Relationship Note

This document includes basic information about our agreement with you and your agreement with us. It forms part of our terms and conditions of work.

Our relationship – Us to you and you to us

Why this note?

Our services are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and follow the SRA Standards and Regulations, which includes seven key principles for professional conduct. You can find these principles at www.sra.org.uk. This note consolidates key information that is common to all cases, no matter why you have come to see us. It forms part of the contract between us. Advice that deals with your particular matter will be provided separately.

Who we are

We are a limited liability partnership of Solicitors that includes a Compliance Officer for Financial Administration and a Compliance Officer for Legal Practice. Any reference to “we” “our” or “us” is a reference where appropriate to the partnership.

Opening hours

The office is open Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm.
The switchboard is open during office hours. Outside of these times, a voicemail facility is in operation.

The main characteristics of our service

The main characteristic of the service we are to provide is the provision of legal advice and assistance and representation in respect of your matters.

Our aims and commitment

We are committed to high-quality legal advice and client care with a personal service at a fair cost.
We aim to promote equality and diversity in all our dealings; please let us know if you want a copy of our diversity policy.
We are proud to hold the Law Society’s Lexcel accreditation, as our clients and our staff are of prime importance to us.
We aim to reply to correspondence and enquiries promptly.
We must always act in your best interests (subject to any duty to the Court and other legal duties).

For a Court case:

We will explain the risks and benefits of taking legal action in civil matters.
We will give you the best advice about whether to accept any offer of settlement.
We will give you the best information possible about the likely costs of a claim for damages.

At the outset, we will confirm in writing to you:

Your instructions to us.
Any advice we have given.
Estimated timeframes.
What action we will be taking.
When you are next likely to hear from us.
What action we need you to take.
The best information we can give regarding estimated costs and how they will be met.
Any further information we need from you.

During your matter, we will:

Keep you informed of progress.
Advise you of any delays and explain the reasons.
Explain the effects of any important documents.
Inform you if estimate costs need revising.
Explain any changes of staff impacting your matter.
Review your file regularly

At the end of your matter, we will:

Write confirming the outcome.
Explain any continuing consequences.
Issue our final bill promptly
Settle any outstanding money due to you, normally within a four-month period. If our bill has not been paid, you may ask for any papers and property to which you are entitled, subject to any right to retain them.
Close your file and place it in storage in accordance with the provisions below.

Your commitment to us

Give us clear instructions that allow us to do our work properly.
Not to ask us to work in an improper or unreasonable way.
Not to deliberately mislead us.
Co-operate with us.
Go to any medical or expert examination, appointment or Court hearing.
Tell us if you have any important time limits.
Make sure we have understood each other correctly. Ask us if you are not sure about anything.
Deal promptly with any important questions that arise.
Do not feel afraid to ask for a progress report if you are worried about anything, or you do not hear from us when you expect to do so.
Help us use our time to your best advantage so your matter is pursued and concluded as efficiently as possible. Please therefore avoid unnecessary calls and appointments – it may delay progress and increase your ultimate costs liability.

Complaints

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to inform us. This will help us to improve our standards.

If there is any aspect of our service with which you are concerned, we will investigate it promptly and thoroughly, whilst trying to resolve it to your satisfaction.

How to raise a complaint:

Discuss your concerns with your primary contact – misunderstandings arise which can often be cleared up quickly.
If you remain concerned, you should contact your primary contact’s supervisor (named in our terms of business letter), or their head of department.
If the matter still cannot be resolved satisfactorily, you may wish to bring it to the attention of Jonathan Clarke, our Client Care Consultant, who is based at the Hertford office (jonathan.clarke@attwaters.co.uk). We have a written complaints procedure which is available on request.

How Jonathan Clarke will deal with your complaint:

He will acknowledge your complaint and ask for any required further details. He will also indicate how your complaint will be dealt with. You can expect to hear from him within 3 working days of us receiving your complaint.
We will record your complaint centrally and open a file for your complaint.
He will investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps:
1. He will ask the member of staff who acted for you for comments on your complaint.
2. He will consider your file and may then ask for more information.
He will write to you with his conclusion plus recommendations to hopefully resolve your complaint. These steps in all should take no more than 4 weeks.
If you are not satisfied or would like a meeting with Mr Clarke, or both, you should let him know. We will then arrange to review our decision if it appears necessary. This may happen in one of the following ways.
1. Jonathan Clarke will review his own decision.
2. We may arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it.
We will let you know the result of the review. At this time, we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. The review procedure and notification should not take more than 2 weeks.

If after this investigation you are still concerned, you can refer the issue to the Legal Ombudsman (www.legalombudsman.org.uk 0300 555 033, PO Box 6167 Slough SL1 0EH). You may refer the matter to the Ombudsman if you have not heard from Mr Clarke within 8 weeks of a formal complaint to him, or within six months of his final written response, or within a year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or you becoming aware of such act or omission).

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

We are not obliged to follow the complaints process if:

We seek an order restraining a client from committing an act or compelling the client to act.
We have a judgment or award for a specific sum where there is no arguable defence.
We are enforcing an agreement order or award.

We have a policy to manage complaints related to alleged breaches of data protection laws, ensuring concerns are handled seriously, investigated thoroughly, and resolved transparently in line with relevant legislation.

Scope and commitment: We commit to protecting personal data privacy and handling complaints fairly, emphasizing confidentiality and non-discrimination for complainants.
Types of complaints: Complaints may involve unlawful data processing, excessive data retention, inadequate security, improper data disclosure, or dissatisfaction with handling data subject rights.
Complaint procedures: Clients and third parties can raise complaints through any staff member, with prompt referral and responses within specified timeframes. They will be dealt with in accordance with our procedure (available on request and on our website).
Compliance: All complaints are recorded centrally, reported to partners, and non-compliance may lead to disciplinary or regulatory actions. The policy is reviewed annually and updated as needed.

Charges and expenses

Our charges are calculated mainly by reference to the time spent by the solicitors and other staff on work for you. This includes:
- Taking all required steps to meet our legal and regulatory requirements, such as conducting Anti-Money Laundering or Know Your Client checks.
- Meetings with you and others; reading, preparing and working on papers; making and receiving telephone calls, emails, faxes and text messages; preparation of any detailed costs estimates and bills; and time necessarily spent travelling away from the office.
From time to time, we may arrange for some of this work to be carried out by persons not directly employed by us; such work will be charged to you at the hourly rate which would be charged if we had done the work ourselves. We are required to impose duties of confidentiality on such persons, equivalent to those which we follow.
Routine letters, emails, texts and telephone calls that we send, receive or make are charged at one-tenth of the hourly rate. Other letters, emails and calls are charged on a time spent basis.
We will add VAT to our hourly rates at the rate that applies when the work is done.
Our hourly rates are reviewed periodically to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation. Normally, the rates are reviewed with effect from 1 April each year, but we reserve the right to make changes at other times as business requires. If a review is carried out before your matter has been concluded, we will inform you of any variation in the rate before it takes effect.
If a fixed fee has been agreed for the work, that fee will be charged unless the circumstances of the matter change (eg. if the matter fails to proceed, additional work is required or unanticipated complications arise).
In complex or high-value transactions or where specialist expertise is required, there may be an additional charge which is calculated based on time spent. This may reflect a percentage of the price of the property, the value of the transaction or other financial benefit. This value element reflects the importance of the transaction, its complexity and the consequent responsibility falling on the firm. Where it is added, we will be happy to explain the calculation to you.
In probate matters, an additional charge to the hourly rate is allowable, known as the value element. Where a member of this Firm is not an Executor, the value element is usually:
- 0.5% of the value of the deceased’s home if owned in his or her sole name
- 0.25% of the deceased’s home if owned by him or her jointly with another person
- 1% of the value of the rest of the estate.
Where a member of this Firm is the sole Executor or joint Executor with any person these percentages are increased by 50%. However, when the value element is charged in its entirety, the Partner’s hourly rate will be reduced to the rate of a senior assistant solicitor.
Solicitors must pay out various other expenses on behalf of clients, such as Land Registry fees, court fees, experts’ fees and barristers’ fees. We have no obligation to incur such expenses unless you have provided us with the funds
for that purpose. We refer to such payments generally as ‘disbursements’. We will require a payment in advance from you in respect of any disbursements payable on your transactions. VAT is generally payable in addition.
We will inform you if any unforeseen work becomes necessary, e.g. due to unexpected difficulties or if your requirements or the circumstances change during the matter. We will also inform you in writing of the estimated cost of the extra work before incurring extra costs. We will agree an amended charge with you. If we cannot reach an agreement, we will do no further work and charge you on an hourly basis for work to date, as set out earlier.
If a matter does not proceed to completion for any reason, we will charge you for work done and expenses to the stage where the case ends.
We will be happy to tell you the total time spent on your case whenever you ask.
It may be necessary on some occasions to attend court with your barrister, given our day-to-day knowledge of your matter.
It also avoids the potential for misunderstanding of advice or directions given at Court. Although we appreciate this will be an increased cost to you, our experience shows that our attendance provides clarity and ultimately will avoid further costs as a result of misunderstandings.
Generally we do not undertake legal aid work but for information contact the Legal Aid Agency: www.gov.uk/legal-aid Tel: 0300 20 2020.

Payment arrangements

Unless your accompanying letter deals with special arrangements for payment such as a conditional fee agreement, the following applies:

Residential Property transactions
Where we are acting on a purchase, we reserve the right to send you an interim bill for £600 plus VAT when we have concluded our initial investigation and submitted enquiries to the sellers’ solicitors. On a sale, we reserve the right to do the same when we have answered enquiries for £350 plus VAT. We will normally send you our final bill following the exchange of contracts. On a purchase, payment is required prior to completion. On a sale, payment is required at completion. If sufficient funds are available on completion and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds. Where Stamp Duty and/or Registration fees are payable, we must have sufficient funds to cover these before completion.

Other cases or transactions and non-typical property transactions
It is normal practice to ask clients to pay interim bills and make payments on account of the charges and expenses that are expected in the following weeks or months. Interim bills have the same effect as a final bill for the work covered by the bill. Clients can request an assessment of the bill, and we can take court proceedings if they are unpaid. We find that this helps clients in budgeting for costs, as well as keeping them informed of the legal expenses being incurred. If such requests are not met with prompt payment, there may be a delay in the progress of a case. In the unlikely event of any bill or request for payment not being met, this firm reserves the right to stop acting for you further and charge you for the work done up to that point.
- Payment is due to us when you receive our bill. Where payment is not made when due (including a final bill), interest will be charged daily at 8% over Barclays Bank Plc’s base rate from the date of the bill. A credit administration charge of 15% of the sum then owing to us for extending and administering credit accounts will be applied. We pass collection of unpaid bills to our debt recovery agency. We will accept payment by credit and debit card to settle bills and for payments on account of fees up to £500. In any other circumstances, we will normally only accept payment by bank transfer or cheque.
- We are entitled to retain any money, papers or other property belonging to you which properly come into our possession pending payment of our costs, whether or not the property is acquired in connection with the matter for which the costs were incurred. This is known as a “general lien”. We are not entitled to sell property held under a lien, but we are entitled to hold property, other than money, even if the value of it greatly exceeds the amount due to us in respect of costs.
- We cannot accept payments to us in cash in excess of £300 (for payment on account). Monies due to you from us will not be made payable to a third party. If you require us to make payments by electronic payment, then a charge (currently £40 plus VAT) will be made. This charge includes our costs associated with the payment.
- Money Laundering Regulations are specific as to the conditions under which we can accept monies from a new Client. In all cases, we are required to verify your identity and the source of funds to be used in the transaction before being able to accept any instructions. This will normally necessitate you attending one of our offices for your identification documents to be copied and certified and digital checks. If funds are to come to us from any source other than an account held in your own name (or jointly with one or more other persons), then please notify us at the outset. In such circumstances, we will also be obliged to verify the identity of the source of the funds. If we are not given satisfactory evidence, we may be required to terminate our instructions.

Recovering your costs in some circumstances

Again, your accompanying letter may deal with special arrangements for payment such as a conditional fee agreement, so as to vary the following:

In some cases and transactions (but hardly ever in Employment Tribunal matters), a client may be entitled to payment of costs by some other person. It is important that you understand that in such circumstances, the other person may not be required to pay all the charges and expenses which you incur with us. You must pay our charges and expenses in the first place; any amounts which can be recovered will be a contribution towards them. The other person will not be liable to pay the VAT element of your costs if you are able to recover the VAT yourself.

The reason not all costs are recoverable is illustrated by a simple example. A costs order in your favour from a Court entitles you to such costs as are reasonable and in a dispute about the amount. There is a procedure to have the sum assessed at court. You may wish to call us every other day for an update. A court assessment may say that a call every fortnight is reasonable and will only allow the costs of that.
If you are successful, and your costs fail to be paid by the other party, we will be able to claim interest on those costs to be paid from the date on which the order for costs was made. To the extent that any of our charges have not been asked for and paid on account, we will retain this interest.
In the event of you being partially or wholly unsuccessful in your claim, it is possible that you will be ordered to pay the costs of the successful party. In such an event, you can generally expect your opponent’s costs to be at a similar level to your own, assuming the legal work on both sides has been similar (there will be exceptions if the opponent’s firm is in an area with higher overheads which are approved by the Court). We advise Clients fully on this element of litigation. Please note that in these circumstances, you will also be obliged to meet our costs in full.

Interest payment to you

Any money received on your behalf will be held in our Client Account. Subject to certain minimum amounts and periods of time set out in the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules 1998, interest will be calculated and paid to you.
Where a client obtains borrowing from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to arrange that the money is sent to us on the day before completion. This enables us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Such clients need to be aware that the lender may charge interest from the date of issue of making the payment.

Interest policy

The guidelines for when interest will be paid and is summarised below.

We aim to account to you for interest at a reasonable rate of interest however, as the holding of your funds is incidental to the carrying out of your legal instructions, the rate is unlikely to be as high as the rate you may be able to obtain when depositing the money we hold on your behalf yourself. We must ensure that money held on client account is immediately available and so the need for instant access is considered when setting the rate of interest payable by us.
We align our interest rates paid to the rate of instant access accounts at the bank where our general client account is held. This rate may change from time to time. A uniform rate is applied to all clients unless our fiduciary duties demand otherwise.
Where your money is held on our general client account, any interest paid to you is paid without any deduction for income tax (unless payment is subject to some withholding tax). As such, it is your responsibility to inform HMRC of the amount of interest received from us and the implications of this will depend upon your own financial circumstances.
Interest will be calculated from the time the funds become cleared for interest purposes. Interest will be calculated daily and calculated on amounts held overnight from the day the funds become cleared.
Interest will not be paid if the total held is less than £2,000.00. For sums above that figure, interest will be calculated at a fair rate commensurate with market circumstances at the time. If negative rates apply, we will charge that interest to our client if the total payable exceeds £50.
Interest will not be paid if the total amount calculated for the period that cleared funds are held is less than £50.00. Interest will be calculated at the end of the matter and will credit the ledger at that date. Note that interest credited is held on account and may be earmarked to be transferred against any outstanding bill balances.

Unpresented cheques

If you do not present a cheque we have sent you within six months, the following applies:

If the cheque is for £25 or less, we cancel the cheque, charge the cheque cancellation fee of £12 and pay any balance to a charity.
If the cheque is for a sum of £25.01 or more, we will ask you for new instructions for payment. If we have not heard from you within 14 days, we do the same as above with an additional charge for writing to you and administration. Where the sum is over £500, at the discretion of our Management Board, we will transfer the sum to a charity. Should the client later be found the sum will be returned if still held by us or by recourse to the charity through the indemnity they have given us.

Property matters

What we don’t do

It is not our responsibility to carry out a physical inspection of the property, but if you wish us to do this for any reason, please make a specific request. With reference to the Building Safety Act (“BSA”) (where building height is important), if there is no survey or inspection, we can only rely on what we are told during the course of the transaction. We cannot advise on the height of buildings or whether they are in the scope of the BSA. We can relay to you the contents of the certificates forming part of the BSA regime, but we are not able to verify the accuracy of their contents. We shall not advise on the valuation of the property nor the suitability of your mortgage nor any other financial arrangements. We shall not advise generally on environmental liabilities where we shall assume, unless you tell us to the contrary, that you are making your own arrangements for any appropriate environmental survey or investigations. We may, however, need to obtain an environmental search on behalf of your lender at your expense. We do not advise on the tax implications of any transaction, other than in relation to Stamp Duty Land Tax. You should seek the advice of an accountant as to the tax effect of any transaction.

Acting for you and a lender

When we act for you and a lender, we have a duty to fully reveal to the lender all relevant facts about the purchase and mortgage, including any differences between your mortgage application and information we receive once instructed, any cash back or discount schemes given by the seller.

Exchange of contracts

When your transaction is part of a chain, it is common for all parties to agree on a day for the exchange of contracts. All contracts in the chain are then released and available for exchange until a specified time on that day. Exchange during that time window is binding on all parties. If expedient on your transaction, we will adopt that process unless you tell us otherwise. Also, if one of two parties gives authority to exchange, that will bind both parties unless you tell us otherwise.

Storage of papers and documents

We will keep your file of papers for you in physical or electronic storage as follows:
- All conveyancing files 15 years
- Litigation (adult able client) 7 years
- Litigation (infant or mentally disabled client) indefinitely
- Probate and Administration where whole estate is wound
  up and distributed 12 years
- Wills, EPA, LPA indefinitely
- Trust matters indefinitely
- Matrimonial matters where no continuing obligation
  exists or from determination of such obligations 7 years
- Company formation or similar corporate and commercial matters 7 years
The documents or records kept will include all those required under money laundering regulations.
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 your papers and you fail to do so. Under Money Laundering Regulations, we are obliged to keep records for 5 years, so if you wish to have your file or papers during the first five years, we would have to make copies for which we will charge at our normal rates. The same regulations suggest deletion of ID records (if retained) after 10 years. If we are keeping a file for longer, we will keep the ID records as well unless you tell us otherwise.
If we retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. Otherwise, we will. We may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers.

Financial services and insurance contracts

We are 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 distribution activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong are subject to the jurisdiction of the Legal Ombudsman. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.

Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time.
We may decide to stop acting for you. We will tell you the reason and give you notice in writing. Reasons may include:
- if you do not pay an interim bill or comply with the request for a payment on account
- if you fail to give us instructions at all or in time to deal with your case properly
- if you unreasonably refuse our advice
- if your instructions would mean us acting unlawfully or in breach of our conduct rules.
We will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses, whatever the reason for the termination of our relationship.

Limited companies

When accepting instructions to act on behalf of a limited company, we may require a Director and/or controlling shareholder to sign a form of personal guarantee in respect of the charges and expenses of this firm. If such a request is refused, we will be entitled to stop acting and to require immediate payment of our charges on an hourly basis and expenses, as set out earlier. We will also have to check the identities of such individuals.

Tax and planning advice

Any work that we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies. We may be able to identify a source of assistance for you. We do not generally offer tax advice. If you think we may be able to assist with a specific query, we will need separate instructions and will issue a separate letter confirming what we have agreed.

Identity, disclosure and confidentiality requirements

We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent. We are required as part of our client due diligence to undertake whatever searches are appropriate to confirm both identity and source of funds and wealth. You will appreciate this covers the funds to be used in the transaction and a general view of your financial position to establish the derivation of wealth. Apart from enquiries of you, we use a variety of digital services to do this. The extent depends on the nature of the transaction. The cost of any such searches will be charged to you. If the amount is in excess of £25 excluding VAT, we will seek your prior agreement. We charge for the time spent obtaining and checking identification material and obtaining information on source of funds and source of wealth. All such information must be checked and recorded. It is a time-consuming process that we are obliged to undertake and we are entitled to charge for the time spent.
Personal identification evidence (if we are taking paper verification) means:
- a photograph bearing document such as a current passport, photo-card driving licence or national identity card; and
- evidence of current address such as a recent utility bill or bank statement no more than three months old.
In the case of a company, the evidence we require is as follows:
- the Certificate of Incorporation;
- personal identification evidence from the Director instructing us; and
- if different, personal identification evidence of the owner of the controlling interest in the company
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: Legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the National Crime Agency. Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the solicitor may be required to make a disclosure. If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure, we may not be able to inform you that it has been made, or of the reasons for it, because the law prohibits ‘tipping-off’. Where the law permits us, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we may need to take.
Similarly, third parties, such as our bankers, may be under a legal obligation to investigate funds we are holding for a client. In those circumstances we would be obliged to disclose such information as we have.
We reserve the right to cease acting for a client who is subject to financial sanctions under the Sanctions Act 2018 or similar legislation.
From time to time, our firm is subject to audit by third parties such as the SRA and Lexcel Auditors amongst others. In the course of such audits your file may be reviewed by one of their representatives on a confidential basis. We may also outsource work. This might be for example typing or photocopying or costings, or research and preparation to assist with your matter. We may need to give information to our professional indemnity insurers. Information from your file may therefore be made available in such circumstances. We will always aim to obtain a confidentiality agreement with the third party.

Communication between you and us

We will aim to communicate with you by such a method as you may request. We may need to virus check discs or email. Unless you withdraw consent, we will communicate with others when appropriate by email or fax, but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by email or fax. Where you have supplied us with an email address, we will proceed on the basis that you consent to us sending you any document or notice to you by email unless you indicate otherwise.
The Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulations require us to advise you that your particulars are held on our database. We may, from time to time, use these details to send you information that we think might be of interest to you. None of the information that we hold on computer will be disclosed to third parties except in the ordinary course of acting for a client or if required by law. If you do not wish to receive information about Attwaters Jameson Hill and its services you should notify our Data Privacy Consultant, Jonathan Clarke (dataprivacy@attwaters.co.uk or 0203 871 0008) who will ensure that your name is removed from our database for this purpose. Full details of data protection arrangements are contained in a separate notice to you on this topic.
Where we act for two or more clients jointly, it is on the clear understanding that we are authorised to act on instructions from either, both or any of them.

Cybersecurity

Your data and its privacy is important to us, so we take cybersecurity seriously. We have CyberEssentials Plus accreditation and a range of technical devices and software to minimise our vulnerability to a cyber-attack.
We have insurance to cover data loss and business resilience in the event of a successful attack. The cover exceeds £1 million, and we must restrict our liability in the event of any loss to the policy limit from time to time. Details can be supplied upon request.
We cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred by clients in respect of transactional delay or interruption which is both beyond our reasonable control and not covered by our insurance.

Off premises contract

Where you are instructing us as a private individual (a consumer) and not as a business client or for a business purpose, if we have not received and accepted your instructions at a meeting with you at our offices, you have the right to cancel your instructions within 14 days from the date you receive this note without giving any reason.

If you wish to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by sending us a clear statement before the cancellation period has expired.

If you cancel this contract within the cancellation period, we will reimburse any payment received from you within 14 days of receiving your decision to cancel.

We can only carry out work for you during the cancellation period if you request us to do so in writing, by email or by returning our terms of business letter signed in which event, if you subsequently cancel you will be liable to pay for the work already done or any payments made on your behalf.

Insurance and limitation of our liability

We are obliged to let you know that we are covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance. Details of our insurers are as follows:
- Sompo International Insurance Policy number: B1877PI25OPM1096 with correspondence to Hera Indemnity Limited, 70 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0HR.
Our liability in connection with the work undertaken will be subject to the following exclusions and limitations:

All or any claims against us in respect of our work will be treated as arising from a single act or omission and will be regarded in the aggregate as subject to the limitation referred to below.
Except for any liability which, by law may not be excluded, our entire liability for any loss, damage, cost, interest or expense incurred by you (including loss of profits or any special, indirect, consequential or economic loss or any loss of anticipate savings) however arising out of or in connection with our engagement or the transaction, will not exceed £15,000,000 (fifteen million pounds).

Continuing application of this information

Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of the current hourly rates, the contents of this document shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this firm. Although your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to an acceptance of this document, it may not be possible for us to start work on your behalf until you have acknowledged acceptance.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to marketing@attwaters.co.uk.