Introduction
We at Settla Legal strive to be a committed, caring organisation and believe that you, as our client, have the right to expect a first class service. Please read our following Terms and Conditions of Business with Client Care Information carefully and should you have any queries thereon please contact the person responsible for dealing with your matter as below.
Confirmation and Acceptance of Instructions
Unless otherwise agreed in writing, receipt by the firm of any form of communication from our client confirming his/her instructions sent to us after delivery of these Terms and Conditions of Business and any estimate of costs will be deemed an acknowledgement by that client that he/she has read, fully understands, agrees and accepts not only the contents of these Terms and Conditions of Business but also any Engagement Letter attached (also known as the Client Care Letter). Subject to the application of future hourly rates and notified changes to estimated and fixed fees, these Terms and Conditions shall apply to all actual and future instructions (whether written or verbal) given to and received by Settla Legal and also to any renewal of instructions where the firm’s retainer had previously been determined.
In the absence of any written agreement to the contrary, any acceptance by a client of these Terms and Conditions of Business will be deemed as being consent to the charging basis and treated as an authority for the firm to carry out the work and/or incur any expenses/disbursements reasonably necessary for the instruction.
These terms may only be varied or excluded by written agreement. By signing the Engagement Letter, you are also deemed to have read, understood and accepted the terms of both these Terms and Conditions of Business and the Engagement Letter in their entirety
Place and Hours of Business
Our office is at 60 St Martins Lane, Covent Garden, London, WC2N 4JS
Normal business hours are Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm (excluding bank and public holidays) Messages can be left via voicemail outside those hours and appointments can be arranged at other times when this is essential.
Service Standards
We will endeavour to update you with the progress of your matter and will explain to you the legal work required as your matter progresses. At the outset we will confirm to you in writing your instructions and our advice about what steps should be taken and explain to you the issues involved. Where applicable and reasonably practicable, we shall update you on the likely costs of your matter as it progresses, which shall include updates on the likely timescales involved for your matter and any important changes to those estimates. We aim to communicate with you in plain language. We are of course happy to receive calls and encourage communication by email wherever possible. Within reason, our aim is for calls and emails to be dealt with within 24 hours. We hope you understand that this enables us to manage our caseloads in the most efficient way. Occasionally however, due to work commitments, it may not always be possible to revert back to you within the desired timescale. In such circumstances, we need to know that you are trying to contact us and request that you email and leave a telephone message for your Fee Earner confirming your name and telephone number. It is important to understand that we will usually only contact you where it is necessary for us to do so, for example where we are in a position to update you on your matter. We shall therefore not normally contact you where there is nothing to report.
In turn, we require you throughout your matter to provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions, together with all required documentation to complete your matter in a timely manner. We shall also require you to safeguard any documents that are likely to be required for disclosing and also to keep us updated with any key information that may be required by us, for example your home address and/or telephone contact number.
Please note that it will not usually be possible to have a personal attendance with your Fee Earner without an appointment.
Authorisation
We are authorised, unless otherwise agreed, to take such action as we think necessary to obtain the required result. We shall not always refer to you for specific instructions every time we take a step. If, therefore, there is a limit to what we are required to do, or a limit to expenditure, we must be notified of this in advance. We cannot be held responsible for any failure of ours to advise or comment on matters which fall outside the scope of your instructions, or any matters of which you fail to inform us.
People responsible for your work
The person responsible for dealing with your work and the person responsible for the overall supervision of the 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 may be necessary.
Charges
Unless agreed to the contrary, our fees are based on the amount of time spent on your matter by reference to the normal hourly rates of those involved. Time spent will include meeting with you and any time spent travelling, considering, preparing and working on papers; correspondence and the making and receiving of telephone calls. If your instructions mean that we have to work outside office hours, we reserve the right to increase the level of the hourly rate. We will discuss this with you if the matter becomes more complex and if this is likely to impact the rates we charge.
Our current hourly rates are:
- Sole Principals, Partners, Solicitors and Litigation Executives (or equivalent) with over eight years’ experience £350 per hour
- Solicitors, Litigation Executives and Legal Executives (or equivalent) with over four years’ experience £250 per hour
- Solicitors, Litigation Executives and Legal Executives (or equivalent) with less than four years’ experience £150 per hour
- Trainee solicitors, Paralegals and any other individual £150 per hour
In certain cases, the amount of costs that you will have to pay may be greater than the amount you recover from the other party. We will of course have to add VAT to our charges. Currently VAT is 20%.
We may need to ask you for payment on account to cover disbursements. These include Barrister’s fees, Doctor’s fees, Court fees and so on.
When a fixed fee is agreed in advance, we will not seek to charge any additional fee unless the work carried out is of a different nature or extent from that which we understood to be required on the basis of your instructions.
Any estimate (as opposed to an agreed fixed fee) is given only as a guide to assist you in budgeting and should not be regarded as a firm quote. We will advise you as soon as we are able to if the estimate needs to be amended.
We reserve the right to request payment in advance on account of both costs and disbursements (money that we pay out on your behalf). If we do request payment on account, this shall be a condition of our acting for you and your failure to make that payment will entitle us to terminate our instructions.
We will provide you with a costs update every six months.
If for any reason we cease to represent you, we reserve the right to charge you for the work done and expenses actually incurred.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
All estimates or quotations given by us and all fees charged by us are exclusive of VAT which will be charged (if applicable) at the appropriate rate on our fee and those disbursements and expenses that are subject to VAT.
When an invoice is paid by the third party and you are registered for VAT, then you must pay the VAT element of the invoice and subsequently reclaim it from HM Customs and Excise.
Permitted Fees and Recommendation
If our contact details were given to you by an agency or Case Management Company, then we may have paid a non-prohibited recommendation fee varying in price from £400 to £600. Should you have any questions relating to this fee or the arrangement, please speak to the file handler looking after your case. We confirm that any such fee complies with the provisions of current rules on payment of fees. We confirm that any advice we give is completely independent.
We must stress however that we are a completely independent firm of solicitors and are under a duty to you to always act in your best interests and to provide you with impartial advice. No information will be disclosed to the recommender without your consent and you are free to raise questions on all aspects of the transaction.
Costs information for Personal Injury Cases
For the avoidance of doubt all references to percentages of damages will be paid by the opponent, unless referred to in conjunction with our success fee which will be deducted from your damages.
Benefits of proceeding against the risk and costs involved
We have already assessed that you have good prospects of recovering damages, on the basis of the current information which has been provided to us in good faith. Therefore any risk of adverse costs against you at this time is minimal.
Claim Prospects
We will continue to pursue your claim for as long as we consider that you have reasonable prospects of success. The prospects of success can change during the life of a claim, for example after disclosure of documents by the Defendant and exchange of witness statements. We will keep you informed at all important stages should our assessment of the prospects of success change.
Disbursements
By instructing us to act on your behalf, you are also authorising us to incur such expenses and disbursements as we consider necessary in order to carry out the work. We will require expenditure which we make on your behalf to be reimbursed to us as and when it is incurred and in appropriate circumstances we may ask you to place us in funds in advance unless your Legal Expense Insurer will cover these costs.
We reserve the right to charge expenses for travel accommodation and meals incurred whilst travelling away from the office. We would discuss such charges with you before incurring these. We also reserve the right in appropriate circumstances to charge for the storage of files and other documents. You will be notified of the amount of this charge as appropriate when documents need to be stored.
Where you request or where we reasonably consider it expedient to effect payment of any sums by way of BACS or CHAPS (electronic bank transfers), we reserve the right to charge a handling fee of £20 + VAT for each transfer to reflect the extra work involved in addition to any fee the Bank may charge us for the transaction.
Accounts
You will be invoiced if appropriate at such intervals as are set out in the accompanying letter or at such other intervals as are agreed between us. If your instructions are likely to last for some time, we will normally send you regular bills on a quarterly basis. These regular bills may not include an exact costing of the full amount due but will give a broad indication of the work done and will keep you informed of the costs accruing.
Payment
Payment of our invoices is due upon delivery unless other arrangements have been agreed in writing. If accounts are not paid within one month of delivery of the invoice, we reserve the right to charge interest from that date at a rate equivalent of 6% above the base rate for the time being of Barclays Bank.
If accounts are overdue, we reserve the right to suspend work and to retain documents and papers belonging to you or supplied to us for the purpose of carrying out your instructions whether they relate to the matter to which the invoice relates or to any other instructions given to us by you until all sums outstanding to us are paid.
Assessment of Fee
There are procedures whereby clients can ask for fees on contentious and non-contentious work matters to be independently reviewed. Procedures are laid down by statute for legal fees to be assessed by the Court.
Interest payments
Any money received on your behalf will be held in our Client Account. The firm pays interest on client account balances in accordance with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Accounts Rules 2017. Interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate from time to time payable on Barclays Bank General Client Accounts. The period for which interest will be paid will normally run from the date(s) on which funds are received by us until the date(s) of issue of any payment(s) from our Client Account. It is the firm’s normal policy to retain the first £20.00 of each amount of interest as and when calculated to cover the administrative expenses of arranging these calculations and payments.
Litigation
Whatever happens at the end of litigation, you will always be responsible for paying our costs which may include the cost of assessment by the Court. When a case has been concluded, the Court assesses payment of the successful parties’ costs of the proceedings in such a way that generally results in the unsuccessful party having to pay only a proportion of those costs. It is only in exceptional cases the Court will order that the successful party has a right to full reimbursement of the costs of the proceedings. If the other party is legally aided, you may not recover any of your charges and expenses even if you win the case. Even if you are not reimbursed for the full or any costs of the litigation from the successful party or if for whatever reason that party does not comply with an order to reimburse you, you will nevertheless have to pay the full amount of our charges and expenses.
During the course of Court proceedings, we will provide the best indication we can as to the proportion of your costs which you may recover from the other party should you be successful. This is, however a matter which is at the discretion of the Judge hearing the case and if you have pursued issues which have not succeeded (even though you are successful overall) or the Court believes that you have acted unreasonably, the Court has the power to significantly reduce the proportion of your costs to be paid by the unsuccessful party. If you are unsuccessful, the Court may order you to pay the successful party’s legal charges and expenses. That money will be payable in addition to our charges and expenses.
Adverse Costs
Please be advised that should there be any adverse costs made against the firm in respect of your matter, you will be notified immediately in these circumstances.
Termination of Instructions
You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time. We are entitled to keep certain papers while money is owing to us. We may terminate instructions only with good reason and on giving reasonable notice. If you or we decide that instructions are to be terminated, then our charges and expenses will become due.
You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time but we will still be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. If at any stage you do not wish us to continue doing work and/or incur 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 do not pay an interim bill, 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. If, for any reason, this matter does not proceed, we may be entitled to charge you for any work done and expenses incurred. If your case is funded under an hourly rates arrangement, then these costs will be calculated based on the time spent plus expenses incurred up to the date of termination. On fixed fee arrangements, we will break the transaction down into stages and apportioned the estimated fee for each stage. You will also be responsible for reimbursing any expenses incurred by us that were not included within the fixed price agreed.
Conflicts
Conflict between your interests and the interests of other clients of the firm may arise during the course of a matter. If this situation occurs, we will discuss the position with you and determine the appropriate course of action. In order to protect your or their interest we may have to cease acting, in which case we will use our reasonable endeavours to find another firm of lawyers to continue acting for you.
Where we represent you on behalf of your funder or insurer, we may be required to discuss your case or disclose your file to the funder or insurer (insurance intermediary) for indemnity purposes. Before we do so we will obtain your informed consent.
Confidentiality
We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National 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.
Company/LLP instructions
We are happy to accept instructions from Limited Liability Companies or Limited Liability Partnerships but do ask the Directors (or members as appropriate) to personally guarantee the payment of invoices raised by the firm. This means that in the event that the Company or LLP fails to pay, it would be open to the firm to ask the Director (or member) to pay personally and if necessary to enforce such payment. If you are at all unsure about the nature of such a guarantee and its legal effect, then we advise you to take independent legal advice before continuing the retainer.
Outsourcing
Sometimes we ask other companies or people to carry out typing, photocopying or 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.
Storage of papers and 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 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 such as wills, deeds, and other securities, which we agree 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 in connection with your affairs, 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. We may also charge for reading, correspondence, or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.
Use of Experts, Counsel and Agents
Please note that we may use the services of a barrister or other experts wherever necessary and we will obtain your approval before incurring any such expense and will consult with you on their instruction and provide you with their details.
We will recommend other services such as After the Event insurance, engineers, rehabilitation and medical agencies.
Reporting to you
We review your file internally every month and will report to you in writing with key developments as they occur. If you want updating in the meantime, please contact us. We endeavour to return your telephone calls within 24 hours.
Identification, Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing
We are required by law to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and sometimes people related to them and/or any third parties involved in your matter. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wanting to launder money.
To comply with the law, we need to receive evidence of your identity as soon as possible. Our requirements in this respect are set out in the attached Engagement Letter sent to you upon instruction.
Please note, the identification requirements referred to herein and in the Engagement Letter may vary depending on the matter type and the individual circumstances of the case. We therefore reserve the right to request further documentation should we deem it appropriate in order to satisfy the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and any other such governing regulations and/or legislation.
Where instructing us on behalf of a limited or limited liability partnership, the identification requirements shall be as above but we may also require the identification of any other constituent member(s). If instructing us on behalf of a company, we may require a written guarantee from an appropriate person authorising you to provide the firm with such instructions.
We do of course appreciate that not everyone has access to some of the forms of identification as accepted by the firm. It is therefore imperative that you speak to your fee earner immediately at the onset of your matter if you are unable to meet the identification requirements, as otherwise we may be unable to act for you, as to do so may be contrary to the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and/or the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (or such other legislation that may currently be, or come into, force).
We have a professional and legal duty to keep your affairs confidential. However, should an occasion arise where any of the firm’s Fee Earners suspects that a transaction during your matter may involve money laundering or terrorist financing, it will be reported to our Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO), Mr Ozan Askin, which may result in a disclosure to the National Crime Agency and we may be unable to inform you of the disclosure. We may have to suspend work on your matter for a period of time and/or even terminate the retainer and we may not be able to notify you as to the reason why.
Copyright and Other Intellectual Property.
We retain the copyright and all other rights in all documents provided to you. You are granted a non-exclusive licence to use such documents for the purpose for which they are provided but not otherwise.
Data Protection
Under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 personal data belongs to you but in order that we can carry out your work, we will need to ask you to provide us with some personal information. This is a brief summary of how we use your information. A full copy of our Data Privacy Notice can be found on our website, but if you would like us to send you a copy, please speak to the person that is dealing with your work. We will only collect the minimum information we need to do your work and typically, that would be name, address and contact details such as telephone numbers and e-mail address. If your work requires further information, we will ask for it. Certain sorts of personal information is deemed particularly sensitive, such as medical data and in the unlikely event that your work requires us to use his sort of information, we have to take extra precautions to keep it safe.
Under UK anti-money laundering legislation, we have an obligation to verify your identity, transaction funding and sometimes, source of wealth. To do this we will ask for copies of key documents such as passports, driving licences, utility bills and bank statements. We will receive personal data directly from you or from third parties, such as a bank or building society who is providing you with a mortgage, or maybe an estate agent or other professional person that has passed us your details, having first obtained your consent to do so. In order to carry out and administer your matter, we are likely to need to disclose some information about you to third parties, such as a court or tribunal, HM Land Registry to register your interest in land or HM Revenue & Customs for payment of stamp duty. We do not disclose your details to third parties unconnected with your work. In the majority of cases, we will hold your information for six years, but identification documents are kept for five years. Certain documents may be kept longer, for example, when we have acted for a child or the matter relates to a will or a probate. We have in place policies and procedures to protect data in transit and whilst in storage. Under data protection legislation, you have a number of rights in relation to your data. These include the right to a copy of your personal data, the rights to object to processing (but if exercised we would be unable to continue to work on your matter), rights to restrict processing and to request the erasure of your data.
For certain matters such as personal injury, we may obtain copies of your medical records and medical reports. Where it is necessary to deal with your case, you agree that we may pass those records and reports to other relevant professionals or parties.
Settla Legal Ltd are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018
Financial Services & Insurance Mediation Activities
Mortgage Fraud
In most property transactions we will act for both you and the lender providing your mortgage finance. We have a duty to fully reveal to your lender all relevant facts about the purchase and mortgage. This includes: any differences between your mortgage application and information we receive during the transaction; any cash back payments or discount schemes that a seller is giving you; and the names of all the purchasers, legal and beneficial.
In particular, we are under an obligation to report to the lender the purchase price and you may be committing fraud if you seek to misinterpret the true price by omitting to mention any relevant facts to us. It is a condition of business that you agree to waive your right to confidentiality in order for such a disclosure to be made.
Distance Selling
Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (The Regulations) you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. This only applies where contracts are agreed away from our premises or where we are not both physically present. To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or e-mail). To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired. If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse to you any payments received from you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to cancel this contract. We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement. If you requested us to begin the performance of services during the cancellation period, you shall pay us an amount which is in proportion to what has been performed until you have communicated to us your cancellation of the contract, in comparison with the full fees for the work we would otherwise have carried out.
Professional Indemnity Insurance and Limitation of Liability
Conflict between your interests and the interests of other clients of the firm may arise during the course of a matter. If this situation occurs, we will discuss the position with you and determine the appropriate course of action. In order to protect your or their interest we may have to cease acting, in which case we will use our reasonable endeavours to find another firm of lawyers to continue acting for you.
Where we represent you on behalf of your funder or insurer, we may be required to discuss your case or disclose your file to the funder or insurer (insurance intermediary) for indemnity purposes. Before we do so we will obtain your informed consent.
Equality and diversity
This firm is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of its dealings with client, third parties and employees, and is required to produce a written Equality and Diversity Policy. Please contact us if you would like us to send you a copy of that Equality and Diversity Policy. Consistent with our internal policies and procedures, we will not discriminate in the way we provide our Services on the grounds of age, disability, gender re-assignment, marriage and civil partnerships, pregnancy and maternity, race (including colour, nationality and citizenship, ethnic or national origins), religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation
Electronic Communication
Where appropriate it is our practice to utilise internet and email links to send documents. Although this is an extremely effective means of communication, we are unable to guarantee the security and confidentiality of material sent over the internet. We ask you to let us know if you do not want us to communicate with you via the internet or if you wish us to utilise data encryption and/or digital signature technology in our communications to you via the internet. We check all communications we receive with antivirus software, but again cannot guarantee that documents will be free from corruption. We recommend that you also use your own antivirus software.
Cybercrime
Please be aware of cybercrime. We will not take responsibility if you transfer money to a wrong bank account. Please always speak to your Solicitor before transferring any money. If you receive an email from us requesting your bank details or requesting monies always phone us immediately to confirm the details before making payment. Please be aware that a phishing email may contain a fraudulent phone number for us.
Complaints Procedure
Whilst we endeavour to ensure that you will be pleased with our service, in the unlikely event that you do have any cause for complaint, this should be made within 6 months of completion of the matter and in the first instance should be raised with the Fee Earner responsible for the day to day conduct of your matter. We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available on request from your Fee Earner. Your Fee Earner will attempt to settle any dispute that you may have, however, if for whatever reason you remain dissatisfied following his/her input, you should direct your concerns to our Complaints Handler, Mr Ozan Askin who will investigate the matter in full. If, after having exhausted our complaints procedure, you still remain dissatisfied with the outcome you should direct your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman, contactable at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ or by telephone on 0300 553 0333 or by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
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 6 years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (if outside of this period, within 3 years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Please note, some clients may not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman but this will be explained to you if applicable to your matter.
As well as your right to complain about any of our bills under our complaints procedure, you can also apply for the bill to be assessed by the court under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, in which case the Legal Ombudsman may not consider your complaint.
Waiver
Any failure to enforce at any time one or more of these Terms of Business shall not be a waiver of them or the right at any time subsequently to enforce all applicable Terms of Business.
Severability
If any provision in these terms of engagement or our accompanying letter is or becomes invalid, illegal or unenforceable then it shall, to the extent required, be severed and shall be ineffective and the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected in any way.
Exclusion of Third Party Rights
Nothing in these terms and conditions of business or in any other agreement or arrangement between us will confer any rights or other benefits on any third parties whether by statute or otherwise. Unless we specifically agree to the contrary in writing, we shall act only on your behalf in relation to the work that we do for you and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply. Any legal advice that we give you is for your own use only and we shall not be liable to anyone else in relation to that advice (including anyone that you pass or transmit it to) unless we expressly agree to be liable to the recipient(s) in writing.
Risk
It should be understood that by instructing us, you accept that there is a risk that there may be occasions, where, due to matters outside yours and/or our reasonable control, your matter may not complete or in litigious matters, you may not be successful in resolving your dispute. In such circumstances, the firm cannot be held responsible for any loss that may be suffered as a result thereof.
Cybercrime
The law of England and Wales applies to these Terms and Conditions of Business and any dispute that may arise in respect of them. The English and Welsh Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction of any matters of dispute that may arise in respect of these Terms of Business.
Entire Agreement
These terms and conditions of business and our accompanying letter set out all the terms agreed between us in relation to the work we are to undertake for you. All other terms, conditions and representations are hereby excluded and you may not rely or have relied on them. In the event of any conflict between these terms and conditions and our accompanying Engagement Letter, the latter shall prevail.
Unless otherwise agreed, and subject to the application of the current hourly rates, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to this Firm. Although your continuing instructions in this matter, oral or in writing, will amount to an acceptance of these Terms of Business, it may not be possible for us to start work on your behalf until the duplicate copy of the Engagement Letter accompanying these Terms of Business has been received by us to keep on our file. To avoid unnecessary delay, we would ask that you attend to this matter immediately.
Amendment
We reserve the right to make changes to these terms of business to reflect new legislation, practice and procedures, or changes in market conditions. If any changes become necessary, then we will notify you with details in writing wherever practicable before the change takes effect.
Legal and Regulatory Status
Settla Legal is a trading name of Settla Legal Ltd a Company registered in England and Wales. Company Registration Number: 16730079. The Registered Office is 60 St Martins Lane, Covent Garden, London, WC2N 4JS. A list of Directors is available for inspection at the Registered Office.
Settlla Legal Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) under number 8013836 and must comply with SRA requirements that are in force, including the SRA Code of Conduct 2019 and SRA Accounts Rules 2019. Both documents can be accessed via SRA’s website at: sra.org.uk. The SRA is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society of England and Wales, our professional body.
