We value your instructions and we aim to help you achieve your goals quickly and effectively. We also aim to ensure that at all times the services we provide to you are of a high quality and that our fees are fair and reasonable. These pages set out our standard Terms of Business. Please read this document carefully together with the client care letter you will be sent when you instruct us. Certain sections of this document may not immediately be relevant, however, we aimto build a long-termrelationship with our clients and we take the view that it is important to provide you at the beginning with a description of the terms on which we provide all our services. If you have any queries, please raise them with us as soon as possible. All instructions we accept incorporate these Terms of Business.
1. Contacting us
Our offices are open between 9am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays). Outside these hours, please refer to our website for contact details.
2. Responsibility for work
We will tell you who will have overall responsibility for your matter. You will also be advised of the person responsible for the day to day conduct of your matter. That person may change from time to time, although we will inform you of any changes at the earliest opportunity.
3. Identification
The law requires us to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identities and addresses of our clients, as well as financial details and information about any sources of funding. Sometimes, we also require the same from people related to our clients and/or third parties involved in their matters, for example, a beneficial owner or a person paying fees on a client’s behalf. If requested, you must meet us to enable us to verify your identity. We will be unable to act for you if you fail to comply with requests for such evidence and information. We are required to monitor transactions and maintain records relating to your identity and we may ask you to provide updated proof of identity from time to time.
4. Authority
If you are a director or other representative acting on behalf of a company, we are entitled to assume that the instructions we receive from you have been authorised by the company.
5. Cancellation rights
If we do not meet with you, or we attend on you at a place other than one of our offices, for example, in your home, place of work, hospital or care home, then the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 may apply to the work. This means you have the right to cancel your instructions to us within 14 working days of receiving the Engagement Letter and Terms of Business. You can cancel your instructions in writing sent to the office and person dealing with your work. However, if we start work with your written consent within that period, you lose that right to cancel your instructions. You must pay for the services we have undertaken and the fee will be based on the work we have done up to the date we are notified of your decision to cancel the contract and will be proportionate to the work we have done in comparison with the full contracted service. If we complete the work before the end of the cancellation period, you lose the right to cancel the contract.
6. Financial Services
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. We cannot advise you on the merits of investment transactions or exercising investment rights or act as an arranger or broker of transactions. We assume that your decision to enter into an investment transaction is yours alone based on your own assessment of the transaction and any advice you receive from a person authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing in our communications with you or made on your behalf should be interpreted as an inducement or invitation to engage in investment activity.
We are not authorised under the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000. However, we are able in certain circumstances, to offer a limited range of investment services to clients because we are members of the Law Society. We can provide these investment services if they are an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society and the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any investment advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.
7. Our charges
We generally work out our charges by multiplying the legal representative’s hourly charging rate by the time or units they have spent on your matter. Each unit represents 6 minutes of time. We regularly review our hourly charging rates. We will tell you about any changes before we charge you. However, time spent is not the only factor that we take into account. We believe that our charges should reflect the value of our services to you. Therefore, we may take into account how complicated your matter is, how urgent it is, the value of the transaction, specialist skills and the amount of responsibility we accept.
It is often very difficult to predict the costs, disbursements and expenses that will be involved to the conclusion of a matter. However, for matters where we have not already agreed with you a fixed fee, if it is appropriate and practicably reasonable, we will provide you with an initial estimate. Given the difficultly in calculating an estimate, it is frequently the case that such estimates relate to completion of work up until a certain stage of a matter. Further estimates will be provided as your matter progresses and when your legal representative has a clearer idea as to the likely costs, disbursements and expenses to be incurred. Please note, such estimates shall be exclusive of any VAT unless expressed to include the same. In addition, there may be occasions, where, due to factors beyond our control, such estimates have to be revised. If any factors affect your estimate, for example, if the matter becomes more involved than initially set out, your legal representative will provide you with an updated estimate.
An estimate is only a guide. The actual costs incurred will always replace any estimate provided, unless otherwise advised. You can ask to set a limit on our charges if you want to.
Before starting work on your matter, or at any stage during your matter, we may ask you to make a payment on account and for that payment to have been received as clear funds in our bank account. This payment will be held on account of any charges and expenses incurred and can be applied against any invoice issued to you. We will inform you when a payment on account is to be deducted from an invoice issued and clarify the outstanding invoiced amount due. It is important to understand that our requests for monies on account are exactly that and therefore, unless otherwise advised, do not constitute any form of estimate. We may retain any funds held on account upon conclusion of your matter to contribute towards settlement of any costs, disbursements or expenses owed on any other file(s) belonging to you and your acceptance of these Terms of Business shall authorise us to debit such monies. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, we will usually invoice you at regular intervals, even if the matter has not been completed. Our invoices will give details of our charges and expenses and any disbursements. Please ask if you would like any additional information.
8. Conditional Fee Agreements and other special arrangements
We may vary our methods of charging if special arrangements are made with you in writing.
9. Expenses
While we are acting for you, expenses (or ‘disbursements’) may arise. We will normally charge you separately for internal expenses such as photocopying and travel, and external expenses we have to pay on your behalf such as barristers’ fees. Other expenses such as search fees, experts’ fees and court fees we can pay on your behalf (and normally we will require advance payment from you for such expenses). We will send you an estimate at the start of your matter of how much and what these are likely to be. You can ask us to set a limit on expenses if you want to.
10. VAT
By law we have to add VAT to our charges, expenses and disbursements.
11. Interest
The over-riding objective is to achieve a fair outcome for both you and us. When we receive money from you or on your behalf, it will be paid into a general client account with the Co-operative who is our bank. No interest will be payable where the total amount of interest calculated on the balance held is less than £20, as the cost of administering this payment exceeds the amount payable. We will provide a written copy of our full interest policy upon request.
12. Legal Aid
Where we have a Legal Aid contract in the relevant area of law, and if you are eligible, we will help you to apply for Legal Aid. You will be responsible for our charges and expenses until Legal Aid is granted. We will tell you about your responsibilities to the Legal Aid Agency when you apply for Legal Aid.
13. Your responsibilities
We require you throughout your matter to provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions, together with all required documentation to complete your matter in a timely manner. We shall also require you to safeguard any documents that are likely to be required for disclosing and also to keep us updated with any key information that may be required by us, for example, your contact address and telephone numbers.
We may ask you for information to help us with your matter. You must give us information we ask for as soon as possible, and tell us if you think it is not complete or accurate. In addition, it is your responsibility to carry out any other tasks that we agree you should do. We will not be responsible for anything that happens because you have not done something we asked you to do promptly. This may also mean you have to pay extra charges or expenses.
All advice provided to you is based on our understanding of the law as it applies at the time it is given, and on the facts you have given to us. We cannot be liable for any incorrect advice provided on the basis of inadequate or inaccurate information you have given to us.
If we think that any information you have given to us is inadequate we will not be able to advise you until any further information we ask you to obtain or verify is provided, and further charges will then apply.
We expect you to pay our invoices when they are due, even if you have an arrangement with another person for payment (unless we have already agreed in writing to contact that person for payment). If you do not pay our charges as and when they are due, we may not undertake further work on your matter until they are paid.
By providing instructions, you agree that it is an express term of our retainer that we have the right to deliver interim bills and that section 74(3) of the Solicitors Act 1974 does not apply.
14. Copyright
We keep all copyright and other rights to all reports and documentation that we produce, written advice or other materials we provide while we are acting for you. You have the full right to use these materials within your own organisation or on another matter we are dealing with on your behalf. You will need our prior permission if you want to use these materials in any other way.
15. Tax
We do not have the expertise to offer any financial or tax planning advice. We suggest that you speak to your financial adviser/accountant to advise on tax and similar matters including VAT.
16. Conflicts of interest
Solicitors must endeavour to avoid situations of conflict and also ensure that a client’s interests are not compromised. Where a conflict arises or may arise (for example, where we discover that your opponent is or has been our client), we may not be able to continue working on your matter. If there is no conflict we may act for two or more of you. If a conflict arises during our retainer then we may have to cease to act for one or more of you.
17. Confidentiality
Generally, unless you otherwise agree, all information and documentation supplied to us by you shall be treated as confidential at all times. However, we may be required by law to reveal certain information and documents about you to authorities such as the Police, HM Revenue & Customs, Serious Fraud Office or National Crime Agency in relation to matters such as tax, money laundering or terrorist financing, and to the Legal Aid Agency if your matter is publicly-funded at any stage. In this event, you agree to waive our duty of confidence to you and the ‘legal professional privilege’ that attaches to your communications with us and in particular to the communications between you and the person at Burke Niazi handling your matter.
If we are required to make a disclosure in relation to your matter we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.
18. E-mail
E-mail is used to facilitate communications. Whilst reasonable steps are taken to maximise security, it is the case that e-mail is not entirely secure. You should note that we cannot accept responsibility for any failure of security associated with e mail, unless you expressly instruct us not to use e-mail. You should carry out your own virus checks before opening any e-mails or attachments as they may, despite our precautions, contain viruses.
19. File retention and retrieval
We have the right to keep your papers as well as monies and other items held for you until our charges and expenses have been paid in full.
Following completion of your matter, we will retain your file of papers for such a period as we shall deem appropriate with regard to the guidelines laid down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and, if relevant, the Legal Aid Agency. In most cases, this period will be 6 years. After that time, storage is on the understanding that we have the right to destroy the file after such period as we consider reasonable.
We reserve the right to make an administration charge (a minimum of £30 including VAT) based on the time spent in retrieval and any perusal of documents , copying or other work necessary to comply with the instructions given by you or on your behalf.
We will not release your file of papers to any third party unless we have your written consent to do so. The person collecting the file on your behalf will need to satisfy us of their identity by providing photographic identification. We will need a signed ‘form of authority’ in order to release your file to another firm of solicitors.
20. Payments to us
We will only accept payments to us made by cheque, debit card, credit card, telegraphic transfer or BACS transfer provided such cheques or transfers are drawn on or made via a London clearing bank. We require cleared funds in advance in order to begin working on your matter. Please speak to your legal representative if you have any questions relating to payment methods.
Burke Niazi will NOT notify changes to our bank account details by email. If you receive any communications suggesting that our bank account details have changed, you should contact us via the number on our website or headed notepaper immediately to confirm the details before making payment. Please be aware that a fraudulent e mail may contain a fraudulent phone number or email address for Burke Niazi. We will not take responsibility if you transfer money to a wrong account. Please contact the solicitor with conduct of your matter if you have any concerns about transfer of funds to this firm’s account.
In circumstances where we are in possession of any monies due to you, we would expect to deduct from such funds any costs, disbursements and expenses owed in respect of the relevant matter or any other matter on which you have instructed us. Acceptance of these Terms of Business shall be treated as sufficient authority for us to do so.
21. Payment terms
You must pay our invoices as soon as you receive them. We may charge interest on invoices which are not paid within 28 days from the date of the invoice. The rate of interest will be 2% more than the base rate of the Co-operative bank.
We may require payment before commencing, or continuing, work on your matter.
22. Payment by the opponent
In matters that we are instructed on involving court proceedings, if the court rules allow us to, we will try to get your opponent to pay our charges and expenses of dealing with your matter. If we are successful, there may still be some charges and expenses which you will have to pay. We will discuss this with you at the appropriate time.
Ultimately, however, it is your responsibility to pay our charges and expenses, which you may not recover, or recover in full, from your opponent.
23. Liability
This firm maintains professional indemnity insurance in accordance with the rules of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Details of the insurers and the territorial coverage of the policy are available for inspection at our offices at 470 -474 Holloway Road, London N7 6NN. These details can also be provided upon written request.
24. Your money
If we receive or hold money for you or on your behalf, we will deposit that money in a client account at a bank which is permitted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to accept deposits. You can request details of the bank in which we hold your money by writing to us.
We shall not be responsible for any losses whatsoever suffered, sustained or incurred by you or any third party by reason of any failure or collapse of any bank at which client monies are deposited. You consent to the disclosure by us to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) of details of your holding(s) of any money in any client account at a bank which fails or collapses. The FSCS imposes a limit on the amount of compensation which may be claimed. You can obtain further information via the FSCS website at: www.fscs.org.uk.
25. Losses
We shall not be responsible for any losses whatsoever suffered, sustained or incurred by you or any third party by reason of our compliance with obligations imposed on us by legislation relating to or connected with the prevention of crime and/or the instruction of any law enforcement agencies.
We shall also not be responsible for any losses whatsoever suffered, sustained or incurred by you or any third party by reason of our compliance with obligations imposed on us by any other enactment or rule of law.
These Terms of Business are not intended to and do not confer any rights on any third party under the Contracts (Right of Third Parties) Act 1999.
26. Data Protection Privacy Notice
How we use your data
Burke Niazi Limited is 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).
Sharing information
If you are a client under the legal aid scheme then we may be required to share some or all of that information with the Legal Aid Agency and / or with our quality assurance auditors.
We may have to share some or all of your information with other third parties. This may include barristers; experts; and others who we need to instruct to assist us with your matter, 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.
Your Rights
You have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation and these include the right to be informed what information we hold about you (though obviously it is likely that you will have provided with such information as we hold). You also have the right to request a copy of any information about you that we hold at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate.
For information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of our information, and to exercise your rights to access information we hold on you, please contact us. Similarly, if you believe that the information we hold is wrong or out of date, please let us know and we will update it. The person in this firm responsible for data protection is our Data Protection Officer, Harriet Kaiser, Practice Manager and enquires and requests can be sent to her by telephone 0207 263 7887, by emailing harrietkaiser@burkeniazi.com or in writing to Burke Niazi Limited, 470 – 474 Holloway Road, London N7 6NN.
How long will we hold your data?
We will only hold your information for as long as necessary to provide you with legal servicesand then for only so long as we are required either contractually or under our regulatory obligations. This will not likely be more than six years after the end of your case / matter. After this time, we will confidentially destroy all information that we hold about you other than your name, address and date of birth 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.
Our full Privacy Notice is available on our website at http://www.burkeniazi.com/privacy-policy or on request.
27. Termination
You can ask us to cease acting for you at any time. This must be in writing. If you do so, we draw your attention to the paragraph headed ‘File retention and retrieval’’ under section 19 of these Terms of Business.
We may refuse to continue to act for you if you fail to comply with any of your obligations to us. We may also refuse to continue to act for you if there are other circumstances giving us good reason to do so. We will give you reasonable notice if we are no longer going to act for you. If we do this, you will have to pay any charges and expenses that arise before that date, and you will continue to be responsible for any commitments we have entered into on your behalf. We may charge you for work which we have to carry out after termination or because you ask us to transfer your papers to another adviser.
28. Complaints
We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem.
In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues. If you would like to make a formal complaint, then you can raise the matter with David Marcus, who is a director and Burke Niazi’s complaints handler.
It may help if you put your complaint in writing, explaining what action you would like us to take and keeping a copy yourself, though this is entirely up to you. David will look into the complaint, discuss it with the lawyers dealing with your case, and confirm in writing what Burke Niazi will do about it. This will be at no extra cost to you. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.
If, after making a complaint to David, you have not received a response within 8 weeks or are not satisfied with Burke Niazi’s final response, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman, which is a free and independent service and it will not affect how we handle your case.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first.
The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.
Contact details
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk (http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk)
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk (mailto:enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk)
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH.
Do not send original documents to the Ombudsman as they will scan any documents to make computer copies and then destroy the originals.
What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.
Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/).
29. Jurisdiction and Law
The law of England and Wales applies to these Terms of Business and any dispute that may arise in respect of them. The English and Welsh Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction of any matters of dispute that may arise in respect of these Terms of Business.
30. Additional Terms and Conditions – ‘Unbundled’ matters
If we are providing fixed fee services to you, we may be assisting you on an ‘unbundled’ or ‘partial retainer’ or ‘limited retainer’ basis. This means that we will only advise or assist you in respect of the work for which you have paid a fixed fee to us, and this agreement to provide fixed fee services is limited to advice and assistance in relation to the fixed fee and corresponding piece of work.
Examples of unbundled services are providing a client with advice on a specific issue of law, drafting a specific document for a client or attending a specific hearing with a client.
If we have agreed a fixed fee to assist you with an entire matter, for example, to act for you throughout a particular set of court proceedings, then we will not be assisting you on an unbundled basis. This is because the entire matter and all steps within it are “bundled” together and the costs of our work in respect of the same are reflected in the fixed fee agreed.
If we are assisting you on an unbundled basis, we do not agree to provide any further advice, assistance or representation under this agreement. If you require further advice from us on the matter in which you have paid a fixed fee to us, a related matter or any other matter, any further services provided by us will be on the basis of a separate agreement and additional charges will apply.
Where services are being provided as unbundled services in relation to litigation, we will not usually go on the Court record as acting for you, accept service of documents or communicate with third parties on your behalf until such time as we are instructed to attend a final hearing or in respect of the litigation as a whole. We also require that, when you are completing court forms or other documents in your own capacity, we are not held out as your solicitors in respect of that litigation.
All advice provided to you under an agreement for unbundled services is based on our understanding of the law as it applies at the time it is given, and on the facts you have given to us. We cannot be liable for any incorrect advice provided on the basis of inadequate or inaccurate information you have given to us.
If we think that any information you have given to us is inadequate we will not be able to advise you until any further information we ask you to obtain or verify is provided, and further charges will then apply.
31. Acceptance of Terms and Conditions of Business
Your continuing instructions in your matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms of Business. Even so, we ask you to please sign, date and initial each page of the terms and return it to us immediately. We can then be confident that you understand the basis on which we will act for you. We cannot proceed with your case until this has been returned to us.
Burke Niazi and Burke Niazi Solicitors & Advocates are the trading names of Burke Niazi Limited a company registered in England & Wales number 7257606
Our registered office is at:
470-474 Holloway Road, London N7 6NN
Telephone: 020 7263 7887
Fax: 020 7263 9889
Email: enquiries@burkeniazi.com
Web: www.burkeniazi.com
DX : 38663 Holloway
VAT No. 697 0843 88
We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Registration Number: 541094 . The Solicitors Regulation Authority Code of Conduct and professional rules to which we are required to adhere are available via the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s website www.sra.org.uk