6. Payment terms
a) We may at any stage ask you to pay us money in advance on account of our fees, expenses and VAT. Requests for money on account usually relate to the next stage of the work that we are doing for you and bear no relation to the likely overall costs of the matter, an estimate of which we will have given you separately. Money paid to us on account will be held in our client account in accordance with the SRA Accounts Rules.
b) We may have to pay various expenses to third parties on your behalf, for example court fees, barristers’ or experts’ fees, Land Registry fees and taxes. We will normally ask you to let us have funds in advance to cover payments that we have to make to third parties. If you are paying us by cheque, we must have it at least 7 working days in advance as the SRA Accounts Rules do not permit us to pay out against uncleared funds. We have no obligation to make such payments unless you have provided us with cleared funds for that purpose, and we will not be liable to you for any penalties or other loss caused by your failure to make a requested payment in time. Occasionally we may agree to pay an expense from our own funds on your behalf, in which event we may ask you to reimburse us at any time.
c) It is a condition of our accepting instructions that we have the right to send you regular interim bills as the matter progresses. Any Interim bill we send you is a self-contained invoice for the work done during the period it covers. We will send a final bill at the end of your matter which will cover work from the date of the last interim bill. Where this applies, we will discuss the frequency of billing with you before we start work.
d) If you fail to meet a request for money to pay expenses and/or on account within a reasonable time, or to pay an interim bill within 14 days of delivery, we are entitled to stop work until payment is received or until you or we decide to end our instructions as provided for above.
e) Our invoices are payable 14 days from the date of sending.
f) In property transactions:
i) we will normally send you our bill, together with a completion statement, following exchange of contracts. Payment of our fees, expenses (including Stamp Duty Land Tax and Land Registry fees) and VAT is required for purchases before completion and for sales on completion.
ii) we must have cleared funds to complete the transaction and, if the funds required to complete do not arrive into our client account in time to clear by close of business on the working day before completion, your completion may be at risk.
iii) if sufficient funds are available on completion and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from those funds.
iv) we can only accept money from legitimate sources that we have verified. If you arrange for us to receive money from people or sources that we have not verified, this may cause delay and/or additional expense and, if we are unable to verify them satisfactorily, we may not be able to use it; we will not be responsible for any delay, expense or losses arising as a result.
v) if you are using mortgage funds to purchase a property, we will ask the lender to arrange for us to receive cleared funds the day before completion. Depending on the lender, this may involve providing us with a cheque four working days before completion or an electronic transfer of funds the day before completion. You should be aware that the lender might start charging you interest from the date of issue of their loan cheque or the date of the electronic transfer.
g) In all other matters, if we are holding money in our client account we may, in our discretion, transfer sufficient funds to cover any interim or final bill, expenses and VAT instead of or as well as asking you for payment. We will tell you if we intend to do this.
h) You are primarily responsible for paying our bills irrespective of any right that you may have to claim them from a third party by way of an indemnity. If a court orders your opponent in litigation to pay or contribute towards your costs you will have to pay them to us first and then take steps to recover them from your opponent. In that event, you can claim interest from your opponent on those costs from the date of the court order; you will be entitled to the interest on such of our costs as you have already paid on account and we will be entitled to the interest on the rest of our costs that you have not paid.
i) If a bill is not paid within one month of delivery we may, at our discretion, do all or any of the following:
i) cease work until such time as all our charges are fully paid and up-to-date
ii) raise a further invoice for any work done since the date of the last invoice
iii) terminate our contract with you with immediate effect
iv) retain by way of security for our unpaid costs any documentation or other assets in our possession (known as exercising our right to a lien)
v) claim contractual interest at the rate of 8% per month from date of invoice on outstanding invoiced amounts which are not paid on time.
vi) issue proceedings for the recovery of monies due to us.
If you wish to challenge a bill (interim or final), you should invoke our complaints procedure, a copy of which is available on request. You also have the right to apply to the County Court for our bill to be assessed under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974. Applications to the County Court should normally be made within one month of delivery of the bill be that interim or final. If you challenge a bill, we will charge interest on such of the unpaid costs as we are entitled to recover from one month after delivery of the bill as set out above.
j) If you provide us with a cheque which is dishonoured when presented for payment, we will charge you an administrative fee of £10 plus VAT.
k) If we need to telegraphically transfer monies on your behalf then we will charge an administration fee for doing so.
l) We accept payment by cheque, electronic transfer or debit/credit card (charges apply for the latter)
m) We generally do not accept cash of more than £500. If you avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may charge you for any additional checks we consider necessary to verify the source of the funds.
n) Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or electronic transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.