In all our dealings with clients, the firm aims to provide a high quality professional service. We value your instructions and our aim is to help you achieve your goals quickly and effectively in an approachable and cost efficient way.
We will at all times endeavour to keep you fully informed of developments in respect of matters being undertaken for you on a regular basis.
Under the Solicitors (Non-Contentious Business) Remuneration Order 1994 all our costs in relation to any non-contentious work must be fair and reasonable having regard to the work involved.
An important item in determining what is a fair and reasonable charge is the amount of time spent on any particular matter.
Our fees (whether on contentious matters and or non-contentious matters) will be based on the amount of time spent by each fee earner, subject to certain adjustments. Each fee earner has an hourly rate (which the firm reviews each year), which forms the initial basis for calculation of our fees. Please note the hourly rates plus VAT; £300.00 for Partners, £265.00 for Consultants; £265.00 for Associate Solicitors; £225.00 for Assistant Solicitors; £165.00 for Trainee Solicitors and Paralegals. We may, however, make adjustments upwards or downwards in the light of other factors such as the novelty, complexity or importance of the issues encountered, the extent of the responsibility involved the customary fees for similar legal services, urgency, value and other factors.
Our objective is to arrive at a fair fee having carried out your instructions at a level, which is most appropriate to provide a satisfactory, efficient and economic service. All telephone attendances, letters and e-mails sent are charged at a minimum of one tenth of the above hourly rates with letters and e-mails received are charged at a minimum of one twentieth of that rate.
If our instructions come to an end for any reason, we shall be entitled to charge for all work completed up to the point of our ceasing to act, subject to whether the transaction has aborted.
We are happy to supply you with estimates of costs in whatever form is most helpful to you. There are two straightforward points about costs and contentious matters that we would make:-
In the majority of debt recovery matters, it will be inevitable that the firm will have to pay disbursements on your behalf. Such disbursements could include foe example counsel’s fees, court fees, process servers’ fees, expert fees, investigators’ costs, special postage costs, local authority search fee, drainage search fee, pre-completion search fees, land registration fees, stamp duty, external secretarial costs, external binding and photocopying costs, and any other sums in the like manner required to be paid. We will require your authority to pay such disbursements, as we consider necessary in respect of the matter, which we will undertake on your behalf. In addition, where you are required to meet the fees of third parties, we will require money on account to be paid to us before we incur this liability.
Our terms of business are that payment for services should be made no later than 14 days from the date of receipt of our account. If an account for non-contentious work is not paid within one month of delivery of this account, the firm shall be entitled to charge interest on that account (including any disbursements) at the rate of interest then applicable to judgement debts for each day that payment is not received. We confirm that we would also be charging interest at the same rate for any unpaid account for contentious work where such account is also not paid within one month of delivery.
We reserve the right to render interim bills when a significant amount of work has been carried out, or if the matter becomes protracted.
We also reserve the right to discontinue work on all of your matters if any of our bills are not paid promptly (subject to any overriding professional requirement on us to continue acting).
The firm shall also be entitled to retain any documents and papers belonging to you, together with our file of papers, until such time as all sums outstanding to us are paid.
Should you require other funding options please arrange to discuss the same with us. Please note that in the absence of any other express agreement confirmed in writing, our hourly rates shall above mentioned shall apply.
We confirm we cannot act for you under any legal aid scheme whether or not you be entitled to any form of public funding. We advise you consider contacting the Legal Services Commission on 0845 345 4345 for further information on public funding/legal aid should you want your matter conducted under any public funding/legal aid.
If during this matter your need advice on investments, we may have to refer you to someone you is authorised by the Financial Services Authority, as we are not. However, as we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, we may be able to provide certain limited investment services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you.
We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority. However we are included on the registered maintained by the Financial Services Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Services Authority website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints again lawyers. If you are unhappy with any investment advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.
We advise you to consider seeking out and obtaining legal expenses insurance and advice on account of the likely cost exposure in this matter where appropriate. We would not be able to assist you in this respect.
The firm is required under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, to seek certain information from all new clients. Where we receive instructions from an individual(s) who has (have) not instructed us before, we are required to ask for proof of identity. We require from you the individuals’ original passport/driving licence together with a recent utility bill to satisfy this requirement. Mr Bhogal is our firm’s money laundering reporting officer.
On completion of any matter we shall return to you all documents entrusted to us and the firm will normally store your file for a period not exceeding six years. However, the firm reserves the right to destroy files on completed matters at any time unless you specifically request us to retain these. We will not destroy title deeds, wills, share certificates or other documents, which continue to have effect. Please note that in accordance with our administrative procedures, we will charge a minimum fee of £50.00 for the retrieval of your file from our storage facility.
During the course of our engagement you may disclose personal data to us in order that we may provide our services to you. The processing of personal data is regulated in the UK by the General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679 as supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018 together with other laws which relate to privacy and electronic communications. In this clause, we refer to these laws as “Data Protection Law”. In providing our services, we act as an independent controller and are, therefore, responsible for complying with Data Protection Law in respect of any personal data we process in providing our services to you. Our privacy statement be accessed at http://bhogalpartners.co.uk/privacy-policy/
We keep the copyright and all other related rights to all reports and draft agreements we produce, written advice or other materials we provide and all systems we work out while we are acting for you.
Variations or modifications to these terms may be made upon agreement in writing. Save as provided these terms shall prevail.
Bhogal Partners is a firm of Solicitors whom are authorised to practise in England and Wales and are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the United Kingdom. Our SRA number is 421 444.
We comply with the above Provision of Services Regulations 2009 by displaying the required details of our Professional Indemnity Insurance on our website at www.bhogalpartners.co.uk.
Our VAT Registration number is 861 4502 38.
We hope that you will not have cause for complaint but if you do have any questions or complaints about our work or charges, please refer them to the Principal Partner, Mr Bhogal, who has overall responsibility for your work.
Any complaint, including a complaint in respect of our bill of costs must, in the first instance, be made in writing to the Principal Partner, Mr Bhogal, who will investigate your complaint. In any event if all or part of any bill remains unpaid the firm may be entitled to charge interest whilst any complaint is being investigated. There may also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors’ Act 1974.
A copy of our firm’s complaint procedure is available on request.
At the conclusion of the firm’s complaints process if you are still not satisfied then there is a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman if you are unsatisfied. The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted at PO Box 15870, Birmingham, B30 9EB. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the date of our final written response on your complaint but for further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or at enquires@legalombudsman.org.uk.
We hope that the firm will be able to guide you to a satisfactory conclusion of your matter and that you will be satisfied with the work done on your behalf.
