end of the matter) to ensure that you can reconcile the payments. All transfers will be done in accordance with our regulatory obligations (including those set out in Rule 5 of the SRA Accounts Rules). For more information, see: https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/accounts-rules/.

10. Paying your bill

Your bill should be settled within 30 days.  We reserve the right to charge interest on bills which are not paid within that time.

i) Although you have the rights set out below, if all or part of the bill remains unpaid we are entitled to charge interest on any outstanding amount of the bill in accordance with Article 5 of the Solicitors (Non Contentious business) Remuneration Order 2009.

ii) You may have a right to object to your bill by making a complaint to the Legal Complaints Service or the Office of Legal Complaints. Or you can apply for your bill to be assessed by the Court under part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, but you should get independent legal advice before you pursue this option. Please note that Court assessment of your bill is a Court proceeding. As a result, it is likely that you will have to pay Court costs. There are strict time limits on applications for Court assessment and if you wish for your bill to be assessed by the Court, you should act quickly and no later than within one month after receiving the bill otherwise the Court can refuse the application altogether.

11. Disbursements

Solicitors have to pay out various expenses on behalf of clients including court fees, expert’s fees, Land Registry fees, search fees, stamp duty and so on. We have no obligation to make such payments unless you have provided us with the funds for that purpose. We refer to such expenses as ‘disbursements’. On the rare occasion that we exercise our discretion and agree to pay such expenses, please note that we shall charge an additional administrative fee. You will have to reimburse us for them in addition to our fees. VAT is payable on certain disbursements.VAT is payable on certain disbursements.

We reserve the right to carry out a bankruptcy search for any person residing in England and Wales to whom funds will be transferred to, which will be carried out prior to the transfer, at a cost payable by you, we will inform you of the costs in advance.

For Probate matters and prior to distribution of the estate, where the person is not residing in England and Wales we shall carry out an overseas bankruptcy search, the cost of which shall be borne either from the estate or from the entitlement due to the beneficiary subject to the bankruptcy search.

12. Value Added Tax

VAT will also be payable by you at the current rate of 20% (or the prevailing rate which may vary from time to time) upon all this firm’s charges and upon some of the disbursements (as specified in the client care letter) that are incurred on your behalf.

We are registered for UK VAT. Our VAT registration number is 334 2662 14

13. Payment Arrangements

We shall deliver bills to you at regular intervals for the work carried out during the conduct of the case. This assists our cash flow and enables you to budget for costs. Accounts should be settled within 28 days. Interest will be charged on a daily basis at statutory rate (currently 8%) or a rate of 4% above Barclays Bank base rate at the time of the delivery of the bill where payment is not made within 28 days of the delivery of the bill.

Payment may be made to us by cash, cheque or card, except for our Will Writing service, which is payable by cash or cheque.

In property transaction cases, if sufficient funds are available on completion and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds.

In the Administration of Estate cases, as soon as sufficient funds are available and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds.

Where we organise remittance of funds to our clients by telegraphic transfer, please note that it is our client’s responsibility to ensure that the account details they supply are for an account that will accept telegraphic transfers.  If not, and we are required to investigate matters which are errors of the client or the bank, then we reserve the right to charge fees on a time spent basis at our usual hourly rates for those involved including, if applicable, a nominal fee for our Accounts department’s time.

If we accept instructions from a Limited Company, we may require the directors and/or major shareholders to sign a form of personal guarantee in respect of the charges and expenses of this Firm. If this is refused then we will refrain from acting and require immediate payment of our charges up to that point and expenses.

If any account is overdue for payment we shall be entitled to refrain from continuing work for you. We shall also be entitled to retain any documents and papers belonging to you, together with our file of papers, until such time as all sums outstanding are paid.

If you are not satisfied with the amount of our fees please contact us. Objections about the amount of our fee will be handled by way of our complaints procedure.

If you remain unhappy about the level of our fees, you may be able to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (as more particularly set out above) or may be entitled to have the bill assessed by the Court in accordance with Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. Your rights are set out more fully in Sections 70, 71 and 72 of the Solicitors Act 1974.

Following the conclusion of your matter, we are entitled to retain your file of papers and documents while there is money owing to us for fees.

14. Payment of your Legal Fees by others

If another person is ordered to pay your legal fees, you will not necessarily recover from that person the full amount of costs incurred on your behalf or that person may not be capable of paying what they have been ordered to pay. The fees payable by another party depends on a number of factors applied by the court in determining the level of costs recoverable. They are usually in the range of 60-75% of your total bill. If the other party is in receipt of public funding (legal aid), you may not be able to recover your own legal fees in any event.

15. Legal Aid

It is important that you are aware of Legal Aid. If you wish to obtain further guidance on eligibility for legal aid and Solicitors that offer this then please refer to the Legal Aid Agency website (www.gov.uk/legal-aid) or by telephone (0300 200 2020).

16. Professional Indemnity

In the interests of our clients, we maintain compulsory professional indemnity insurance to a total level of £3 million.

Our insurers are Hera Indemnity, and their address is 6 Bevis Marks, London EC3A 7BA. Our policy number is LPI309019901.

A full hard copy of our insurance is available to view at our offices. Please ask for details.

17. Insurance Cover

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (formerly the Financial Services Authority). However, our firm is included on the FCA Register so that we can carry on insurance distribution activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This is part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at: www.fca.gov.uk.

We do not generally sell or advise on insurance policies except those that may be required in relation to our conveyancing and litigation practices. In conveyancing work, clients may encounter a problem that can be overcome by the taking out of a suitable insurance policy such as to protect against a defect in the title to a property. Similarly, in litigation, ‘after the event’ insurance may be obtained by us on behalf of a client to protect against the costs the client may incur when making a claim. Should we identify a problem that cannot readily be overcome without taking out such a policy, we will inform clients at the appropriate time.

If we are requested to recommend an insurer, we will advise the client about the range of legal indemnity insurers we have checked before recommending a particular policy and, if it is not on a fair market analysis, we will explain the basis upon which the recommendation has been made and will check the suitability of any such policy. If we are requested to assist in the arranging of any insurance on behalf of a client, we will inform the client of all necessary information by means of a written ‘demand and needs statement’.

If we recommend a referral to a particular insurer, we shall do so in good faith but we shall not be liable to you for any advice or assistance you may be given by them. Furthermore, you will not be afforded the regulatory protection of the SRA and shall not be entitled to the benefit of the SRA Compensation Fund in relation to those insurance services.

As an alternative, you may to check personal insurance documents (including but not limited to home insurance) to see if you already have such over in place. If you wish us to check this for you then please contact us.

18. Your Liability to pay other parties Legal Fees

You must always bear in mind that if the court so directs, you may have to pay the other parties legal fees as well as your own.

19. Your Liability to pay tax, interest or penalties

The liability for all taxes, interest or penalties payable to HMRC or other taxing authority always remain your personal liability.  Where we have agreed to this, we shall endeavour to complete correctly and submit promptly any appropriate returns to HMRC or other taxing authority, but in the event of any error, omission or late submission you will be liable to pay all such taxes, interest or penalties.  In accordance with HMRC guidelines you are responsible for ensuring that the values submitted on any return are correct.

20. Interest

If we hold money on your behalf in our client account, in accordance with the SRA Accounts Rules, it is our policy that we will pay you a sum of money in lieu of interest on a fair and reasonable basis..

In particular:

– Client monies will normally be held in general client bank accounts, in which amounts for different matters and clients are pooled

– A sum in lieu of interest will be payable on amounts held in general client bank accounts unless the total amount of interest calculated over the course of a transaction is less than £50, in which case no interest will be paid as our administrative charges would cost exceed this amount

– The period for which interest will be paid will normally run from the date on which funds are received by us until the date of issue of any cheque from our Client Account.

– Client monies will normally be held in an instant access bank account to facilitate transactions, however, clients have the right to make alternative arrangements for the holding of their funds during the course of a transaction.

– Clients may also request their funds are held in a separate designated client deposit account in which case interest earned on such an account will be paid to the client in full, however, where the client makes alternative arrangements for the holding of their funds or requests funds are held in a separate designated client deposit account the firm reserves the right to charge at our usual fee earner rates for any work carried out or third party costs incurred in implementing the clients requests.

– The rate of interest paid fluctuates according to the rate of interest that the firm can secure from time to time from its principal bankers.

– We will not account to you for any sums in lieu of interest in the following situations:

(a)On money held for the payment of a professional disbursement if the person to whom the money is owed has requested a delay in settlement;

(b)On money held for the Legal Aid Agency;

(c)On money on an advance to us to fund a payment on your behalf in excess of funds already held for you;

(d)Otherwise, where there is an agreement to contract out of the provisions of this policy.

Lenders: If you are obtaining borrowing from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to arrange that the loan cheque is received by us a minimum of 5 working days prior to the completion date. If the money can be telegraphed, we will request that we receive it one working day before the completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Please be aware that the lender may charge you interest from the date of issue of their loan cheque or the telegraphing of the payment.

It is extremely unlikely that we could be held liable to you if any money held in our client account is lost due to any failure in the banking system including bank collapse. However, you may be entitled to make a claim against the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the event of failure of the bank. The amount of compensation which the FSCS can pay out is limited to £120,000 (subject to some restrictions). We may be able to make a claim to FSCS on your behalf. If we do so, we will, subject to our obtaining your consent, give certain client information to FSCS to help them identify you and any amounts to which you are entitled.

21. Tax and Pension Advice

Any work that we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. Tax advice is outside of the scope of work we do for you, unless we specifically agree to advise you. We are not qualified to advise you on the tax implications of a transaction that you instruct us to carry out, or the likelihood of them arising. We are also not qualified to provide pensions advice. If you have any concerns in this respect, please raise them with us immediately. If we can undertake the research necessary to resolve the issue, we will do so and advise you accordingly. If we cannot, we may be able to identify a source of assistance for you.

22. Investment Advice and the FCA

Sometimes the work we are likely to carry out for you can involve investments. We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (previously the Financial Services Authority) and so may refer a client to someone who is authorised to provide any necessary investment advice. However, we can provide certain limited services in relation to investments provided they are closely linked with the legal services we are providing to a client, as we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales.

If we recommend a referral to a particular firm, agency or business to provide you with investment advice, we shall do so in good faith but we shall not be liable to you for any advice you may be given by them. Furthermore, if that firm, agency or business is not another firm of solicitors you will not be afforded the regulatory protection of the SRA and shall not be entitled to the benefit of the SRA Compensation Fund.

The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions. The SRA is the independent regulatory body of the Law Society and the Legal Ombudsman is the independent complaints handling body of the Law Society.

23. Insurance Mediation

This Firm is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This is part of our business (including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong) is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at http://www.fca.org.uk/register/.

The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial and Markets Act 2000, but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory body of the Law Society and the Legal Ombudsman is the independent complaints handling body of the Law Society.

24. SRA Standards and Regulations

We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Our SRA number is 648965.

The SRA is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society of England and Wales, our professional body. Our firm and our solicitors and Registered European Lawyers/Registered Foreign lawyers are governed by Codes of Conduct and other professional rules. For further information on the role of the SRA and the rules and regulations that apply to our services, please visit: www.sra.org.uk.

We practice through a Limited company Greystone Solicitors Limited.

Greystone Solicitors Limited is registered in England and Wales with registration number 11384143. A list of our Directors / Members and their professional qualifications is open to inspection at our registered office Greystone Solicitors, 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS.

25. Referred Matters

If your matter has been referred to us by a third party and/or we have a financial arrangement with that third party, then we shall disclose all relevant details to you in our Client Care Letter including the name of the referrer and the amount of any payment we make to that third party for referring you to us.

Similarly, if we receive a financial benefit as a result of acting for you, we will tell you of the amount in our Client Care Letter. If the third party is paying us to provide services to you, we will inform you in our Client Care Letter of the amount the third party is paying us to provide services to you and, where applicable, the amount you are obliged to pay the third party. Despite any financial relationship with a third party, we will provide you with independent advice and you are entitled to, and we hope that you will feel happy to raise questions with us about any aspect of your matter.

Any information you provide to us or any advice that we give you during your matter will not be shared with the third party unless you expressly agree.

Please note that if we are acting both for you and the third party in this matter, we may have to stop acting for both of you if there is a conflict of interest.

26. Confidentiality & Disclosure Requirements

We owe you a duty of confidentiality in respect of information relating to you which we obtain during the course of our retainer. All such information will be regarded as, and kept confidential at all times unless you instruct us to disclose information, consent to disclosure or except in the circumstances set out within these Terms.

Our duty of confidentiality to you is subject to any disclosures we are permitted to or required to make in good faith to the police, governmental, regulatory or supervisory authorities in relation to any statutory or regulatory obligations. In particular, we are required, without your knowledge or consent, to report any awareness or suspicion of money laundering in relation to the proceeds of any crime. We can also be ordered by the Government Agencies to disclose information and answer questions about your private affairs, again without your knowledge and consent. There may also be circumstances where we may feel that we have to reveal confidential information to an appropriate authority where there are genuine safeguarding concerns and/or a recognised threat to a person’s life, health or welfare is sufficiently serious to justify the disclosure.

Our duty of confidentiality does not apply to a disclosure we make to our insurers pursuant to the terms of our professional indemnity insurance policy. In the event of a claim, complaint or the notification of a circumstance which may give rise to a loss or claim, we are obliged to make a notification to our insurers and this may necessarily result in your file being disclosed to our brokers or insurers.

In a conveyancing transaction where you are buying a property with the aid of a mortgage, we normally receive instructions from your lender to act on their behalf. Where this is the case we are required to pass them information that 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 your lender to know and they are relevant to the lender we may have to stop acting for the lender and possibly also for you. If you do not wish us to disclose this information and wish the lender to be separately represented please advise us in writing at the outset of the transaction.

Your continuing instructions will amount to acceptance of these terms and conditions of business and you then hereby authorise us to disclose to the other parties in the transaction and if applicable, to all other parties in the chain of transactions and their agents and advisers, all information which we have in relation to your involvement in the transaction including any related sale or mortgage and other financial arrangements and wishes as to dates for exchange and completion. You may withdraw this authority at any time but if you do so you should appreciate that we will inform the other party or parties and their agents or advisers that this authority has been withdrawn.

In some instances, we may need to outsource certain tasks, including but not limited to typing, photocopying, counsel, expert reports, cost reporting etc. We shall always obtain a confidentiality agreement unless the outsourced company is authorised and regulated by recognised body. If you do not wish us to outsource any tasks then please inform us in writing.

27. Intellectual Property Rights

We retain copyright and all other intellectual property rights in all documents and other works we develop or generate for you (including but not limited to our business know-how and all other materials). We now grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub licensable licence to use such documents but only for the purpose for which they have been produced. If you wish to use the documents for any other specific purpose then you must obtain our express written consent. If you fail to pay our charges in full for any service provided, we reserve the right, on giving you notice, to revoke that licence and only re-grant it to you once full payment has been made.

28. Opinion from Barristers and other Third Parties

We may retain, for our subsequent use, a copy of the advice or opinion of any barrister or other third party given in written from (or any note of any advice or opinion) obtained in the course of providing the Services. Any barrister or other third party will be instructed on the basis that any such advice or opinion will be so retained.

If we retain a copy of any advice or opinion in this manner we will take all reasonable steps to conceal information (such as names, addresses or descriptions) which might reasonably enable you to be identified.

29. Limited Companies

If you are a limited company or the matter is for or on behalf of a limited company, we will take instructions from the directors and you must send to us a copy the company’s Certificate of Incorporation, Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association. We will also require a resolution from the company confirming our instructions and confirming the person/s from whom we should take instructions, Similar procedures apply to other corporate bodies, organisations, charities and associations.

30. Joint Instructions and Instructions by Companies and/or Partnerships

Where we are instructed to work on a matter for more than one client jointly, we will assume, unless we have written instructions from you to the contrary, that the instructions given by one of you is on behalf of all of you. Similarly, in the event of a business, partnership or limited company we will assume that one of you is duly authorised to give instructions unless we receive written instructions to the contrary. We will therefore act in accordance with such instructions on the basis that you are jointly and severally responsible for instruction us and for our fees.

Each joint client irrevocably permits us to disclose to any other of the joint clients at any time any information which we would otherwise be prohibited from so disclosing by virtue of our duty of confidentiality. If any joint client ends this permission during the provision of the relevant Services, or if a Conflict of Interest otherwise arises between joint clients, we may suspend or terminate the provision of Services related to that Matter to one or more of the joint clients.

31. Data Protection Act 2018 & General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018

How we use your data

We are registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioners Office. We will use the information that you give us to provide you with legal services, as per your instructions. We will keep your information confidential and will only use it for the purpose(s) for which it was provided or as is permitted in law (i.e. for dealing with complaints or regulatory investigations).

Artificial Intelligence

Any AI generated outputs or data will never be a replacement for our independent professional judgment and our staff personally verify all data generated by AI tools.

Whenever we make a decision that there would be benefits to actively using AI tools as part of the legal aspects of your matter, you will be notified of this either in the Client Care Letter or in writing, when applicable.

Outsourcing of our services

Sometimes we have outsourcing arrangements with external companies which cover a range of services including, but not limited to secretarial and administration support, credit control and tele-conferencing facilities to ensure that our services are provided promptly and efficiently. Personal data and confidential information that we hold may be passed to these providers in order for them to undertake these services. In doing so we will always take care to ensure that your information remains confidential and safe. In particular, we have appropriate data protection and confidentiality agreements in place with each of the providers.

Your Rights

You have rights as a Data Subject under the General Data Protection Regulation as incorporated into the law of the United Kingdom by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (and known as the UK GDPR) the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Our Privacy Policy which is made available on our website at https://greystonesolicitors.co.uk/privacy-policy/ and/or will be provided on request 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.

Your rights include the right to be informed what information we hold about you which is known as a data subject access request (although obviously it is likely that you will have provided us with such information as we hold).

You also have the right of access and to request a copy of any information about you that we hold at any time. You also have a right of rectification and, in particular, to request that information is corrected if it is inaccurate.

There are also other rights available to you but these may be limited to a certain extent should you become a client as we may have overriding regulatory duties with respect to handling of your data for the purposes of providing services to you.

In particular, you may have a right of erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten). In certain circumstances, this allows you to request that we erase your personal data. This is not an absolute right however and, once you become a client of our firm, we will be required by our regulators and for legal purposes to retain some of your personal data and other information within casefiles (for retention periods, please see below).

If you are concerned about our handling of your personal data, there are also other rights available to you: a right to restrict processing; a right to data portability; a right to object and to request we stop processing your personal data; and a right in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

Importantly, you also have rights to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you feel that your data is not being handled properly.

For information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of our information, and/or to exercise any of your data rights as explained above, please contact us. Similarly, if you wish to make a complaint in relation to our handling of your data, such as any potential data breach, then please contact us at the earliest opportunity.

Further Information about your data rights and how to exercise them is set out in our Privacy Policy (see above about how to access that). Further details are also available by visiting the Information Commissioner’s Office’s website at: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/.

Please mark your enquiry, request or complaint for the attention of Bilal Farooq who is our Data Protection Officer and the person in this firm responsible for data protection. All enquiries and requests can be sent to them by telephone 01582 343453, by emailing info@greystonesolicitors.co.uk or in writing to Greystone Solicitors, 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS.

How long will we hold your data?

We will only hold your information for as long as necessary to provide you with legal services and then for only so long as we are required either contractually or under our regulatory obligations. This will generally be six years after the end of your matter. For some cases, for instance where you or a named party are currently under the age of eighteen, we may decide that we are required and/or it is proper and appropriate to keep your data for longer than this period, but we will notify you if we believe that your case falls into this category.

* IF you or a subject of any proceedings is a minor then the file should generally be retained until that minor reaches at least 25 years of age (this being 6 years after them reaching the age of eighteen).

After the designated retention time, we will confidentially destroy all information that we hold about you (in accordance with the clauses below relating to storage and retrieval) other than your name, address and date of birth or other information which we will be obliged to continue to hold for the purposes of ensuring that we never act for another client where doing so would conflict with our obligations of confidentiality to you.

32. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“the Act”)

The proceeds of crime are any money, property or asset which has arisen has a result of crime e.g. monies (no matter how low in value) that are the result of tax evasion or benefit fraud whether the money has been saved or spent.

If we become aware or suspect the existence of proceeds of crime in your case (whether from you or any other person), in order to enable us, or any other solicitor, to continue with your case without an offence being committed by us, we must in certain circumstances report the irregularity to the National Crime Agency (NCA) without telling you that we have done so. NCA will then give or withhold permission for us to continue with the case. NCA involvement will cause delays to your case. Even if NCA gives permission for the case to continue, it can pass the information received to any relevant body such as the Inland Revenue and an investigation and/or criminal proceedings may take place at any time in the future.

The obligations that we have under the Act can in certain circumstances override the duty of solicitor/client confidentiality.

Any time spent addressing issues arising from the Act will be charged to you in the same manner as any other work undertaken in relation to your case.

33. The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (as amended by the Regulations 2019).

This Firm operates a comprehensive Anti Money Laundering Policy as required by The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (as amended by  the Regulations 2019) and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and all other applicable legislation and regulatory requirements.

As a consequence of these regulations, we are legally required to ask for proof of your identification and this is in the form of one original photo ID (passport or photo-card driving licence) and 2 original and recent (i.e. less than 3 month’s old) proof of address documents (for example, a bank statement, council tax or utility bill). We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply us with appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent.

We may if required carry out electronic identity checks and the cost of the said search will be noted as a disbursement and payable by you and will be detailed in our bill or invoice.  For all clients we do not see face–to–face we will undertake an on–line ID check at the commencement of your matter, at a cost per client, which will be in addition to the usual ID checks, will be detailed in our bill or invoice. We do not accept any cash payments. You must not under any circumstances transfer any cash. If you do we reserve the right to charge you for the time we need to spend to investigate the source of funds, in order to cover our administrative expenses.  We will also not be able to send monies to any third parties.

Depending on the type of matter and the particular circumstances of the instructions, we may ask you to provide us with proof of your identity, to make searches of appropriate databases and/or to obtain detailed information about the source of any funds or your financial circumstances and the sources of your income or wealth. Where in the course of our checks it is established that the intended funds for your matter are the proceeds of crypto assets, we may pause and subsequently cease work on your matter, unless we can verify that funds from an alternative source have been made available. This information will usually be requested at the outset of the matter and before any work can commence but it may also need to be requested again at other times during the matter, as appropriate. For more information about why we require certain information or documentation, please see our regulator’s guidance for consumers at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/choosing/aml/.

Also, we are obliged to report any suspicion of money laundering to the National Crime Agency without informing you no matter how small a sum is involved. If we fail to do so, we could be prosecuted. The members of Greystone Solicitors will not be liable for any loss you suffer resulting from any disclosure under these provisions (this being an exception to the general rule that your affairs will remain confidential).

In Conveyancing matters in accordance with the Money Laundering Regulations and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, we as a Firm, are required by law to satisfy ourselves as to the source of any funds used in connection with the purchase. We will therefore require evidence of your deposit money and any balance money you will be providing and how it has been accumulated and let us have any documentary evidence you may have in respect thereof. Please note that we will not be able to proceed if satisfactory evidence is not given as to the source of funds.

Subject to the provisions above in relation to liability, we shall not be liable for any loss arising from or connected with our compliance with any statutory obligation, or executing our internal procedures put in place to meet those obligations in good faith, 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.

Financial Sanctions

The UK sanctions regime imposes serious and extensive restrictions on our dealing with clients (and other third parties) who are or become a designated person under the UK sanctions legislation. There are specific reporting obligations and prohibitions (with potential penalties) on carrying out certain activities or behaving in a certain way where financial sanctions apply.

As such, to determine if we can act for you in a certain matter or if there are any other reporting duties we need to comply with, we may also need to conduct additional verification checks on you, other persons such as directors or beneficial owners of a company as well as, potentially, other third parties such as counter-parties in a matter.

34. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013

Right to cancel

This Notice has been provided to you because you have entered into a contract to which the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (‘the Regulations’) apply. Under the Regulations, you have the right to cancel this contract if you wish to do so within fourteen working days without giving any reason.

This Notice explains how to exercise this right. It also gives you other information that is required by the Regulations.

The cancellation period will expire after 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract – that is within 14 days of the date that you receive this notice.

In order to exercise your right to cancel the contract, you need to deliver or send to us a cancellation notice (that is, a written and clear statement that you wish to cancel the contract e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or email). The cancellation statement or notice should be delivered or sent to Bilal Farooq at Greystone Solicitors, 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS or at info@greystonesolicitors.co.uk.

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

Commencing work during the 14 day cancellation period

We cannot provide any services before the end of the cancellation period unless you have made an express request to that effect. If you require us to undertake some urgent work for you before the cancellation period expires, you are welcome to request that we do so. This request should be made in writing and sent to Bilal Farooq at Greystone Solicitors, 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS or at info@greystonesolicitors.co.uk.

However, please note that if you do ask us to begin the performance of services during the cancellation period and then subsequently seek to cancel the contract, you will be liable to pay us an amount which is in proportion to what has been performed until the time that you have communicated us your cancellation from this contract, in comparison with the full coverage of the contract.

Effects of cancellation

If you cancel this contract within the relevant period, this will end both your and our obligations under the contract.

There may be some potential difficulties in re-applying for legal aid for the same matter, if the contract is terminated. We would suggest that you contact us immediately in order that we may discuss this with you in more detail or, if that is appropriate to seek the advice of another solicitor.

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

We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to cancel this contract.

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

35. Force Majeure

The Firm will not be liable for any failure or delay in performing our obligations where that failure or delay results from any cause that is beyond our reasonable control.  Such causes include, but are not limited to: power failure, internet service provider failure, strikes, lock-outs or other industrial action by third parties, riots and other civil unrest, fire, explosion, flood, storms, earthquakes, subsidence, acts of terrorism (threatened or actual), acts of war (declared, undeclared, threatened, actual or preparations for war), epidemic or other natural disaster, or any other event that is beyond our reasonable control. Our obligations will be suspended and any time limits that we are bound by will be extended accordingly (where such extension is reasonably possible).

36. Ending This Agreement

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

Should your matter not be carried through to completion then a charge will be made in respect of the work that has already been completed based upon the fee structure that has been agreed. VAT or similar taxes will be payable on that amount and you will also be billed for any disbursements incurred.

In some circumstances, we may consider that we ought to cease acting for you. We will only decline to act further for you where we have reasonable grounds to do so. Valid reason for our terminating our relationship with you and/or ceasing to provide services includes:

• failure by you to settle invoices in full on the due date or to make payments in advance when so requested;
• failure by you to give clear and proper instructions on how we are to proceed;
• if it is clear that you have lost confidence in how we are carrying out your instructions;
• if by continuing to act we would be in breach of the law or rules of professional conduct;
• if you act in an abusive or offensive manner; and/or
• you or an associated individual become a designated person under the UK sanctions legislation or there is an increased sanctions risk that cannot be managed to an acceptable level.

This is not an exhaustive list. If we do cease to act for you then we will confirm in writing the reasons why and give you reasonable notice.

We will however be able to keep all your papers and documents while there is still outstanding money owed to us even though instructions are terminated.

37. Disclaimers

We shall not advise (generally) on environmental liabilities and we shall assume (unless you confirm otherwise) that you are making your own arrangements for any appropriate environmental survey or investigations. Although we may obtain an environmental search (and in some cases this is a requirement by the Lender) in relation to the land, we will not advise you about any issues relating to the possible contamination of any land which may be relevant to your purchase. We shall not carry out any physical inspection of the property nor advise you on the valuation of the property nor the suitability of your mortgage nor any other financial arrangements. We will not advise you on the planning implications of your proposed purchase, unless you expressly instruct us to do so in writing. We shall, however, report to you on any relevant information provided by the results of the “local search”. We are not qualified to advise on the results of any search made and would only be able to report to you the actual results of such a search. If you require such advice then you are free to seek this independently. If we are acting for you in a purchase and we are also acting for your proposed lender, we have a duty to fully disclose to your lender all relevant facts about the purchase and the mortgage. This includes but is not limited to any irregularities, discrepancies, cash back payments or discount schemes that a seller is giving to you

38. Third Party Access to Court Documents

The Court Rules allow Third Parties (e.g. the press) to ask the Court for copies of any statement of case that we send to Court on your behalf.  This could include detailed information concerning your claim or defence.  We will assume, unless you tell us otherwise, that you accept this.  In some cases, the Court will agree to restrict access to these documents and if you are concerned then you should advise us and we can consider an application to Court.

39. Conflicts of Interest

We search our records to protect you from conflicts of interest. Where a conflict arises or may arise (for example, where we find that your opponent is or has been our client), we may not be able to accept or continue working on your matter.

40. Storage & Copying of papers & documents

After the matter has been completed, we will store your file a minimum of six years, If we have acted for a person under 18 and/or where a child is a subject of the proceedings, the file should be kept for six years after the client and/or after the youngest child who is the subject of proceedings has turned 18. At the conclusion of this period, we will destroy the file, unless it is a Will file, in which case your file shall be held indefinitely. We will place your file into storage fourteen days after your matter has been completed, and should you require return of any papers we hold on your behalf you will need to inform us of this before your file is placed into storage.  Should you require significant papers to be returned to you, we reserve the right to make a charge to cover the time we need to spend to sort through the papers, to cover our reasonable administrative expenses and reasonable photocopying costs to maintain a full record on our file. The firm will not destroy documents such as Wills, Deeds and other securities that you ask us to keep in safe custody. We do, however, reserve the right to scan and shred all other paper files, for the ease of our storage systems.  You should request return of any papers you require within 14 days of your matter being completed if you require return of any such papers before they are scanned and then shredded.  Files relating to claims for children or for persons who are unable to manage their own financial affairs will be kept for longer.

We are entitled to keep your papers and documents if there is any money owing to us for our charges and expenses for any reason.

If we retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to additional or new instructions to act in connection with your affairs, we will charge you £50 plus vat for such retrieval, to cover our administrative expenses of such retrieval. If we are required to retrieve, schedule and despatch title deeds to you or a third party we shall do so by recorded delivery or DX and make a charge of £50 plus vat for doing this.  However, we may make a charge based on time spent producing stored papers or documents to you or another at your request. We may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with the instructions given by you or on your behalf.

On certain occasions it may be necessary for us to photocopy partially or entirely your file of papers for our own records. In such an event we reserve the right to make a charge for the reasonable photocopying costs, usually between 25-45 pence plus VAT per copy before the file can be forwarded.

41. Changes in the Law and Critical Dates

Unless we are instructed to review the law and report to you from time to time or to deal with the matters in question immediately prior to a critical date, we will not remind you of changes in the law which might affect you or future critical dates. We will charge you on a time basis for any research which may be necessary to obtain an up to date position of the legal position as it relates to your matter.

42. Retention of files

At the end of a transaction we will retain the files relating to your matter for a minimum of six years. If we have acted for a person under 18 and/or where a child is a subject of the proceedings, the file should be kept for six years after the client and/or after the youngest child who is the subject of proceedings has turned 18. Thereafter, we will destroy the files without further reference to you.

43. Retention of deeds and documents

At the end of a transaction we will retain and store your deeds and documents if appropriate and at no cost to you.  We reserve the right however to make a charge for storage in the future but will only levy such a charge after notification in writing to you in advance.  If you require access to a file, we will make a charge (the amount to be advised at the time of the request) to cover the cost of retrieval. Retrieval of deeds and documents can take 5/7 working days.

44. Reporting Concerns

We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care and aim to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service, and I am confident that we will do so in this case. However, if you would like to discuss how the service to you could be improved, the level of your bill, or should there be any aspect of our service with which you are not satisfied, please contact Bilal Farooq of partner responsible for complaints on 01582 343453 and info@greystonesolicitors.co.uk or by post to Greystone Solicitors, 275 Dunstable Road, Unit 3, Luton, LU4 8BS. We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints and this will be immediately sent to you.

If you would like to see a copy of our complaints procedure at any other time, please let me know and I will arrange for a copy of our complaints procedure to be sent to you.

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within that timeframe, then you may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH.

Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of your having received a final written response from us about your complaint. Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring or from when you should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.

For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

If you think a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, you also have the right to notify our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). There are no time limits for making a report but there are limits on what the SRA will consider. Please note that the SRA is not able to deal with issues of poor service (complaints of this nature should instead be referred to the Legal Ombudsman). For further information about the SRA’s role, please visit: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/.

You also have the right to object to the bill by making a complaint to the Legal Complaints Service, and/or by applying to the court for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

45. Audit

If you are a client under the legal aid scheme then we may be contractually required to share some or all of that information with the Legal Aid Agency and / or with our quality assurance auditors.

Occasionally, we may need to share some or all of your information with our quality assurance auditors for the purposes of their assessment of whether we are adhering to quality standards. In particular, our files may need to be assessed for quality purposes by a Lexcel and/or Conveyancing Quality Scheme assessor and your file may be one of a sample which is to be assessed. Any examination will be strictly controlled and will be shared for the sole purpose of ensuring that our handling of your matter meets the requirements of the quality standard.

We may have to share some or all of your information with other third parties. This may include barristers, experts and other third parties who we need to instruct to assist us with your matter. We may also have to share information with the Legal Ombudsman (if you complain about our services) and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the statutory body that regulates solicitors). In doing so we will always take care to ensure that your information remains confidential and safe. We will liaise with you during your case about which experts, barristers and other third parties we instruct on your behalf. If you do not consent to such inspections then you must tell us in writing.

46. Limitation of Liability

Reliance by third parties

Advice rendered by us is provided for the purpose of the instructions to which it relates and for your benefit. It may not be used or relied on for any other purpose or by any person other than you without our prior agreement.

Liability in respect of other parties

We will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that all information provided by us is accurate but we cannot account for the accuracy of information provided by or obtained from third parties. We shall not be liable for any decision made or action taken by you or others based upon reliance on or use of information or advice provided by or obtained from third parties.

Where we are asked to recommend the services of another advisor or service provider, we will do so in good faith, but without liability and without warranting the ability or standing of that person or firm. We will not be responsible for the quality of the services provided by that person or firm.

The Firm maintains professional indemnity insurance in accordance with the SRA requirements with a cover limit of £3 million for any one claim.

In no circumstances should our total liability to you exceed the limit of your indemnity insurance cover. 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 profits or opportunities.  We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows.  In particular, we cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.  Please ask if you would like us to explain any of the above terms to you.

Copies of the Firm’s professional indemnity insurance policy are available on request.

47. Financial Services Compensation Scheme

In the event of a banking failure, it is unlikely that the Firm would be liable for any loss of client money held in a client account, provided that the Firm has complied with its legal and regulatory obligations.

Clients may be entitled to compensation under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), subject to the eligibility criteria and compensation limits applicable at the relevant time.

The current FSCS deposit protection limit is £120,000 per eligible person, per authorised bank, building society or credit union. If you hold money in the same bank or banking group in which we hold client money on your behalf, the total compensation available to you may be affected and will be subject to the applicable FSCS limits.

In the event of a bank or building society failure, we may disclose information relating to your funds to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), regulators, insolvency practitioners or other relevant authorities in order to facilitate any claim for compensation and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

48. Wills

We will prepare your Will strictly in accordance with your instructions in the Will questionnaire and the details you have provided, and so you are required to ensure you have provided complete and accurate information. We shall not be liable for any errors or omissions in details provided by you.

Capacity: By completing the questions which form part of the Will questionnaire and answering any additional questions, you confirm that you have sufficient mental capacity to make and execute a Will. We accept no responsibility for verifying the identity, age or testamentary capacity of you or your witnesses.

Coercion: By completing the questions which form part of the Will questionnaire and answering any additional questions, you confirm that you are not subject to coercion or undue influence and have not been influenced by anyone in answering the questions. We accept no responsibility for checking whether there has been any coercion or undue influence for a postal Will service.

Fees: Once we have prepared a draft Will for you our full fee becomes immediately payable.

Tax Advice: Tax advice/work is outside of the engagement with you, and we shall not be liable for any adverse tax implications. Changes in inheritance tax legislation may affect the tax efficiency of your Will.  Please note that we will not be obliged to contact you if there are any changes to the tax legislation, but may choose to do so at our option.  We cannot be liable to you for any losses, damages or costs (whether arising in contract, tort, negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise) arising as a result of our failure to contact you in these circumstances. Leaving your residuary estate between exempt and non-exempt beneficiaries (i.e. charities) may result in negative tax implications if your estate is subject to inheritance tax; if you have any concerns you should contact Greystone Solicitors to discuss your circumstances.

Signing your Wills: It is essential that your Wills are signed in accordance with the signing instructions we send out with them.  If your Wills are not signed and witnessed correctly they may be invalid.  Failure to sign your Will may lead to your estate passing under the intestacy rules and if you have no previous Will. If you do not follow our instructions in relation to the signature of your Will then we accept no responsibility for the effective execution of your will. If for whatever reason you fail to sign your Will, we accept no liability to you for the completion of your Will, nor any loss arising for its non-completion

Profession Executors: You have a choice whether to appoint an Executor who is a professional (Greystone Solicitors), lay (family member or beneficiary), or both, and should take into account the size and complexity of the estate when deciding. If only a lay, the lay may engage the services of a professional on the death of the client. Where we are appointed as Executors and as per Law Society guidelines, our fees for carrying out the administration of the estate could be charged for on an hourly rate basis or a percentage of the estate or both, determined on a case by case basis, taking into account the size and complexity of the estate. Typically, our charges would be in the region of 2% of the gross estate value plus vat.

Renouncing as Professional Executors / Trustees: Where we are appointed as Executor (and trustee) and asked to renounce (and retire) by the beneficiaries, following the death of our client, we would not normally do so, in accordance with Law Society guidelines, so as to ensure that the wishes of our client are carried out. Where we do consider such a request, we would look at all of the relevant reasons and make a charge for our time spent in such consideration and for the preparation and signing of any relevant papers. If we decide to renounce our appointment as Executor, we reserve the right to charge a fee of £250 plus vat for the work involved and if we decide to retire as Trustee, we reserve the right to charge a fee of £250 plus vat for the work involved.

Third Parties: The Services are provided to and for the benefit of you as our client and you alone. No other person may use or rely upon the Services nor derive any rights or benefits from them. The provisions of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 are to that extent excluded.

The Firm’ alone will provide the Services and you agree that you will not bring any claim whether in contract, tort, under status or otherwise against any Director, or any consultant to, or employee or agent of the Firm or any service company owned or controlled by or on behalf of any of the Directors and those Directors, consultants, employees and agents shall be entitled to reply on the terms of this agreement insofar as they limit their liability.

Marriage / Divorce: Marriage automatically revokes a Will.  If you are contemplating marriage or contemplating entering into a civil partnership, this will not be accommodated in your Will, unless expression provision to the contrary has been agreed, and so your Will shall automatically be revoked should you marry or enter into a civil partnership and you will need to have a new Will drawn up. If you divorce then any inheritances under your Will due to the ex-spouse may be affected and you should seek further legal advice.

Your assets: Your Will disposes of everything you own except (1) assets which you own jointly with someone else (such as property or bank accounts), which pass to the survivor(s) automatically on your death (2) discretionary benefits from pension schemes or other types of trust. If you own an asset with others as tenants in common, your share or interest will pass under your Will.

Claims against the validity of the Will: The most common grounds for disputing the validity of a Will include but are not limited to (1) lack of testamentary capacity (2) knowledge and approval (3) coercion or undue influence (3) failure to correctly execute the Will. If you have any concerns when instructing us to prepare your Will regarding any of these grounds then please let us know otherwise we accept no responsibility for claims made against the validity of your Will. We recommend to all clients that they obtain a GP letter confirming that they have the necessary testamentary capacity to make a Will and understand its contents. This can be used in case your Will is challenged after your death.

Claims against your Estate: It is possible for certain persons to make a claim on your estate if it can be shown that at the time of your death your Will does not make reasonable provision for them. Any claim allowed, would be assessed by the Court. If it was anticipated that such a claim could arise it is advisable to leave a letter to your Executor setting out any special circumstances relevant to any possible claim. The persons that may have a right to apply to the Court include any partner of yours, if you have lived as man and wife or civil partners for at least  2 years prior to your death, any former husband/wife or civil partner provided he or she has not remarried or has entered into a subsequent civil partnership, or an order of the Court bars any claim, any child of yours, any person not being your own child who in the case of any marriage of yours was treated by you as a child of the family in relation to that marriage, any other person who immediately prior to your death was being maintained wholly or in part by you. In any event, we would recommend that you explain your thinking in a letter to the Executors in case your Will is challenged after your death.

Storage:  We store Wills here free of charge. We do not register your Will with any Will registries, but if you require this service then please let us know and we shall provide you with a quote.  If you store your own Will it is your responsibility to inform your Executors of its location.  If you decide that you do not wish for Greystone Solicitors to securely store your Will we shall return it to you.

Releasing original Wills: To safeguard our clients’ documents to ensure that they are only released to the person entitled to them and to ensure that our clients’ affairs remain confidential, before we can proceed with releasing your Will, we will require the following documents (1) written instructions to release your Will in the form of a signed letter (2) passport or photo card driving licence (3) two x proof of address documents containing your name and address and dated within the last three months from different organisations (i.e. Utility Bills, Council Tax or Bank Statements). If you do not wish to send your original identity documents then you can send to us certified copies, which have been correctly certified by a bank or Solicitor as true copies of the originals. If you wish to collect the documents then please let us know and we will arrange to contact you to book an appointment. In the event of your death, your Will shall only be released to your Executors upon receipt of written instructions from your Executors to release your Will, valid ID documents of all Executors, and a death certificate.

If you wish to have your Will sent to you by post, we will send it out to you by registered delivery (usually recorded delivery); please let us know which address to send this to.  There would be an administrative fee of £35 plus vat to retrieve your Will plus postal costs (c. £5-10). Please note that we do not accept any liability for loss in the post by Royal Mail.

As a general disclaimer, Greystone Solicitors does not accept liability for ensuring that you have a validly executed new Will or destroyed any old ones, or that your Executors/Beneficiaries are able to locate your Will when the time comes, nor any loss arising from this.

Trust Administration: With some executorship matters there may be a continuing role for us as Executor to act as a Trustee. In these circumstances any Trustee fees will be charged for on an hourly rate basis. These charges relate to carrying out the day-to-day administration of the trust including the preparation of annual accounts for one year where appropriate. The amount quoted covers the work which we must undertake in order to comply with our professional obligations including but not limited to keeping trust minutes / records, complying with financial services regulations, reviewing the trust portfolio, submitting annual accounts. However, they do not cover any additional work which may become necessary due to activity within the trust itself including but not limited to capital payments made to beneficiaries, retirement of trustees, appointment of trustees, selling or acquiring trust property, or any tax advice.

We shall submit an annual bill at the end of each financial year but also reserve the right to submit interim bills where appropriate.  Our fees shall be payable from the trust fund and, if necessary, we reserve the right to sell assets to settle trust liabilities and if there are insufficient cash assets in the trust.

49. Lasting Powers of Attorney and Deputyships

Where Greystone Solicitors are appointed as an attorney or a deputy we will charge for all such services, including any time spent in dealing with routine matters which a lay attorney or deputy could undertake, in accordance with our scales of fees that are applicable at the time, and which will be within Law Society guidelines.

50. Discrimination

Greystone Solicitors treats all clients and third parties fairly and equally at all times. Greystone Solicitors does not discriminate against clients or third parties irrespective of:

– race or racial group (including colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins);

– sex (including marital status, gender reassignment, pregnancy, maternity and paternity);

– sexual orientation (including civil partnership status);

– religion or belief

– age

– disability.

Greystone Solicitors takes steps to ensure that we meet the diverse needs of our clients. If a complaint is made based on discrimination, we will treat this complaint very seriously and act promptly to investigate such complaint. We are committed to equality and diversity and have an equality and diversity policy in place. Equality and diversity is maintained in the workplace, when providing services to clients, and in our dealings with third parties, for example, barristers, experts, or suppliers. If you have any specific requirements or individual needs, please let us know. Also, please note that we are free to accept or decline instructions from any clients.

51. Monitoring Telephone Calls

Greystone Solicitors may record calls for training purposes, quality control, and for our client(s) and our staff(s) protection. We reserve the right to refer to the recorded calls should a dispute arise. You have the right to obtain a recording and/or transcript of any such recorded calls.

52. Environmental Policy

Greystone Solicitors recognises that it has a responsibility to the environment beyond legal and regulatory requirements. We are committed to reducing our environmental impact and continually improving our environmental performance as an integral part of our business strategy and operating methods, with regular review points. We will encourage clients, suppliers and other stakeholders to do the same. Our key focus is to reduce paper wastage and therefore, as a matter of routine, we shall communicate with you by email wherever possible.

53. Newsletters

Where you supply us with your email address, you agree to opt in to receiving our monthly newsletter (usually emailed out on the last working day of each month) which provides updates about Greystone Solicitors, its services, legal updates and other information. If you do not wish to receive our newsletters then please notify us in writing.

54. Applicable Law

These terms and conditions shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the law of England & Wales.

The Courts of England & Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this agreement and any matter arising from it.

55. Terms and Conditions of Business

Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of current hourly rates, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to Greystone Solicitors. If you have any queries regarding these Terms and Conditions of Business then please let us know otherwise please note that when you sign the client care letter, form of authority, or other documents in order to instruct Greystone Solicitors you do so agreeing to these terms of business.

As this is an important document, please keep your copy in a safe place for future reference.