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Terms and Conditions of Business

These Terms and Conditions of Business, together with the accompanying letter of engagement, set out our service standards and the terms of business on which we agree to act for you. If you have any questions about any of the information here, please contact the person dealing with your case. By continuing to instruct the firm, we shall be entitled to assume that you have agreed to the terms and conditions set out here. For the purpose of these terms, "we", "our", "us" or "the firm" refers to BTF Law Ltd. Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of our then current hourly rates, these terms and conditions of business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to the firm.

1. About the firm

BTF Law Ltd is a limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 17007096. Our registered office is Cromwell House, Crusader Road, Lincoln, LN6 7YT. The word "partner" refers to a director of the company. BTF Law Ltd is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales, registration number 8015376. The SRA Code of Conduct sets out the regulatory framework imposed on service providers such as ours, and the current edition is available on the SRA website at www.sra.org.uk. In accordance with the Provision of Service Regulations 2009, details of our Professional Indemnity Insurance can be obtained by contacting our registered office above. Our VAT registration number is 519291674.

2. Service standards

We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost. We set the following standards:

  • We will regularly update you with progress on your matter.
  • We will communicate with you in plain language.
  • We will explain to you the legal work required as your matter progresses.
  • We will update you on the cost of your matter, as appropriate.
  • We will update you on whether the likely outcomes still justify the likely costs and risks whenever there is a material change in circumstances.
  • We will update you on the likely timescales for each stage of your matter and any important changes to those estimates.
  • We will continue to review whether there are alternative ways in which your matter can be funded.

In return, we ask that our clients:

  • provide clear, truthful instructions to us at all times
  • respond to communications from us promptly and attend arranged appointments
  • notify us promptly of any change to contact details, address or telephone numbers.

3. Hours of business

The normal hours of opening at our offices are between 9.00am and 5.30pm on weekdays. Messages can be left via voicemail outside those hours, and appointments can be arranged at other times when this is essential. Out of hours emergency assistance can be obtained by calling 07368 187441; please note, however, that only genuinely urgent matters can be dealt with out of hours. Individual lawyers may be able to give you additional mobile phone and email contact details, but they may not respond outside of business hours.

4. People responsible for your work

The person responsible for dealing with your work, and the person responsible for the overall supervision of your matter, will be set out in the engagement letter. We will try to avoid changing the people who handle your work, but if this cannot be avoided we will tell you promptly of any change and why it is necessary.

5. Legal aid

If your matter is financed by legal aid, the terms and conditions may differ according to the type of matter and the legal aid cover which applies. This will be explained to you in the engagement letter. You agree to keep us and the Legal Aid Agency informed of any change in your financial circumstances once in receipt of legal aid. Please note that, although your own costs will be covered by legal aid, if you lose your case you could be ordered to pay the other side's legal costs. Any potential liability for costs under legal aid will be explained in the accompanying engagement letter.

6. Storage of papers and documents

We will keep your file of papers in storage for not less than 6 years, except those papers that you ask to be returned to you. After that, storage is on the clear understanding that we have the right to destroy your file after such period as we consider reasonable without further reference to you, or to make a charge for storage if we ask you to collect your papers and you fail to do so. We will not, of course, destroy any documents or other securities which we agree to hold in safe custody.

If you require any of your case papers, please notify us within 14 days of the conclusion of your case, and these will be forwarded to you. If you or any third party require the retrieval of some or all of your case papers after this time, we will charge a fee for such retrieval of £50. 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. However, we may make a charge based on time spent at our lowest charge out rate for producing stored papers or documents to you or another at your request, and we may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.

7. Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time. If at any stage you do not wish us to continue doing work or incurring charges and expenses on your behalf, you must tell us this clearly in writing. We may only decide to stop acting for you if we have good reason, for example if you fail to provide us with instructions or if a conflict of interest arises. We will tell you the reason and give you notice in writing.

8. Data protection

We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes, including updating and enhancing client records, analysis to help us manage our practice, statutory returns and legal or regulatory compliance. Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, data protection law and our duty of confidentiality.

Our work for you may require us to pass on information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers, including sometimes advisers appointed by another party to your matter. We may also give information to others who perform services for us. Our practice may be audited or checked by our accountants, our regulator, or other organisations.

You have a right of access under data protection law to the personal data we hold about you. We seek to keep that data correct and up to date, so please let us know if you believe it needs to be corrected or updated. The person at the firm with overall responsibility for data protection compliance is the Data Protection Officer, Antony Freitas. The firm is registered with the Information Commissioner. Further information about data protection and privacy is available from the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.org.uk.

We may receive personal data from you for the purposes of our money laundering checks, such as a copy of your passport. This will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, or as otherwise permitted by law or with your express consent. You consent to us retaining such data for longer than the six year statutory period, unless you tell us otherwise. If you send us personal data about anyone other than yourself, you will ensure you have the appropriate consents and notices in place to enable you to transfer that data to us and to allow us to use it for the purposes for which you provide it.

9. Equality and diversity

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our Equality and Diversity Policy.

10. Communications

We will communicate with you in the most effective way, as agreed between us. You should be aware that email is not secure for confidential matters. We take every precaution to ensure that email is virus free, but we cannot guarantee this. If you require correspondence to be addressed to a particular person, or marked private and confidential, you must tell us.

Identity, disclosure and confidentiality requirements. The law requires solicitors to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients, and sometimes of people related to them, because solicitors who deal with money and property can be used by criminals wanting to launder money. To comply with the law, we need to obtain evidence of your identity as soon as possible. If you cannot provide the specific identification requested, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss other ways to verify your identity. We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity. We may arrange to carry out electronic verification of your identity if we consider it will save time and cost. The cost of any such search will be charged to you, and if the amount is more than £10 we will seek your prior agreement.

Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation is subject to a statutory exception: legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing places 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 tell you that it has been made, or the reasons for it, because the law prohibits "tipping off". Where the law permits, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we may need to take.

External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice, and they are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files. We may need to disclose your information to third parties (such as barristers, accountants or government agencies) to enable us to handle your affairs, and we may permit third parties (such as our auditors and the Solicitors Regulation Authority) to access your information for administrative or regulatory purposes. We may also outsource work, for example costing, research and preparation. We will always aim to obtain a confidentiality agreement with the third party. We will not otherwise disclose your information to any third party unless permitted or required to do so by law. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.

11. Limit on our liability for professional negligence

Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions shall be limited to £3,000,000, unless we expressly state a higher amount in the letter accompanying these terms of business. We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profits or opportunities. We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

12. Complaints

We aim to provide the best possible service to our clients, and to do this we need to know if you feel dissatisfied. If you are ever unhappy about our service or about a bill, please contact the person responsible for your case and we will discuss it with you. Should you wish to make a complaint, Rebecca Freitas normally deals with these matters and will be prepared to meet you to discuss it. Any complaint against Rebecca Freitas will be dealt with by our Director, Antony Freitas. Full details of how we handle complaints, including your right to contact the Legal Ombudsman and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, are set out in our Complaints procedure.

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time, or if you are not happy with our handling of it, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH, telephone 0300 555 0333, website www.legalombudsman.org.uk. You also have a right to challenge your bill by applying for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. The Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill if you have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.

Accepting these terms

These terms are provided to you with your letter of engagement. By continuing to instruct us, you accept these terms and conditions of business.