Terms of Business

Tel: 0800 240 4587 Mob: 07904 167506 Email: info@michaelsandcompany.com
Office Address: 1 Raleigh House, 2b Boucher Road, Budleigh Salterton, EX9 6HG

It is important that you are full informed about how your instructions will be handled by Michaels & Co. herein referred to as the Company. This page sets out the Company’s Terms and Conditions of business. Please read this entire document carefully and keep in a safe place for your future reference.

We reserve the right to make amendments to these Terms and Conditions of business. We will let you know of any changes should they affect your current matter. Copies of the Company’s Terms and Conditions of business will be available upon request.

By proceeding with your instructions constitutes acceptance of the Terms and Conditions of business. It is the Company’s policy that we are unable to commence work on your behalf until these Terms and Conditions of business have been accepted and the relevant fees agreed. By signing The Client Agreement, you are deemed to have read, understood and accepted the Company’s Terms and Conditions of business in their entirety except where they have been varied in writing with our agreement. If you pay for any products that you have ordered, after we have sent to you a copy of these Terms, it shall be deemed that such Terms have been accepted in their entirety.

Initial meeting / consultations

This takes place after your Free Initial Consultation which includes an email summary of your circumstances and potential strategies. Further meetings at your home or office, are chargeable. This incurs a minimum charge of £500 plus VAT, which represents approximately 2 hours of your consultant’s time (this includes travelling) and is payable at the end of the second meeting. In turn Michaels & Co Estate Planning Ltd., will provide any fine tuning to the summary proposal of both the immediate recommended planning and potential future planning. Should you proceed with the recommendations the initial consultancy fees are deducted from the final invoice.

Following the first meeting, you may have subsequent additional questions arising from the initial consultation which may be addressed via email or over the telephone. There is no charge in dealing with these general clarification enquiries for up to 1 calendar month after the first meeting.

Formal Advice and Engagement

The above said, it is the requirement of our Professional Indemnity Insurance that any advice requested must follow formal engagement of our terms and conditions and as such will then become chargeable as detailed below in The cost to you.

Service we provide

We will prepare all Legal Documentation in accordance with your written instructions form, completed together with your Adviser and signed by you.
Our Associates will discuss your needs with us, and outline in detail the options you have available; given this guidance and advice we will then proceed to implement the plans chosen from the options discussed, to give effective family asset protection and tax mitigation where possible.
We will then proceed to produce all Wills, Trusts, LPA’s etc and undertake the necessary changes with e.g., Land Registry, Office of the Public Guardian etc on your behalf,

What you will receive from us

Your engrossed legal documents.
A set of instructions on how to execute e.g. your Will(s) / Trust(s).
Deed of Severance paperwork (if applicable).
Memorandum of wishes.
We suggest that any personal belongings are detailed in a separate Memorandum of Wishes that you prepare and place with your Will.
A further appointment may be arranged to review your legal documents and supervise the attestation.

What we require of you

The proposal for estate & succession planning strategies is based on the family circumstances and the estate values disclosed by you, the Client, at the initial consultation. It is the Client`s responsibility to ensure these are correct and current. Please be aware that any discrepancy or change in family circumstances and estate values must be disclosed for the proposed planning to meet your goals and objectives effectively and we cannot be held responsible if you should fail to do so either before implementation or in respect of future changes in circumstances. It is your responsibility to contact us if your circumstances change requiring your Will(s) / Trust(s) to be reviewed.

Joint Instructions

These rules apply in areas where instructions have been taken jointly from more than one client in a meeting regarding more than one Will/Legal document.
We confirm that, we requested that the Consultant act for both of us. We understand that, no information received in connection with the matter from one can be treated as confidential so far as any of the others concerned.
We confirm that there was no conflict which remained unresolved and prevented the Consultant from being able to act for both, or all of us.
We confirm that should such a conflict subsequently arise following our initial instruction that, this would lead to the Consultant being unable to act for both, or all of us and this would include subsequent changes to either Will/Legal document of which the other, or others would not be aware.

What we do not provide

We do not provide any ongoing advice to you, and it is your responsibility to consider changing your Will(s) Trust(s) or other legal documents if your circumstances change.

The cost to you

An initial consultation fee is required and payable at the time your adviser attend the first face to face meeting.
A receipt will be provided to you, which your consultant will ask you to sign.
After the initial meeting and post meeting consultation, any work on your behalf is charged at our Senior Paralegal rate of £250 per hour or £62.50 per 15mins or part thereof. These include telephone/video calls, discussions, research, meetings, all written forms of communication etc. between us or made by your advisor on your behalf.
These charges will be provided to you on a monthly invoice showing a complete date/time analysis.
Should you proceed with the proposed planning then we charge a fixed fee which doesn’t involve hourly charges.
Any additional planning over and above the proposed planning will be quoted separately on an ‘as required’ basis.
The proposed cost to you will be detailed in your report and subsequent instructions.

Payment

Payment is by debit, or credit card, bank transfer, cheque, and is payable at the time that you provide written instruction to us to proceed.

Rights of Cancellation

You have a right to cancel this agreement with us provided you do so in writing, including electronic mail, to reach us within 14 Calendar days of receipt of payment.

Your Consultant will have explained to you that you could either:

A. Instruct us to proceed immediately in which case you would not be able to cancel this agreement if we had started work. Please Note: This does not affect your statutory right to cancel however, you may be required to pay for goods or services supplied, if the performance of the contract had begun with your written agreement, before the end of the cancellation period.
B. Take no action for 14 calendar days after receipt of payment, the Terms of Business and the Right to Cancel Forms, provided to you by your consultant. We would then proceed to prepare your Will(s), or other legal documents and you would no longer be able to cancel the contract. I/we accept that, if I/we elect to wait until the statutory 14 days have elapsed and you were not to survive this period, then there would be no recourse for any claim to be made against Michaels & Co estate Planning Ltd. nor any its providers, by your estate/survivors/intended Beneficiaries, as a result of you having chosen this option.

It is a legal requirement that you are informed of your Rights to Cancellation. To enable your order to proceed you are required to select EITHER Box A, or Box B above and sign below to confirm which option you have chosen.

If you wish to cancel, notice of cancellation should be sent to the company named below at any time within the period of 14 calendar days, starting with the date of payment. Alternatively, you can use the Cancellation Form attached.

Name and Address of the person to whom Rights of Cancellation may be given:
Michaels & Co., 1 Raleigh House, 2b Boucher Road, Budleigh Salterton EX9 6HG
Email: info@michaelsandcompany.com

Where you are not using the Cancellation Form provided, you should include all the following information in your communication:

The Date of your Order.
Your full Name(s) and Address.
Date the Cancellation Notice was issued to you.

After sales

If we have made an error in the drafting of your legal documents, or you require changes to be made you should contact your Consultant immediately upon receipt. We will correct that error or make any amendments within 6 weeks of the documentation being sent out to you, without further charge. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

Your contact details and relevant personal information will be obtained to ensure that your documentation which you have asked us to provide is completed correctly and accurately. For more information, please read our Privacy Statement at www.michaelsandcompany.com or request a copy in writing to our address below.

Generally speaking, all information supplied to us by you shall be treated as confidential at all times, unless we are required to disclose and/or discuss your information upon your instructions (implicit or actual), by an Order of the Court, under current legislation, updated legal and/or regulatory compliance or by way of any other statutory exceptions. Your personal information is stored by us in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Our use of such information is subject to your instructions, the DPA 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. You have a right of access under the GDPR legislation to the information we hold about you.
It may be necessary for the successful and efficient conclusion of your matter for us to occasionally disclose your personal information that you have provided us to third parties who are involved with completing your instructions. We will share that information with external legal providers from time to time in order to assist us to achieve that. External legal providers lawful justification for retaining and processing your personal data mirrors the contractual reasons for us retaining and processing your personal data.
The Company may be subject to audit or quality checks from time to time by outside organisations and your information may also be passed to Authorities in the event of any disclosures. Your acceptance of these Terms shall be treated as appropriate authority for us to pass on such details unless we hear to the contrary in writing beforehand. All external organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files and comply with the GDPR.
If we hold any sensitive personal data (as defined in the GDPR) such as medical records, you must provide your permission before we may disclose it to third parties.
For the purposes of this contract, please list below all parties which you, the client(s) consent to their having access to your personal client details.
We encourage communications by way of email and therefore we shall correspond with you by such means where you are happy for us to do so. However, please note communications by email can be unsecure and emails may contain viruses. Whilst “the Company” uses anti-virus software for all email communications, we cannot be held responsible for any potential risks that may arise from any emails that we send, which may contain viruses, and which shall also include any circumstances where emails have been misdirected or not received by you.
During the Consultation, those people or companies whom you have chosen to have access to your completed documents will be identified to “the Company” and detailed within the Client Disclaimer which will be signed by you.
Personal data is processed to allow us to fulfil our contractual obligations to you or as a precedent to such contract.

Disclosure of Information and Confidentiality

The Company shall maintain the strictest confidentiality and will not pass on your personal information to any other organisation without your express permission. The Company is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and is compliant with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations that came into force on 25th May 2018.

We may need to provide important information and guidance to parties named in your Will and/or the offer of our services but before we do you must give us your written permission to do so.

Use of Personal Information

The legal basis on which any personal information that the Company collects from you, or that you provide to it, will be processed is as follows. This information may be collected during meetings, by completing a contact form on the Company website, in correspondence or in telephone conversations.
Personal information may be processed by the Company for a number of legitimate purposes, including (i) To carry out its obligations under this agreement, (ii) To provide you with information, products and/or services which the Company believes may be of interest to you, provided that you have given your consent, (iii) For accounting purposes and statistical analysis.
The Company will maintain client files for a period of 6 years after your death, or for a period of 6 years after you have notified us in writing that your document(s) have been revoked, whichever event occurs first.
The Company may disclose your personal information to its partner firms and/or sub-contractors who it relies on to be able to provide its services to you, but in doing so it will ensure that they apply the same or greater controls in terms of data protection as the Company does.
The Company may also disclose your personal information in the following circumstances, (i) If the Company or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets, (ii) To prevent fraud or if required to do so by law.

Complaints

We assume that you will be pleased with the service we provide. However, should you be dissatisfied in any way, please write to Michael Doctors at: Michaels & Co. 1 Raleigh House 2b Boucher Road Budleigh Salterton EX9 6HG

You can also email info@michaelsandcompany.com or call 0800 240 4587.
Registered office: Michaels & Co Estate Planning Ltd, 18 High Street, Budleigh Salterton, Devon EX9 6LQ.

Limit on our Liability

In respect of the advice we render and work we undertake we will limit our potential liability to you to £2M. In instructing us, you accept that in the event of our negligence or breach of contract, you cannot claim more than that sum from us or our insurers, and that you have no claim against any of our staff personally.
In respect of any claim or potential clam against us we limit the time you have in which to claim to 3 years from the date of the alleged act or omission or 12 months from the date you became aware of it as appropriate.