Last updated: 28th August 2024
Responsibility for your case
The person responsible for all of the work on your matter is Claudine Boast. She is assisted by Richard Dyke who will also be working on your matter under Claudine’s supervision.
Legal Fees
You have instructed based on a fixed fee for a specific scope of work. In the event further work is needed to be undertaken then our legal fees are calculated by reference to the time spent by our fee earners in respect of any work which they do on your behalf unless a further fixed fee is agreed at the outset in respect of a specific scope of work.
Billing Arrangements
We charge £420 INC VAT per hour for legal work. We charge in 10 minute units, rounding to the nearest 10 minutes. Our hourly rates are reviewed every year to reflect increases in overhead costs and inflation.
Normally the rates are reviewed with effect from 1 January each year.
For work that falls outside the scope of the fixed fee, then in accordance with our usual practice in long running cases, we shall deliver bills to you at regular intervals for work carried out during the conduct of this matter.
Cancellation Policy
You may cancel the instruction at any time and ask for a refund. We will keep what’s necessary to cover the cost of services provided up until you cancelled. For document and deed drafting services, the fee you have have paid is broken down as follows: 75% for production of the first draft, 25% for finalising and circulating the final version. Therefore, if you cancel having received the first draft, you will be entitled to receive 25% of your fee.
Service Levels
We will update you by telephone or by email with progress on your matter following receipt of important information about your matter or when any important event occurs in your matter.
We will communicate with you in plain language. Our preferred manner of communication is email. We do not normally send letters in the post, if you prefer another method of communication such as post or fax you should tell us. We will explain to you by telephone or by email the legal work required as your matter progresses.
Liability
If we fail to comply with these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or our failing to use reasonable care and skill but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time the contract was made, both we and you knew it might happen, for example, if you discussed it with us.
We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; for breach of your legal rights in relation to the services including the right to receive services which are as described and supplied with reasonable skill and care.
Referral Arrangements
If your instructions have been passed to us by SAM Conveyancing a trading name of Share a Mortgage Ltd. then we must comply with Chapter 9 of the Solicitors' Regulation Authority Code of Conduct. We advise that we have a commercial arrangement with SAM Conveyancing relating to their introduction of clients to us. We believe that this relationship is of benefit to you, enhancing the delivery of our services. Upon completion of this matter, we will make a referral payment to them. To be clear, this payment is made by us and is not an additional payment that we require from you.
By signing the Acceptance Form, you confirm that you are giving us permission to disclose information relating to your matter to SAM Conveyancing. If you do not agree that we may do so, please advise us in writing. If at any time we feel that a conflict of interest may arise as a result of our relationship with SAM Conveyancing we will cease acting.
Our Standard of Care
The legal services that we provide are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority whose rules can be inspected at www.sra.org.uk. Our registration number with the Solicitors Regulation Authority is 646947. These terms and conditions are set out to comply with certain legal requirements in part and the professional requirements and advice of the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society. Their other purpose is to indicate to clients as clearly as possible the standard of service that they can expect from us, the amounts that we will charge for the work that we do and our methods of charging.
These terms and conditions do not affect statutory and common law rules that govern solicitors’ business.
However, if there is a conflict between the terms and conditions and such rules, the terms and conditions will prevail so far as it is possible for them to do so.
When the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ are used in these terms and conditions, they mean Parachute Law Solicitors.
Your responsibilities include the following:
- You will provide us with clear, timely and accurate information.
- You will inform us of any changes in your circumstances or awareness which may affect your file.
- You will provide all documentation required to progress matters in a timely manner.
Complaints
We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received or about the bill, please contact Parachute Law on 0207 183 4547, thelegalteam@parachutelaw.co.uk or by post to our office.
We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH, to consider the complaint.
Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within one year of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).
Read our full complaints handling procedure
here.
Complaints about our bills
If you are not satisfied about our bill you are entitled to challenge or make a complaint about that bill. You may also apply to the court for an assessment of our bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.
Interest on Unpaid Bills
If all or part of the bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
We have Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover work undertaken by us in England and Wales. Our insurers are:
Travelers Insurance Company Limited
61-63 London Road
Redhill
Surrey
RH1 1NA
Data Protection
The way in which we use your personal data is regulated by data protection legislation in addition to our professional duty of confidentiality. Our up-to-date privacy notice is available on our website (www.parachutelaw.co.uk). We may amend our privacy notice periodically to ensure it is operating effectively and complies with relevant laws and regulations. Where you provide any personal data to us (including that of third parties involved in the matter), you are responsible for ensuring that disclosure by you or on your behalf to us for use by us in the provision of our services complies with the requirements of data protection legislation.
You have the sole responsibility for the accuracy, quality and legality of the personal data you provide to us.
Storage of Documents
After completing the work, we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We will keep our file of your papers for up to 6 years. We keep files on the understanding that we can destroy them 6 years after the date of the final bill. We do not offer the service of storing documents in safe custody.
Notice of right to Cancel
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you the right to cancel your agreement with us, without giving any reason, at any time during the 14 days immediately following the day that you return the copy of this letter (the "cooling off period"). Rather than our waiting for the cooling off period to expire before starting work on your file, at your election, we can start work for you right away however you will then lose your right to cancel and you will be responsible for the fees incurred by us for the work that we have undertaken for you. If you would like us to commence work before the end of the cancellation period, please tick the box indicating your Agreement to Commence Work, when signing and returning the copy of this letter of engagement or later, if appropriate. This may mean that you lose the right to cancel.
You will be required to pay for the services provided to you, with your agreement, before the end of the cancellation period. Please note that under the firm's terms of engagement you have the right to instruct us to stop work at any time (whether during or after the cancellation period).
We reserve the right to destroy all paper documents and to store an electronic copy only.
If you want us to return any paper documents to you at the end of a case you must inform us in writing. If we take papers or documents out of storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for such retrieval.
However we may charge you both for:
- time spent producing stored papers that are requested
- reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers
Cancellation Policy
You may cancel the instruction at any time and ask for a refund. We will keep what’s necessary to cover the cost of services provided up until you cancelled. For document and deed drafting services, the fee you have have paid is broken down as follows: 75% for production of the first draft, 25% for finalising and circulating the final version. Therefore, if you cancel having received the first draft, you will be entitled to receive 25% of your fee.
Outsourcing
Sometimes we ask other companies or people to do typing/photocopying/other work on our files to ensure this is done promptly. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.
Auditing and Vetting of Files
External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.
Terminating this Retainer
You may end your instructions to us in writing at any time, but we can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We may decide to stop acting for you only with good reason. We must give you reasonable notice that we will stop acting for you.
If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated on an hourly basis plus expenses or by proportion of the agreed fee as set out in these terms and conditions depending on the whether you have paid a fixed fee or are paying for our services at an hourly rate.
Disclosure
We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the Serious Organised Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.
Distance Selling Regulations
If we have not met with you in person then Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 apply to this work. This means you have the right to cancel your instructions to us within seven working days of receiving this letter. You can cancel your instructions by contacting us by post or email to this office. Once we have started work on your file, you will be charged for the work that we have done if you then cancel your instructions.
Cash Payment to Third Parties
We confirm that we will carry out the necessary checks in order to verify the identity of our client for the delivery of the Service. If you are required by your conveyancing solicitor or a mortgage lender to obtain certified ID then you can do so by:
- Click here to book and pay for an appointment to certify your ID via video conference. This service is not included within your original fee as it is not required to provide independent legal advice. Book a meeting to certify documents.
- Find a solicitor local to you to certify your ID via video conference.
Accepting our Terms of Business
By ticking the button online "I Agree to the Terms & Conditions" in this form you are accepting these terms of service. If terms received by email then please email thelegalteam@parachutelaw.co.uk stating "I Agree to the Terms & Conditions".
