Hourly rates
A £350 plus VAT: 20+ years post qualification experience
B £320 plus VAT: 10+ years post qualification experience
C £300 plus VAT: 5+ years post qualification experience
D £270 plus VAT: 2+ years post qualification experience
E £250 plus VAT: newly qualified solicitor
F £225 plus VAT: trainee solicitor
G £110 plus VAT: support staff
£60 plus VAT: travelling rate for all staff
Mrs Julie West solicitor band A
Ms Celia Perry solicitor band A
Mr Lenworth Boreland solicitor band A
Mrs Taynia Pemberton solicitor band B
Mrs Emma Westsmith solicitor band C
Mr Martin Whitehorn solicitor band D
Miss Bree Kerry trainee solicitor band F
Mr Richard West systems administrator band G
Mrs Lyn Robinson finance administrator band G
Miss Molly Cooper legal assistant band G
Terms and conditions of business
These terms and conditions of business (“T&C”) set out the basis on which our services are provided. If there is any conflict between any part of these conditions and our terms of engagement letter, our terms of engagement letter will apply.
Acknowledgement of Terms & Conditions
Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of the current hourly rates, these T&C shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this firm. Your continuing instructions will amount to acceptance of these T&C.
Our service to you and responsibility for work
Our aim is to give our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost. Your solicitor will be responsible for all work to be carried out for you under this agreement although other solicitors and other professionals or people will be involved from time to time.
Business Hours
Our normal business hours are 9am to 5:30pm Monday to Friday. Appointments are normally arranged during these times. By prior arrangement appointments can be arranged at other times (weekday evenings or Saturday morning). Clients are respectfully requested to refrain from calling at the office outside normal business hours other than for making deliveries. Outside normal business hours messages may be left by telephone or email.
Communication between you and us
We aim to offer our clients an efficient and effective service at all times. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concern in the first place with the fee earner dealing with your matter. If you still have queries or concerns, please contact our Admin Team who will investigate. We will accommodate your reasonable preferences on means of communicating with you. We may need to virus check discs or email. We may communicate by post email or fax but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by email or fax.
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 or any of them.
Data Protection
You have rights under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 and this is explained in our privacy policy that you can access on our website. Julie West is the data privacy manager. With your consent we may periodically use your details to send you information that we think may be of interest to you. As further explained in our privacy policy we do not otherwise use or share your personal data except with your consent, or as necessary for the performance of our contract with you, or to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, or where it is in our legitimate interests.
Scope of our services to you
Julie West Solicitors Ltd trading as Julie West Solicitors (‘JWS’) is a property and private client law firm, and will not advise on matters in which it does not have specialist expertise.
SDLT returns
For a property transfer we will prepare any necessary Stamp Duty Land Tax Return and will provide you with a copy if you request; your acceptance of these T&C shall be deemed to constitute your express written agreement for us to file the return electronically.
Tax advice and foreign law
Any work that we do for you may involve tax implications or necessitate the consideration of tax planning strategies or involve a point of foreign law. We may not be qualified to advise you on the tax implications of a proposed transaction and we are not able to provide expert advice on any point of foreign law. If you have any concerns in this respect, please raise them with us immediately so that appropriate arrangements can be made. We reserve the right to instruct specialist tax counsel and/or to refer the client to specialist tax advisers and to charge you the fees incurred in doing so.
Introductions and referrals, and commissions
We consider it to be of the utmost importance that our advice is independent. This firm does not have any relationships with third parties involving the payment by JWS of introduction or referral fees.
Quality Assurance and Solicitors Regulation Authority (the ‘SRA’) Audits
The firm is accredited under the Law Society Lexcel quality standard and the Law Society Conveyancing Quality Scheme and Wills and Inheritance Quality Schemes. We may need to produce your file to external assessors in connection with quality or financial audits or regulatory visits from the SRA. If you prefer to withhold consent to your files being inspected please let us know in writing so we can mark your file accordingly.
Charges and expenses
Our charges will be calculated mainly by reference to the time spent by our staff in respect of any work which they do on your behalf. This may include meetings with you and perhaps others; reading, preparing and working on papers; making and receiving telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and text messages; preparation of any detailed costs estimates, and bills; attending at court; 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.
The fee earners’ hourly rates are attached. These rates are reviewed periodically to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation. We will notify you of any change.
In addition to time spent, we may take into account other factors including the complexity of the issues, the speed at which action has to be taken, any need to carry out work outside normal office hours and any specialist expertise that the case may demand. An increase in the rates may be applied to reflect such factors. In property transactions, in the administration of estates and in matters involving a substantial financial value or benefit to a client, a charge reflecting, for example, the price of the property, the size of the estate, or the value of the financial benefit may be made.
Where our fee includes a value element we will explain and when possible discuss it in advance with you.
Estimates
Any fee estimate is only approximate and must not be regarded as a fixed quotation. However, for certain work, fixed charges or charges up to a maximum level can be agreed in advance of any work being undertaken.
An additional charge might also apply where for example unexpected complications arise so more time is required or you require us to undertake work that is beyond the scope of the work described in our terms of engagement. If for any reason whatsoever the matter does not proceed, we will charge for work already done and any expenses incurred on your behalf.
Expenses
We make payments on your behalf to others such as the Land Registry, Probate Registry, court fees and experts’ fees. These charges are called disbursements. We have no obligation to make such payments unless you have provided us with the funds for that purpose. We will use funds held on your account to pay for disbursements as soon as the cost of these items has been incurred. VAT is payable on certain expenses which may include: charges for overseas, Royal Mail Special Delivery or other courier deliveries, large amounts of or specialist copying or colour printing, title information, property search fees and travel costs.
VAT
VAT will apply to our charges and on those expenses that are liable for VAT. Our VAT Registration Number is 900 2857 51.
Your Money and Payments on Account
We usually request a payment on account on acceptance of instructions. This money is used to pay our fees & expenses. Money received on your behalf will be held in our client accounts with Barclays Bank plc or Lloyds Bank plc. If we make a claim under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme ('FSCS') or need to notify our professional indemnity insurer ("our PI Insurer") in respect of client money held on your behalf, we will need to give certain client information to the FSCS to help it identify any amounts to which clients are entitled, and information about you and your file to our PI Insurer, its assessor or other person unconnected with the firm. By instructing us you consent to disclosure in these circumstances.
Payment of Interest and Mortgage Funds
We will account to you in accordance with the SRA Accounts Rules 2019 (the ‘SRAAR’) for what we consider to be a fair sum in lieu of interest earned on sums held by us on your behalf as Stakeholder or held in our Client Account. No interest will be paid if the amount due is less than £20. We will retain £20 from any payment made in lieu of interest. Your acceptance of these T&C shall constitute your agreement in writing to our interest policy.
Subject to your providing informed consent we may by written agreement come to a different arrangement with you or a third party for whom the money is held as to the payment of interest.
Money received on your behalf will be held in our client accounts and as these are instant access accounts you are very unlikely to receive as much interest as might have been obtained had you invested the money yourself.
We will request funds borrowed for a property transaction from your lender to be received as cleared funds the working day before completion to ensure funds are available in time for completion. You need to be aware the lender may charge interest from the date of issue of funds.
Outsourcing of work
We reserve the right to outsource legal and other work including typing when we consider this necessary or beneficial. Whilst all reasonable care will be taken to ensure confidentiality is maintained in making arrangements with third parties, please notify us in writing if you object so that appropriate measures can be taken.
Equality and Diversity
We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of our dealings with clients, third parties and staff. The firm has a written equality and diversity policy. A copy is available on request.
Verification of Identity
The Money Laundering regulations require solicitors to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients & where there is a beneficial owner who is not a client, the beneficial owner. This is because solicitors who deal with money & property on behalf of their client can be targeted by criminals attempting to launder money. We need evidence of identity as soon as practicable and so if requested please provide any specified documents to verify your identity and address promptly. Until this requirement has been fulfilled, we may not proceed, and we are entitled to refuse to act for you. We will arrange to carry out electronic verification of identity and the cost will be charged to you. Your acceptance of these T&C shall be deemed to constitute your express written agreement for us to provide your personal information to a third party/credit reference agency, that may keep a record of that information, also to retain information and documents used to verify your identity for an indefinite period. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering.
Confidentiality
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of clients confidential but by way of exception to this general principle 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 (‘NCA’). 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.
JWS may be subject to audit or quality checks by external firms or organisations. We may also outsource work. This might be for example typing, photocopying, costing a file or research and preparation to assist with your matter. Information from your file may therefore be made available in such circumstances. We will always ensure that a confidentiality agreement is in place with the third party.
If you are taking out a mortgage your lender can also ask to inspect the file prior to and for some years after completion.
Source of Funds
We ask you to tell us and prove the source of any funds to be used on a transaction. We must verify the source of funds. We will ask for further documentation for this purpose and/or undertake electronic searches to verify any bank details. If the source is an account in your name, in a UK bank or building society we will ask to see bank statements. Otherwise we will require further proof of funds held abroad or in the name of someone else.
Destination of funds
Moneys due to you from us will normally be paid by bank transfer, not in cash, and will not usually be paid to a third party. Proceeds from joint assets must be paid into an account in joint names unless signed written instructions from both parties request otherwise. If you wish your funds to be paid to someone other than yourself you must tell us in writing as early as possible, and explain the reason. We may take steps to verify any bank details supplied to us for the purpose of us remitting funds. Your acceptance of these T&C shall be deemed to constitute your express written agreement that if we conduct electronic verification of bank details you consent for us to provide your personal information to a third party, and the cost may be charged to you.
Cash
Our policy is not to accept cash from clients. If clients circumvent this policy by depositing cash direct with our bank, we reserve the right to charge a fee for any additional checks we deem necessary regarding the source of the funds, and to pass on to you the cost of any additional bank charges incurred.
Limitation of Liability
You agree and confirm that our liability to you for any loss by you as a result of our acting for you in relation to this or any other matter shall not exceed £3m (Three Million Pounds).
No liability is accepted for direct, indirect or consequential losses, nor for any pure economic loss, loss of profits, sales or turnover, bargain, goodwill or business opportunity, expected savings, or for loss of or loss of use of any software, hardware or data, or for any claims for consequential compensation whatsoever (howsoever caused).
We do not exclude or limit our liability for anything that cannot be limited or excluded under English Law.
The SRA requires a firm of solicitors to carry indemnity insurance cover for not less than an amount prescribed from time to time. If you require a higher level, please tell us and we will advise you as to cost implications. Full details of our indemnity insurance arrangements are displayed at our premises.
Under no circumstances shall we be in breach of these conditions or incur any liability to you for any loss, damage or delay arising out of the firm’s compliance with any statutory or regulatory requirement.
We shall not be liable to you nor shall we be deemed to be in breach of any duties or obligations owed to you if at any time we are prevented, delayed or hindered in complying with such duties or obligations by reason of any circumstances beyond our control or as a result of your failure to respond promptly to any request that we make for information, instructions or the payment of fees including expenses paid to third parties.
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 JWS. If such a request is refused, we shall be entitled to stop acting and to require immediate payment of our charges on an hourly basis and expenses.
Payment arrangements
We will send you a final bill on conclusion of the work. If sufficient funds are available and we have sent you a bill we will deduct our charges from funds held on account. On a property transaction where funds are needed from you to complete, we require cleared funds to be in our client account before completion. We will send you interim bills at intervals or at an appropriate stage in the conduct of your matter. If you have any query about your bill you should contact the person dealing with your matter straight away.
All invoices are payable upon presentation (unless otherwise agreed) and we reserve the right to charge you interest on the bill (including any interim bill) from the date of the bill where payment is not made within 14 days of delivery of the bill. Interest will be charged at 4% over Barclays Bank plc base rate from time to time in force calculated on a daily basis and added to the outstanding balance at quarterly intervals. We also reserve the right to claim interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 as well as the right to take action to recover any outstanding charges or expenses. You may settle our invoice in Sterling only.
You are responsible for paying our bill. If you expect someone else to pay your bill, you must let us know as soon as possible. You remain responsible if they do not pay. You will also remain responsible even if you have a right under an indemnity or a court order for an assessment of costs.
Storage of papers
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 one year. After that, storage is on the basis 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. There are more details in the Data Retention Guidelines annexed to the Privacy Notice on our website. We will not of course destroy any documents such as wills, 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.
If we retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will make a retrieval charge of £50 plus VAT and a further charge of £50 plus VAT for returning the file to storage. We may also make a charge based on time spent for producing stored papers or documents to you or anyone else at your request. We may also charge for reading, correspondence, or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.
Insurance Distribution
JWS is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’). However, we are included on the Register (‘Register’) maintained by the FCA so that we can carry out insurance distribution 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 SRA. The Register can be accessed via the FCA website at www.fca.org.uk.
Financial Services
Sometimes our work involves investments. We are not authorised by the FCA and so may refer you to someone who is authorised to provide any necessary advice. However, we can provide certain limited services in relation to investments, provided they are closely linked to the legal services we are providing to you, as we are regulated by the SRA.
The Law Society, the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman
The SRA regulates solicitors as the independent regulatory body of the Law Society. The Solicitors Handbook sets out standards expected of solicitors and can be accessed on the SRA website. The Legal Ombudsman (‘LeO’) is appointed by the Legal Complaints Office to resolve complaints about lawyers: contact details below. The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
Complaints
Clients are entitled to expect not only necessary technical expertise but also high standards of service, efficiency and courtesy. If clients are unhappy about any aspect of our service, they are asked to contact either Mr Len Boreland our complaints manager or Mr Richard West who will do their best to resolve any problems. We operate an internal complaints handling system.
If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman. Time limits apply. A complaint to LeO must be made within one year of the act or omission being complained about or when the complainant should have realised that there was a cause for complaint. LeO may not be able to investigate problems that happened before 5 October 2010. For further information contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
If you would rather not refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, we are members of an alternative dispute resolution scheme, ProMediate (UK) Limited. Contact details for ProMediate are as follows: telephone 01928 732455, email enquiries@promediate.co.uk or ProMediate (UK) Limited, The Legal Complaints Service, Brow Farm, Top Road, Frodsham, WA6 6SP. Website: www.legalcomplaintsservice.com
Termination
You may withdraw your instructions in writing at any time. We will send you a bill for charges and expenses incurred on your behalf up to the date of termination. Until our bill has been paid we will not release any papers.
We may withdraw our services at any time where there is good reason eg:
being asked to do work that would result in a breach of the law or infringe principles of professional practice,
difficulty in obtaining clear instructions,
a serious breakdown in confidence,
a conflict of interest arising, or
where you do not comply with a reasonable request to make a payment on account of charges or expenses, or to pay our bill or interim bill,
where we cannot agree with you a satisfactory basis to charge for ongoing services.
Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013
If you ask us to act for you for purposes wholly or mainly outside your trade, business, craft or profession in certain circumstances you may have the right to cancel within fourteen days of the date of your instructions. However, if you ask us to start work before the cancellation period expires, you must pay for our service for the period for which it has been supplied ending with the date you notify us of your decision to cancel. You lose the right to cancel once the service has been completed. If you wish to cancel you must give us written notice of your decision.
Please let us know if you have any queries or don’t understand any aspect of these conditions. It is important that you understand our policies and working methods and help us comply with all applicable regulations.
Last updated 23 January 2024