TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT

This page sets out our relationship with you. We value your business and we trust that you value our expertise and competence.

What we will do for you:

  • We will keep all information that you give to us confidential and shall not disclose that information to any person or organisation (unless we are required to in carrying out our work for you) without your express consent.
  • We will keep you regularly informed of progress.
  • We will always have at least 2 people in our firm familiar with your file
  • We will answer your queries and return your telephone calls promptly and if the person with whom you are dealing with cannot do this, we will let you know.
  • We will notify you if we think an assignment should be referred to an outside specialist.
  • We wish to discuss with you, whenever possible, what the estimated charges will be and the various payment options.

What you can do for us:

  • Provide us with clear instructions of what you require from us.
  • Let us know of any concerns you may have about the nature of the work we are carrying out for you, the charges you may be incurring, the quality of our reporting to you or any other matter which is of concern.
  • Keep us up to date with any changes in your contact details.
  • Keep us up to date with any information which may be relevant to the work we are doing for you.

Costs:

  • We will endeavour to send an account to you for all work done and completed within a month of completion. For lengthy assignments however, we may send you interim bills (normally on a monthly basis). At the conclusion of the assignment, we will then render you a bill for the whole assignment and deduct from that bill the interim accounts we have already rendered.
  • Unless previously agreed in writing, that account is to be paid by the 20th of the month following receipt by you.
  • We may send you an account for all disbursements incurred when the total disbursements exceed $50.00
  • If you instruct us to act for someone else or another organisation (including any trust or company), then you shall remain personally responsible for payment of the account unless we otherwise, in writing, agree.
  • If your account with us is overdue, we reserve the right to stop any further work and to charge you interest on any overdue amount at the rate of 1.5% per month from the date of the account and to further charge you the full costs of recovery or attempting to recover the overdue amount.

Your records:

We shall hold records here on your behalf.

  • Important records such as deeds, wills, power of attorney, are kept in our deeds register and we shall use our best endeavours to keep those safe and secure.
  • Other documents, e.g. files and the like, shall be kept for the period recommended by the New Zealand Law Society and LINZ. These records belong to you and we are holding them on your behalf. We do not accept responsibility for the safekeeping of these files, on the other hand, we do not charge you a maintenance charge for storage.

You are entitled to uplift those records at any time.

By instructing us to act for you, you agree to the above terms.