SLS WILLS AND MORE LIMITED

TERMS OF BUSINESS

These terms and conditions, along with the client care letter to which these terms are attached, constitute the basis upon which SLS Wills and More Ltd will provide you with legal services.

1. SLS Wills and More Ltd

SLS Wills and More Ltd is a private limited company registered at Companies House (number 12384538). Our office is 4 Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham, Canterbury, CT3 3HB. Our telephone number is 01304 577998.

SLS Wills and More Ltd also trades as SLS Wills and More. Accordingly, all references in these Terms of Business and in any other documents or correspondence you receive from us to “SLS Wills and More”, “the company”, “we”, “us”, or “our” should be read as referring to SLS Wills and More Ltd. Nothing in any such documents or correspondence should be taken to indicate that SLS Wills and More is an unlimited liability entity.

2. Our Terms and Conditions

Our Terms and Conditions of Business SLS Wills and More aims to provide a high-quality service in every respect, and we will make sure that the matters we handle for you proceed as smoothly and as well as possible.

Our Terms of Business govern the services to be provided to you by the company and/or its members, associates, employees, and consultants from time to time (SLS Wills and More Personnel), except to the extent that we inform you in writing that different terms apply.

Our Terms of Business are subject to review from time to time and you will be informed in writing of any material changes. If any provision in any engagement letter you receive from us or a specific matter conflict with our Terms of Business, the provision in the engagement letter will apply. The engagement letter, our Terms of Business, and any additional express terms constitute the entire agreement and understanding between us.

Our agreement will apply to any future instructions you give to the firm and your new and continuing instructions will amount to your acceptance of these terms.

3. Our relationship with you Our Client

References in this document to “you” mean our instructing client(s) in any particular matter. Our duties are owed only to our client on any matter on which you instruct us. These terms also apply to any of your holding, subsidiary, or associated companies for whom we may act, whether or not we receive those instructions directly or via you.

We do not accept obligations to any other person or company, unless we expressly agree to do so in writing. In those circumstances, these terms will also apply to our work for that person or company.

The people responsible for your matter

The person responsible for handling your matter is named in the client engagement letter that you received with these Terms of Business, as is their file supervisor. The Senior Director is supported by support staff, but all other personnel may not have any support staff to assist them.

We will try to avoid changing the members of your team, but, where this cannot be avoided we will explain any changes to you promptly.

What we expect from you:

you will provide us with clear, timely, comprehensive, and accurate instructions.
you will provide us with all relevant documentation in a timely matter.
you will let us know promptly of any changes to your name, address or other contact details and any changes to your circumstances or standing.
you will supply us with your bank details on request so that we can send any monies owing to you, and you will advise us of any subsequent changes.
you will pay our fees upon request or within 7 days.

Conflict of Interest

We search or records to protect you from conflicts of interest. Where a conflict arises or may arise (for example where we find that a third party involved in the matter for which you instruct us has been a client), we may not be able to accept your instructions or continue working on the matter.

We may act for two or more persons in a particular matter if there is no conflict between you.

However, if a conflict arises during our retainer then we may be obliged to cease acting for one or more of you.

You accept that the nature of our business invariably means that we may well be representing other clients who operate in your industry and may be in competition with you. We will not under any circumstances pass on to you any confidential information which we may receive from another client which may be of commercial or other interest to you. We will of course observe similar confidentiality in relation to any confidential information we receive from you.

Concerns and Complaints

The Company is committed to providing the Customer with a high-quality service. An essential part of that service is that the Company will communicate effectively with the Customer so that they are kept informed of progress.

If raising a Complaint:

The Company maintains a full complaints procedure, a copy of which is enclosed, to
which any complaint should first of all be addressed.
If the matter is unable to be resolved to your satisfaction you may refer it, in writing, to the Complaints Department, The Society of Will Writers, Chancery House, Whisby Way Lincoln, LN6 3LQ.

Date:01/01/2023

The Company complies with the Society’s Code of Practice of which a copy is available upon request.

A customer satisfaction survey is available from your consultant upon request. The survey is also available online at www.willwriters.com/satisfactionsurvey.html.

4. Costs, VAT, and expenses

Our fees

Unless otherwise agreed, hourly charge out rates are the starting point for the calculation of the company’s fees. The time spent by our lawyers, research assistants and clerks is recorded at a rate per hour.

Our rates may be varied from time to time, and subject to notification, are subject to uplift on an annual basis. Details of applicable rates will be notified to you upon request. We will invoice you either monthly or at the end of the matter at our discretion or as agreed between us in writing.

Our fees will be payable within 7 days of being raised and delivered to you.

Should a third party agree to pay our fees but fail to do so, you will nevertheless be responsible for discharging them. If you request the company to act for any company or partnership in which you have or obtain a significant interest and that entity fails to pay our invoices in full by the due date, you agree to be responsible for the unpaid amount in accordance with these terms.

VAT

At the current time we are not VAT registered, but as and when this changes you will be notified, and our VAT registration number will be advised to you.

Expenses

Expenses, also known as disbursements, do not form part of our remuneration but are necessary that we make to others on your behalf. Depending on the type of work these might include property searches, Court fees, Land Registry fees, Counsel’s fees, AML searches, expert reports etc. Some of these fees include VAT.

Fixed fees

In certain types of work, we may agree a fixed fee. This will be the fee that you are charged, subject to the addition of VAT and disbursements as above. However, there are circumstances in which we may seek to vary the fee we charge you. Such factors might include the complexity of the issues, the speed at which action must be taken, the expertise or specialist knowledge which the matter requires, and if appropriate, the value of the property or subject knowledge involved.

In some circumstances we will ask for the agreed fixed fee to be paid upon your instruction to act on your behalf.

On the basis of the information currently available, we expect these factors to be adequately covered by the fee agreed. We hope it will not be necessary to increase our fees, but in any event we will not increase the fees without informing you.

Estimates

Where we have not agreed a fixed fee in advance of starting work in your matter, we will provide you with an estimate of the likely fees and disbursements. Our estimates can only be a guide and are not a cap; unforeseen problems are often encountered, and a transaction or matter may change with the result that the estimate will vary. Any departure from the estimate will be discussed with you as soon as possible.

If you are not satisfied with amounts charged to you in an invoice you should contact the person responsible for the matter or their supervisor immediately. If you are still dissatisfied, you can invoke our complaints handling system described in Appendix 1 of this document.

Contentious work

We do not undertake contentious work but will refer you to a preferred partner who will advise you of their fees direct under their own Terms of Business.

Interest

We reserve the right to charge interest on late paid invoices in accordance with the Late Payment of Commercial (debts) Act 1998. We also reserve the right to suspend our services or to cease to act for you having given prior written notice if payment of any fees and expenses is not made within 14 days. We intend to exercise these rights only if it is fair and reasonable to do so and strictly at our discretion.

The rate of interest will be 8% above the Bank of England base rate and will apply from the expiry of 14 days from the date of invoice until the invoice is paid in full.

In the event that an invoice remains unpaid:

Automatic invoice remainders will be sent at regular intervals until the invoice is paid or until a payment schedule is agreed;
No administration fees or interest will be added where a payment schedule is agreed;
Where an invoice remains unpaid or without a payment schedule in place within 60 days of the invoice date, SLS Wills and More Limited will consider alternative methods of recovery, and the costs of recovery will be added to the invoice and payable by the Customer.

5. Your money

Payments on account/interim bills

We may ask you from time to time to make payments on account of fees and expenses as they fall due. We may also render interim invoices for the work carried out to date should your matter become protracted or to spread the cost more evenly.

Interim invoices are payable upon delivery.

You agree that you will make such payments when requested to do so by us and that your refusal or failure to make such payments will allow us to terminate the retainer upon giving you reasonable notice.

Making payment

We accept payment by bank transfer or cheque, and we will accept cash up to a maximum of £250. Amy invoices sent by email also provide the ability to pay by Debit or Credit Card using Stripe (a third-party provider) and using a ‘Chip and Pin’ Card reader provided by Sum Up (a third- party provider). We do not have the ability to take payment remotely over the telephone.

Interest

We do not have a client account and all payments to us are held in a general office account with Metro Bank. No interest is payable to clients on any monies held. Where Executors instruct us to assist with the administration of an Estate, Executors are asked to open their own Executors account with a bank of their choice, and it is then up to them to ask if interest is payable on any monies held.

6. Money Laundering

The law requires us to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because we deal with money and property on behalf of our clients, and these can be used by criminals attempting to launder money.

To comply with the law, we need to get evidence of your identity as soon as possible. Our practice is to require our clients and anyone paying money to us on their behalf to provide photographic identification (e.g., a current passport or photocard driving licence) and evidence of their

residential address (e.g., a utility bill or other official document addressed to you at home, not more than 3 months old). As a matter of best practice, we also conduct anti-money laundering searches against all our clients using an electronic search provider.

Where no photographic identification documents are available we will require additional documentation to prove your identity – a letter from the DWP or HMRC which includes your National Insurance Number (dated within the last 12 months) and a second document proving your address (as described above).

Our policy, as set out above, is not to accept more than £250 in cash. If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly into our bank, we may need to charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to prove the source of the funds. Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to any third party.

7. Communication and information management - Our communication with you.

Where appropriate, it is our practice to use email, and these will be encrypted when sending documents and correspondence to clients. The email encryption system we use is supplied by FRAMA (a third-party provider). Although these are an extremely effective means of communication, we are unable to guarantee the security and confidentiality of material sent over the internet and we accept no responsibility for any error, loss or claim which arises as a result of any failure of security or confidentiality. If you have provided us with your email address, please tell us if you do not want us to communicate with you via the internet.

We check all communications with antivirus software, but again, cannot guarantee that transmissions will be free from infection, and we recommend that you also use your own anti-virus software. We operate a firewall and automatic spam filter. These may block a small number of genuine emails so that they do not reach their intended recipient at the firm. In such circumstances we will not be liable for any loss, damage, costs, interest, and expense you may incur directly or indirectly as a result.

You agree that to ensure regulatory compliance and for the protection of our clients and business, we may monitor and read emails and attachments sent to and from any member of our company.

Confidentiality

We have a professional obligation to keep all of the information that you provide to us confidential. However, there may be instances where we are required by law to disclose information to the appropriate authorities in compliance with the money laundering regulations (we may not be entitled to tell you that we have disclosed this information). There may be instances where we disclose matters to third parties, on your instructions, who fail to keep matters confidential despite obligations that they may have to do so. In such instances, we will not be liable for any breaches of disclosure.

Data Protection and GDPR

We use your personal information to provide you with our professional advisory services and we respect and value your privacy. We explain here your rights to privacy and how we will use and protect your personal information. For more detailed information please refer to our full privacy notice at www.slswillsandmore.co.uk/client-information.

If you have any questions about how we use and protect your information please contact Sara Sheppard at sara@slswillsandmore.co.uk by telephone on 01304 577998, or by post at 4 Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham, Canterbury, CT3 3BF.

We must use your personal information to honour our contractual arrangements with you. We may provide new information you from time to time because we have a legitimate interest in making sure you are kept aware of the newest legal and financial information related to our services.

We share certain information with other companies to deliver our services to you (email providers, secure storage providers, bookkeeper, etc.) and we make sure they handle your information professionally and securely. If you want to know more about our providers and their security arrangements, please get in touch.

We keep your information for as long as is necessary to ensure your advice is sound and legally robust. We use secure external document storage providers (where requested that we do so) to make sure paperwork is kept safely and securely.

You have rights to access the personal information we use, along with some other rights to deletion, to restrict our use of it and to lodge a complaint about our use of it with the regulator (the Information Commissioner’s Office). For further details please see our full privacy notice in appendix 2).

8. Limitation of liability

We will maintain professional indemnity insurance for an amount of £2.5m. In the event that there is a claim of any sort against us by you, our liability to you will in any case be limited to this amount. 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.

SLS Wills and More Ltd is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority but employs solicitors who are regulated in their individual right. If you make a valid claim against us for a loss arising out of work for which we are legally responsible, and we are unable to meet our liability in full, you will not be entitled to claim from the Compensation Fund administered by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

9. Termination and Notice of Right to Cancel

Termination

You may terminate your instructions in writing at any time.

We will only stop acting for you on reasonable grounds, for example:

serious or persistent late payment of or failure to pay our invoices for whatever reason;
failure to give comply with our request for a payment on account;
failure to give clear, proper, or timely instructions on how we are to proceed;
if it is clear that there is no longer sufficient trust and confidence between us; or
where a conflict of interest arises or emerges in connection with a matter on which we are advising you.

Where appropriate, we will give you reasonable notice we will cease acting for you. Our retainer to act for you in any specific matter will in any event end when we have fulfilled your instructions in relation to that matter.

If you or we decide to terminate our relationship, you must still pay our charges and disbursements for the period until we cease acting for your and any other post retainer charges mentioned in this document (for example, for storage and retention).

Notice of the Right to Cancel

If we have met with you away from our office and agreed to act for you or if we have agreed to act for you following a telephone conversation or by exchange of emails (or other electronic communication), and if we are acting for you for purposes which are outside your business, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges Regulations 2013 apply to our agreement with you. That means that you have the right to cancel our agreement without charge at any time within fourteen days of your acceptance of these terms. If you wish to do so you must inform if of your decision to cancel in writing. Your right to cancel our engagement will not apply if you agree to us beginning work in relation to your instructions during the relevant 14-day period. A Cancellation Notice is included in appendix 3 for your use if required.

10. Storage of Papers and Documents

When we conclude your matter, your file (or an electronic copy) will be retained for a period of 6 years (Probate) or for your life (Lasting Powers of Attorney) or for your life plus 6 years (Will).

Thereafter, the file will be destroyed. 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 storage of our files unless prior notice in writing is given to you of a charge to be made from such future date as may be specified in that notice.

If on request from you or someone on your behalf, we are asked to retrieve papers or documents from storage, we may make a charge based on time spent, and we may request payment in advance. We may also charge for reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions.

Please read the above terms carefully and ensure you understand them before signing.

Appendix 1 Complaints Policy

SLS Wills and More Limited takes client care responsibly and seriously including where in the event that a customer is dissatisfied with the service received.

Sara Sheppard TEP FSWW is the sole Director of SLS Wills and More Limited and is a Fellow of The Society of Wills Writers and a registered TEP and member of The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. As such, we are bound by the Codes of Practice of each organisation including their complaint procedures.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is defined as “any expression of dissatisfaction, whether oral or written, and whether justified or not, from or on behalf of an eligible complainant about the provision of, or failure to provide, will writing services and other connected services”.

Our Procedure

We would prefer any complaints in writing or by email, but we are willing to discuss concerns over the phone. We will aim to acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours and to investigate and report back and resolve within 7 working days.

What happens if you are still dissatisfied?

In the event that you are not satisfied with the response given, you are entitled to make a complaint direct to the Society of Will Writers or the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, who will then investigate and report back to you within 7-14 working days. Such complaint must be made in writing.

How to contact:

SLS Wills and More Ltd: sara@slswillsandmore.co.uk or 01304 577998 or 07951 736021

Society of Will Writers: www.willwriters.com/making-a-complaint or 01522 687888

Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners: www.step.org/disciplinary-process or 020 3752 3700

Appendix 2 Privacy Notice as at 1st January 2023

SLS Wills and More Limited Privacy Policy Notice

Our contact details

Name: Sara Sheppard

Address: Office 4, Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham CT3 3BF

Phone Number: 01304 577998

E-mail: sara@slswillsandmore.co.uk

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information:

Personal identifiers, contacts, and characteristics (for example, name and contact details), which may also include dates of birth and National Insurance Number. On some occasions, we may need specific financial information, such as for application for probate or for Court of Protection applications.
For employees, we will need bank account details for the purposes of running payroll in addition to the personal identifiers described above.

How we get the personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

For making a Will and/or Lasting Power of Attorney.
For assisting with Probate or Court of Protection applications.
For employment reasons.

We may also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios:

From any other professional adviser that you have instructed and who refers you to SLS Wills and More Limited for our services

We use the information that you have given us to prepare the documents which you have instructed us to prepare, or for an employee, for the purposes of running payroll including making pension contributions where appropriate.

We may share this information with our Accountant and Bookkeeper for completing company accounts and tax returns.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

(a) Your consent. You can remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting Sara Sheppard

(b) We have a contractual obligation.

How we store your personal information

Your information is securely stored at Office 4, Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham CT3 3BF

We keep all personal information for the remainder of your life plus a further 7 years. We retain this in case there is any dispute or claims after your death. We will then dispose your information by deleting from our digital records and destruction of any paper records that we still hold by this date.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at sara@slswillsandmore.co.uk or in writing to Office 4, Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham, CT3 3BF if you wish to make a request.

12 How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at SLS Wills and More Limited, Office 4, Garrity House, Miners Way, Aylesham CT3 3BF or by email to sara@slswillsandmore.co.uk.

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9

5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113 ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

13 Appendix 3 Cancellation Notice

This Cancellation Notice is set out in the form required by Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

If you wish to cancel the contract you MUST DO SO IN A CLEAR STATEMENT and deliver personally or send (which may be by electronic mail) this to the Company at their address below. You may use this form if you want to, but you do not have to.

Location

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