| Our Terms of Business |
| Khalaf & Co Solicitors will carry out all work for you on the terms set out in this document (“our Terms of Business”). We will ask you to sign our Terms of Business to indicate that you have read and understood them. If, for any reason, you do not sign our Terms of Business but you continue to engage us, you will be deemed to have signed and agreed to them. |
| Work Undertaken |
| Khalaf & Co Solicitors will write to you and confirm the work that you ask us to carry out on your behalf. We will explain more to you about the progress of the work as it proceeds. If you would like more information at any stage, please let us know. We will also identify both the individual who will carry out the work on your file on a day-to-day basis and also, if different, the person who is ultimately responsible for that work. Khalaf & Co Solicitors may need to refer issues to another lawyer either within the firm or who is contracted by us, in particular where they can be handled by another individual with specialist expertise in that area. We will normally inform you in advance of the name and status of any lawyer working on your matter, although there may be times when it is not practical to do so. |
| Contacting You |
| When you give us your postal address, fax number or email address, or communicate with us by these means, we shall be authorised to use that postal address, fax number or email address to send communications to you, unless you tell us otherwise. It is your responsibility to tell us when you do not wish us to communicate with you in this way, or if you want us to telephone you before we send a fax or email. Breaches of confidentiality, or non-receipt of our communication, when using these models of communication will be at your risk. |
| Our Charges |
|
Unless otherwise agreed with you in writing, we will charge according to
the time that we spend on a matter and the nature, importance and
urgency of the work undertaken. Our standard hourly rates may change and
the charges will be based on our rates prevailing from time to time when
the work is undertaken. Our charging rates are reviewed at the start of
each year, and may also be subject to review during the year. We will
provide you with details of our prevailing rates on request. The
following rates currently apply: - standard Hourly Rates Partners & Senior Consultants: £200 Clerks: £55 In addition, as set out above, our charges may also take account of the importance, value and difficulty of the work involved, the degree of specialisation needed, and the urgency of the task. |
| Premium Hourly Rates |
|
If Khalaf & Co Solicitors carry out work that either requires extensive
knowledge of a foreign language, is very urgent or undertaken at short
notice or outside normal working hours, we will be entitled to charge a
premium of 50% on our Standard Rates (“Premium Rates”). Like most other firms, Khalaf & Co Solicitors record time in units of six minutes. Our charges apply to all time spent on a matter, including any time that we spend in meetings, in telephone conversations, travelling, correspondence and on other activities, and making a record of them. Khalaf & Co Solicitors charge a minimum of £350 on any case ( apart from Wills) unless we agree otherwise with you. On many matters, Khalaf & Co Solicitors ask for money on account of fees or disbursements, at the outset and as the matter progresses. When we do so, we hold that money in our client account, separately from our own, office account, funds. We may use the money to pay disbursements, or to settle our invoices (after we have sent a copy of the invoice to you). We will return to you any balance left at the end of the matter. We will not generally pay you interest on money held in our client account unless we specifically agree to do so with you beforehand. Khalaf & Co Solicitors will also charge for any disbursements that we incur on your behalf (for example, Court fees, experts’ and agents’ fees, courier charges and search fees, bulk photocopying charges, travel costs and other items where we incur an expense solely to carry out work for you). By instructing us, you agree that we are authorised to incur any such disbursements on your behalf where we consider that these are necessary or desirable to further the matter upon which we act for you. |
| Our Invoices |
|
Khalaf & Co Solicitors' invoices are payable on presentation. In most
cases, we will provide you with an invoice monthly. We will be entitled
to stop working on a matter or discontinue acting for you if an invoice
is overdue, or if we have asked you to pay money on account of our fees
or disbursements and you have not done so. If this happens, we may also
withdraw from acting for you in any court proceedings. You shall remain
responsible for paying our charges for any time incurred in us applying
to the Court to “come off the record” or in any subsequent
correspondence or dealings carried out in respect of the matter (for
example with your opponent’s solicitor) after we have stopped acting for
you. Interest will be charged on overdue invoices (both before and after judgement). We will charge interest on the unpaid balance of invoices outstanding for 7 days as follows: -
Khalaf & Co Solicitors will also charge for all time spent (at our standard hourly rates) and for our expenses incurred in chasing or recovering payment on any overdue invoices. |
| General Indemnity |
| By instructing us you thereby agree to indemnify and keep indemnified Khalaf & Co Solicitors, its partners and employees from and against all costs, claims, demands, liabilities, expenses, or damages incurred in us acting in good faith on your behalf. |
| Director's Personal Indemnity |
| Where we act for a private limited company, we do so on the basis that any director by giving us instructions thereby agrees to indemnify us in respect of any invoices properly payable by that company in the future on any matter. If, therefore, the company client does not settle one of our invoices, we may also look for payment to the director instructing us on that company’s behalf. |
| Money Laundering Provisions |
| Khalaf & Co Solicitors will not accept cash in payment for costs, disbursements, or deposit for a transaction/purchase above £3000. You are required to give us 14 days prior notification of the source of any non-cash funds. Failure to provide such information may well mean we are unable to complete the proposed transaction. In such circumstances we will not be liable for any financial loss suffered by you as a result of not completing the transaction. With the exception of £50 - £100, allowing for arithmetical error, we will not accept more funds than is needed to complete your transaction. |
| Quality Control and Complaints Procedure |
| In the interests of improving the quality of our service, Khalaf & Co Solicitors operate a complaints procedure within the firm. If you have any query or complaint of any nature, you may raise it with the individual solicitor handling your file. If you remain dissatisfied, you should contact The Law Society, which can give you further guidance. |
| Legal Costs in Contentious Matters |
|
If the matter in respect of which we are instructed involves court
proceedings, you may have a potential liability not only for your own
legal costs, but also for the costs incurred by the other side in those
proceedings. Broadly, the rule in English litigation is that the loser
pays the winner’s costs in an amount ordered by the court, but there are
exceptions to this general rule. It can be difficult to estimate an
opponent’s legal costs, since they are dependant on the work carried out
by the opponent’s lawyers. If you would like more information on this
point, please let us know. You will be responsible for paying our invoices in full, regardless of any order for costs that the court might make in legal proceedings. If you were to obtain an award for costs against an opponent, you remain liable to pay our invoices, and you will be entitled to receive reimbursement of the amount of costs awarded to you by the Court from your opponent. However, it may be necessary to take further legal proceedings against your opponent to recover your costs. In the event that you win in any legal proceedings, you are unlikely to recover all of your costs from your opponent. This is because there are certain categories of work that the court may not order your opponent to pay for, in any event. If you win, the court may therefore not order your opponent to pay the full amount of our charges. However, even if we are successful in obtaining an order for costs on your behalf against your opponent, he may not be capable of paying what the court orders him to pay, or you may face practical difficulties in enforcing payment of your costs (for example if your opponent becomes insolvent, or is overseas, or cannot be traced). You should also be aware that most contentious matters settle before they come to trial, on the basis of an agreed settlement. Reaching an agreement to avoid the delays, risks and expenses of a trial often involves some compromise, particularly upon the amount of your costs that your opponent will agree to pay. |
| The Conclusion of Work |
|
After concluding your work on any matter, we are entitled to keep all
your papers and documents while there is any money owing to us for our
charges and expenses. Khalaf & Co Solicitors will destroy our files of papers (except for any papers which you ask to be returned to you) after our final invoice for that matter. Destruction will take place six years from the date of our final invoice. We will not destroy documents that you specifically deposit for safe custody. Either you or we may terminate our engagement to act in respect of any matter at any time. Where we represent you in legal proceedings, we must request the Court’s permission if we wish to cease acting on your behalf. Wherever possible, notice of termination should be given in writing. Where either you or we do so, our charges will be calculated on an hourly rate, or upon any other basis that we may have previously agreed with you, up to the time that we cease acting. |
| Limitation of Liability and Third Party Rights |
|
Khalaf & Co Solicitors shall only be liable to our client engaging us
upon our Terms of Business in respect of any work carried out or
services provided, and we shall not be liable to any other party
(whether under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or
otherwise) except where we expressly agree in writing with our client. Our liability (whether in contract, tort or otherwise) for any claim arising in connection with work undertaken or services provided (except in the case of death or personal injury, or where otherwise the law restricts us from limiting our liability) shall be limited to:
|