(Incorporating Information for Clients as required by the Lawyers & Conveyancers Act 2006)
We are committed to providing you with an excellent legal service that is consistent and prompt and which includes:
You can help us by:
We will:
The basis on which fees will be charged is set out below. We may deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements, for which we will provide an invoice.
Our fees are calculated in accordance with the guidelines prescribed by the NZ Law Society which include:
The relevant importance of these factors will vary according to the particular circumstances.
For on-going matters we will send you at the end of each month, an account of our fees and expenses incurred during that month. Where a transaction will be completed within a short time we will send you an account prior to or on completion depending on the nature of the matter.
We may ask you to pay an amount into our trust account as a retainer on account of our fees and expenses. Most legal work incurs out of pocket expenditure on disbursements such as land search and registration fees, valuation fees, Court filing fees, and Council fees. Also, frequently legal transactions do not proceed to completion, eg. a proposed purchase or sale of property sometimes does not proceed. Although our final fee may be less than the original estimate, because the matter did not proceed, some fees will nevertheless be payable for the time spent on the matter, and expenses or disbursements may have been paid on your behalf. By accepting these Terms of Engagement, you authorise us to:
Other than for property related transactions where payment is required at or prior to completion, we require payment of all accounts within 7 days of invoice date.
From the expiry of 30 days after the date of our account, we will charge interest on all fees and expenses that remain unpaid at our principal banker's commercial overdraft rate at the date of invoice plus a margin of 2% calculated on a daily basis from the due date for payment until the actual date of payment in full. Other action to recover unpaid fees may also be taken and the cost of such recovery may be added to the account due by you.
Where it is necessary for us to engage, on your behalf, the services of other consultants to provide specialist advice or services, including advocacy services, we will discuss the terms of any consultant's engagement with you. In general, we will require payment of any consultant's fees prior to our instructing them.
It is possible that a court or tribunal may make an order that you pay another party's costs and expenses. Payment of those costs is additional to and does not alter your liability to pay any fees and expenses to us.
Unless specifically agreed by us in writing any estimate of our fees does not amount to a firm quotation and our fees and expenses may exceed that estimate.
Goods and Services Tax will be added to all amounts estimated, quoted or involved except where the services provided are zero rated for GST purposes.
Where significant sums of money are received into our trust account on your behalf we will endeavour to lodge those funds on a daily bank deposit.
If you wish us to retain your file on completion of a matter, then we agree to do so, but at your risk. Due to space constraints on site we may forward your file to a reputable secure document storage company ("our agent') who will either hold your file or scan and hold an electronic copy of your file in which case the original hard file will be securely destroyed. Your file will be held subject to our agent's terms and conditions of service. While all reasonable care will be taken, neither we nor our agent will have any liability in relation to the services provided by our agent. We will destroy or arrange for the destruction of your file ten years after the date on which your file is forwarded for storage.
As a matter of course we will also hold, on your behalf, all important legal documents which have been signed, relating to your legal affairs, eg. wills, trust deeds, leases and certain commercial contracts. We will hold these documents at your risk, and we may also send them to a reputable secure document storage company, on the same basis as your files may be sent. Documents will not be destroyed unless requested by you or unless rendered obsolete by the passage of time or for other valid reasons.
Presently, we absorb the costs of scanning, storage and destruction of files and documents although we reserve the right to charge and to recover these costs from you.
We are entitled to retain possession of your files and documents while there is money owing to us for our costs and expenses. We are entitled to keep photocopies of your files and documents if you remove them from us.
We hold current professional indemnity insurance providing cover when acting as lawyers. As with all insurances this cover has limitations and is subject to certain exclusions, terms and conditions. Our cover meets the minimum standards specified by the Law Society.
We do not accept liability for any loss arising from non receipt of any communication including email communications.
You may terminate our engagement in writing at any time.
We may stop working for you if:
These Terms of Engagement apply in respect of all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent that we otherwise agree with you in writing.
We will treat all information we hold about you as private and confidential and will not disclose any information we hold on your behalf or about you unless we are required to do so by law or where it is necessary to do so to provide our services to you or when requested by you or with your consent.
The Law Society maintains the Lawyers Fidelity Fund for the purpose of providing clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arising from theft by lawyers. The maximum amount payable by the Fidelity Fund by way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000.00. Except in certain circumstances the Fidelity Fund does not cover a client for any loss relating to money that a lawyer is instructed to invest on behalf of the client.
It is our goal to ensure that we provide you with a premium customer service. If you have any concerns with our services, please talk direct to Richard Holland.
If you are still dissatisfied, write to us setting out your concerns. We are committed to making sure your concerns are addressed.
In the unlikely event that we are unable to resolve your concern, you are able to make a complaint to the Law Society complaints service. To do so, you need to contact the District Law Society.
Please visit www.lawsociety.org.nz or call 0800 261 801.
The Law Society Client Care and Service information is set out below.
Whatever legal services your lawyer is providing, he or she must:
The obligations lawyers owe to clients are described in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. Those obligations are subject to other overriding duties, including duties to the courts and to the justice system.
If you have any questions, please visit www.lawyers.org.nz