Conveyancing Terms and Conditions

POLICY STATEMENT

It is the policy of Hughes & Co. to provide accurate, reliable and practicable legal advice to each client. We will be open and honest in our dealings with clients in our charging policy and will respect their needs at all times.

QUALITY STANDARDS

Hughes & Co. is working towards Lexcel accreditation – the Law Society’s Practice Management Certification Scheme. We have introduced systems to control the quality of our service to you. These systems are subject to regular auditing and your file may be produced to an auditor so that the quality of our service may be monitored. Confidentiality will be preserved at all times. Please let us know in writing if you object to the production of your file to our quality auditor.

FEES

Our estimated charges will have been given in writing for the work we are to do for you, or we may have reached a separate written agreement about fees. In either of these cases you will be charged that amount unless a variation has been agreed. Our charges do not include VAT which must be added to your bill.

The Law Society states that Solicitors remuneration shall be such sum as may be fair and reasonable having regard to all the circumstances of the case and in particular to
The complexity or difficulty of the matter
The skill, labour, specialised knowledge and responsibility involved;
The time spent on the business, including the number and importance of the documents prepared or perused;
The amount or value of any money or property involved; and
The importance of the matter to the client and other relevant circumstances of the transaction.
It may be that the circumstances of the matter may change such that the fees or expense rates set out in our estimate do not properly reflect these factors. We reserve the right in these circumstances to amend the rates subject to reasonable prior notice to you of any change.

We will endeavour to inform you at the earliest opportunity if any circumstances arise, ie additional unforeseen work, unexpected difficulties or a change in your requirements necessitate a revision to our estimate. You can also, if you wish, set a limit on this firms costs which we cannot exceed without further reference to you.

PAYMENT ON ACCOUNT

It is normal practice to ask clients to make payment on account of anticipated costs and disbursements, ie search fees. We may deliver bills to you at regular intervals for work carried out during the conduct of the case, but this is unlikely in the case of normal conveyancing transactions. This enables Clients to budget for costs. In the event of payment not being made we must reserve the right to decline to act any further and that the full amount of the work done up to that date will be charged to you. It is Anami Law’s policy that costs must, in any event, be paid in full before completion of any matter or transaction. The firm reserves the right to charge interest at 4% above the HSBC rate on unpaid costs and disbursements.

MONEY HELD ON YOUR BEHALF

Any money received on your behalf will be held in our Client Account. We do not anticipate holding large amounts of money on your behalf for long and but if we do, interest is payable to you, subject to certain minimum amounts and periods of time set out in the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules. Ascertainment of interest due (based on Barclays Bank Client Account rates – currently low) is an additional administrative burden however and interest will not be paid where the amount due to you is less than £20. We also reserve the right to retain interest earned on the account where the actual time spent on the matter exceeds the estimate given to you or where otherwise fair and reasonable to do so. Any interest due will be paid gross and you will therefore be liable to account to the Inland Revenue for Income Tax due.

Where a client obtains borrowing from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to telegraph the money to us the day before completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Clients need to be aware that lenders may charge interest from the date of issue of their telegraphing of the payment to us

COMMISSIONS

If we are involved in arranging mortgages, insurance or other financial services. Where this happens we reserve the right to keep any commission earned or (where there is no commission) to make an administrative charge.

MONEY LAUNDERING

We are subject to the Money Laundering Regulations 1993. We are required to ask clients who are undertaking relevant financial business for identification and to check the source of monies paid to us. We are unable to accept any cash payments over the amount of £350.

TERMINATION

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time but we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses.
We may decide to stop acting for you only with good reason, for example, due to a conflict of interest arising or non-payment of costs. In this case we will advise you in writing and will bill you for the cost of the work carried out to that date based on an hourly rate.

STORAGE OF PAPERS AND DOCUMENTS

After completing the work, we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. In addition, we will keep your file of papers for you in storage for not less than 5 years. After that, storage is on the clear understanding that we have the right to destroy it after such period as we consider reasonable or to make a charge for storage if we ask you to collect you papers and you fail to do so. We will not, of course, destroy any documents such as Deeds and other securities which you ask us to hold in safe custody. No charge will be made to you for such storage unless prior notice in writing is given to you of a charge to be made from a future date which may be specified in that notice.

COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

Anami Law are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. However, in the unlikely event, you are not satisfied with any aspect of our handling of your business, we need to know as soon as possible, so we can put things right. In the first instance, please speak with Laura Smith, Laura.smith@anami-law.eu personally. If she cannot resolve the matter to your satisfaction, there is a formal complaints procedure about which she will advise you.