Terms and Conditions of Business

  1. STREETS LAW

    1. Streets Law and Streets Legal are trading styles of Streets Law Limited, a private limited company registered in England and Wales with company number 10376065.
    2. Our registered office address is situated at Tower House, Lucy Tower Street, Lincoln, LN1 1XW.
    3. We are licensed and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”) as an alternative business structure (“ABS”), licence number 660138.
    4. References to “we”, “us” and “our” are to Streets Law Limited. References to "you" and "your" are to the client or clients referred to in our Engagement Letter.

  2. Contract

    1. If we accept an instruction from you to provide legal services (“Engagement”), we will send you a letter containing, amongst other matters, details of our agreed scope of work and our fee estimate (“Engagement Letter”).
    2. All work carried out by us for you as our client is subject to these terms and conditions of business (“Terms of Business”) and the terms set out in our Engagement Letter, except to the extent that such terms are varied as expressly agreed with you in writing.
    3. In the event of any conflict between these Terms of Business and the terms of our Engagement Letter, the terms set out in our Engagement Letter shall take precedence.
    4. These Terms of Business, together with our Engagement Letter, constitute the entire contract between us and you and apply to the exclusion of any other terms which you may seek to introduce, or which may be implied by trade or course of dealing between us and you.
    5. You may be asked to sign and return a copy of our Engagement Letter to us. If you fail to do so within 14 days of the date of the Engagement Letter you will be deemed to have accepted the terms set out in the Engagement Letter and our Terms of Business.
    6. We may amend or change these Terms of Business at any time by giving reasonable notice in writing to you. Unless you notify us within 14 days of such notice that you do not agree to such new terms and wish to terminate your instruction, you will be deemed to have accepted the new terms with effect from the end of such 14-day period.

  3. OUR SERVICES

    1. We provide professional legal services in England and Wales and are subject to the
      SRA Code of Conduct 2011 (“Code of Conduct”). The Code of Conduct and other professional rules applicable to us can be accessed at http://www.sra.org.uk/rules.
    2. We are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”). Accordingly, we will not advise you on any accounting, actuarial or financial related issues, although such advice may be provided to you separately by Streets LLP. Please note that while Streets LLP is a separate company some of the owners of our business also own Streets LLP and as such we do have an interest in matters referred to Streets LLP.
    3. We will not advise you on any tax related matters as our lawyers are not tax
      specialists. We encourage you to seek specialist tax advice from Streets Tax LLP or from your own tax advisers as the tax treatment may have a material impact on your instructions to us. Please note that only services provided by us entitle you to the consumer protections detailed within these terms. Any services provided by Streets LLP or Streets Tax LLP involve a separate contract for services and will not be subject to the same professional indemnity insurance, compensation fund or complaints regimes as for services provided by us.
    4. Our advice is prepared solely for use by you and for the intended purposes
      associated with the Engagement. Our advice should not be disclosed to any third party without our prior written agreement (other than to your officers, employees or agents, or the immediate members of your family).

  4. INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

    1. You authorise us to request and accept instructions from you and from any persons
      whom we reasonably believe are authorised to give instructions on your behalf (including but not limited to your employees, officers and directors), and we will act for you on the basis of those instructions. You acknowledge that we may act on instructions given to us orally, in writing or electronically.
    2. In order to carry out the Engagement effectively we require your full co-operation.
      You agree to provide us with timely instructions, information and documentation that we may need to complete the Engagement and ensure that such instructions, information and documentation are complete and accurate in all respects and not misleading. Our acceptance of the Engagement is subject to your strict compliance with these ongoing responsibilities.
    3. Where information relevant to the Engagement is provided to one of our directors
      or employees who are not directly involved in the Engagement, you acknowledge, agree and confirm that knowledge of that information will not automatically be imputed to those individuals involved in the Engagement.

  5. CONFIDENTIALITY

    1. We will keep confidential any information which is not otherwise publicly available and that we acquire about you during the Engagement, except that we may disclose such information to:
      1. our professional indemnity insurers;
      2. our auditors, assessors or other advisors, including but not limited to the SRA;
      3. other professional advisors engaged by your or us on work related to the Engagement;
      4. other third parties if we are obliged to so by any law or regulatory authority (such as the National Crime Agency under Anti Money Laundering rules). By law we may be unable to tell you of such disclosure. We are not liable for any loss or damage suffered or incurred by you as a result of such disclosure.
    2. You acknowledge that we are under no obligation to disclose to you or use for your benefit any documents or information in respect of which we owe a duty of confidentiality to any other party.
    3. We have a professional duty to keep your documents and information confidential and, save as set out in clause 5.1 above, we will not disclose such information or documents to a third party without your prior consent.

  6. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

    1. Prior to accepting any Engagement, we will carry out reasonable checks to ascertain whether we are able to advise you having due regard to the Code of Conduct and other professional regulations regarding conflicts of interest.
    2. We will not act for another client in relation to the subject matter of the Engagement if this would create a conflict of interest unless we are permitted by the Code of Conduct and with both your and any other client’s prior written agreement.
    3. Should an actual or anticipated conflict of interest arise during the Engagement we will inform all clients concerned (unless we are prohibited from doing so) and we may have to then cease acting for some or all of them. We will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered or incurred by you if we cease acting due to any conflict or anticipated conflict.

  7. COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

    1. We are committed to providing a quality service to our clients. We value feedback from clients greatly because it helps us to continually improve our service. If you do not feel that you are receiving excellent client service or that something could be improved, please do tell us about it. If we have fallen short of the high standards which we have set for ourselves then we would like the opportunity to put it right.
    2. At first it would be helpful if you could discuss any feedback or concerns which you have about our service or how it might be improved with the lawyer dealing with your matter. If the lawyer dealing cannot resolve your concern informally, or if the issue is of such a serious nature that you do not feel comfortable raising it with your lawyer, then you may discuss this with our complaints partner as a complaint under this policy.
    3. If you wish to raise a complaint with us, it would help us if you could email with:
      1. why you feel dissatisfied with the service which you have received;
      2. how you would prefer to be contacted about your complaint;
      3. if there is anything in particular which you would like us to do to resolve your complaint.
    4. If you would prefer not to email details of your complaint in this way then please call to discuss the best way to get an understanding of your concerns. Paul Tutin sits outside of the central fee earning team and can be contacted for complaints where you do not feel comfortable raising the issue with your individual lawyer.
    5. Following receipt of a complaint, we will:
      1. send an acknowledgement of your complaint within 7 days of receiving it;
      2. log your complaint on our central complaints register;
      3. investigate the concerns and arrange a discussion with you to try to agree how to resolve the issues within 21 days of receiving your complaint;
      4. write to you within 28 days of receiving your complaint to confirm the outcome of this.
    6. In exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to extend these timescales but we will try to agree any variations with you first. If you remain unsatisfied after 8 weeks at the latest we will always ensure that you are reminded at that time of how to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman if you are eligible to do so.
    7. We very much regret any dissatisfaction which our clients experience and will not hesitate to apologise to you where our service has fallen below our high standards. We may also agree that certain steps will be taken to improve your situation and to ensure that any problems experienced will not reoccur.
    8. If you remain dissatisfied you may be entitled to complain to the Legal Ombudsman about our service. This service is not available to all clients however such as large businesses. The Ombudsman would generally expect clients to follow a firm’s internal complaints procedure first. You can find further information about the Ombudsman on the website www.legalombudsman.org.uk. You can write to the Ombudsman at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ or by email on enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or call on 0300 555 0333. If you wish to raise a complaint with the Ombudsman then you should not delay bringing it to their attention once our own complaints process has concluded as there are some time limits on when this must be done. For example, normally you must raise a complaint with the Ombudsman within six months of the firm’s own final decision on how to resolve your complaint.

  8. QUALITY & SERVICE LEVELS

    1. We will carry out our services with reasonable care and skill and aim to act in accordance with the Code of Conduct and all other regulatory requirements at all times.
    2. We will report to you at regular intervals during the Engagement. and on its conclusion. Unless agreed otherwise with you, we will notify you of all significant telephone conversations and meetings and will share any significant emails or written correspondence with you which is material to your Engagement.
    3. Where an Engagement is ongoing we will report progress at regular intervals and
      regularly update you as to the level of our fees. We will communicate with you by telephone, email or in writing as preferred by you.
    4. If you have any specific concerns or timescales, or if there are matters on which you do not wish us to advise you, it is your responsibility to advise us at the outset of the Engagement.

  9. FEES AND PAYMENT

    1. Unless otherwise agreed as set out in our Engagement Letter, our fees are based on the time spent on your Engagement, recorded and charged in six-minute units.
    2. The time spent by all of our employees on your Engagement will be charged, including meetings with you and others, taking instructions, travelling, considering, preparing, advising and working on documents and papers, attending court, legal research, correspondence, emails and telephone calls.
    3. We will provide you with an estimate of our fees in our Engagement Letter at the start of your Engagement. We may also provide you with further updated estimates as your Engagement progresses. If, due to the nature of the Engagement, it is not possible to provide you with an estimate at the outset, we may agree to place a cap on our fees up to a certain agreed level and will only incur fees beyond this agreed level with your prior agreement. We will keep you updated as to the fees incurred on your Engagement.
    4. You are liable to pay our fees and disbursements as set out on our invoices.
    5. All invoices are payable by you in full within 14 days of the date of invoice.
    6. It is our practice to invoice all outstanding fees and disbursements on a monthly basis as the matter progresses. This is so that you are continually updated on the fees incurred on your Engagement and to avoid the escalation of fees.
    7. We may in certain circumstances request payment from you in advance (payment on account) in respect of our fees and disbursements. Unless we state otherwise, this is not an estimate of the fees we are likely to incur during the Engagement or a fixed price and our total fees may exceed the sum paid.
    8. If an invoice or part of an invoice remains outstanding after 14 days from the date of invoice, we reserve the right to:
      1. charge interest at a rate of 4% above the base rate from time to time of HSBC Bank plc; and/or
      2. instigate debt recovery proceedings against you for the outstanding balance due, including instructing third parties to take appropriate action on our behalf; and/or
      3. terminate the Engagement without liability to you.
    9. Upon termination of the Engagement (whether such Engagement is terminated by
      you or us) all of our invoices will become immediately due and payable on demand
      and you will also be liable for any of our outstanding fees not invoiced as at the date of termination.
    10. We accept payment by bank transfer, debit or credit card. We prefer payment by
      bank transfer and reserve the right to require payment to be made by bank transfer. We do not accept payment in cash.
    11. Any estimate, fee or disbursement is stated to be exclusive of value added tax (VAT) or other taxes or duties which we might be obliged to charge you.
    12. Our invoices must be paid without any deduction or withholding on account of taxes and charges. You have a right to object to any invoice by way of our complaint’s procedure and/or by making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. You may also apply to the court for an assessment of our invoice under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, however If you do apply to court the Legal Ombudsman may decide not to deal with a subsequent complaint about the invoice.

  10. CLIENT MONEY

    1. Unless we agree otherwise, any money that we hold for you will be deposited in a client bank account in a clearing bank in accordance with the SRA Accounts Rules (SAR’s).
    2. In accordance with SARs, we are required to account to you for interest on money held by us in our client account when it is fair and reasonable to do so.
    3. We will pay interest to you without deduction of tax unless we tell you otherwise in writing. It is your responsibility to declare money you receive from us for your own tax purposes.
    4. The rate of interest you will receive on moneys held in our client account will vary from time to time. Our policy on the payment of interest from our client account and the rate payable will be as published on our website www.streetslaw.co.uk from to time to time.
    5. Interest will not be paid on money held for the payment of disbursements or held for the Legal Services Commission.
    6. Interest will only be paid to you where the amount of interest calculated exceeds £25 in any tax year ending on 5 April. Interest will be calculated on cleared funds.
    7. Our client account is with a financial institution covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). In the event of a banking collapse affecting our client account, we will contract the FSCS with details of our individual and small business clients so that they can seek compensation from it. Further details are available on the FCA website at www.fscs.org.uk. Under the FSCS scheme a £85,000 limit applies to all individuals. If you hold other deposits in the same bank then the limit remains £85,000 in total. The £85,000 limit also applies where one deposit taking institution operates under several brands, so you should check with your bank or the FCA for further information.

  11. TERMINATION OF ENGAGEMENT

    1. You are entitled to terminate the Engagement at any time by giving us notice in writing.
    2. We may terminate the Engagement early if at any time:
      1. where you fail to give us clear and proper instructions; or
      2. where you fail to pay any invoice when due pursuant to these terms of business; or
      3. where we discover a conflict of interest or a potential conflict of interest in relation to your Engagement; or
      4. you become bankrupt or insolvent; or
      5. we are prevented from providing services to you by the National Crime Agency; or
      6. you breach any of the terms set out in these terms of business.
    3. Upon termination of the Engagement you will be liable to pay our fees and any disbursements incurred in relation to your Engagement up to the date of termination.

  12. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

    1. Nothing in these terms of business will exclude or limit our liability to you for death or personal injury suffered by you as a result of our negligence.
    2. Subject at all times to clause 12.1, we shall not be liable for any indirect, special or consequential loss or damage suffered or incurred by you arising in any circumstances, however caused, including but not limited to:
      1. loss of profit;
      2. loss of revenue or income;
      3. loss of contract or opportunity;
      4. loss of goodwill;
      5. loss of business;

        or any other similar economic losses.

    3. Subject to clause 12.1, our total liability to you for all direct losses, liabilities, costs and expenses suffered or incurred from you under the Engagement is limited to the sum of £3 million.
    4. Where we act for you and other person(s) jointly on a particular Engagement, claims made by you and such other person(s) shall be one claim and the limit on our liability under clause 12.3 to the aggregate of claims brought by you and any other person(s).
    5. We will not be liable to you to the extent that we are not able to provide our services by reason of any circumstances beyond our reasonable control, where you fail to provide instructions, information or documents (or such instructions, information or documents are misleading) or where you have failed to pay any of our invoices by the due date for payment.
    6. Details of the geographical scope of our insurance coverage, the extent to which cover meets SRA ‘minimum terms’ requirements and contact information for our current professional indemnity insurers are all available upon request.

  13. DATA PROTECTION

    1. We will collect information about you and keep this on our computers, in our
      email in cloud storage and on paper for a certain amount of time. The main reasons for this are to:
      1. deliver the legal services we have agreed in contract to provide to you. For example, we may use your information to write letters on your behalf or prepare legal documents to help you with your matter.
      2. comply with the law. For example, as solicitors we have to perform ‘conflicts of interest’ checks for new cases against a list of current and former clients. We also have a legal duty to report suspicious activity to the National Crime Agency (‘NCA’) if we suspect money laundering.
    2. In some cases we may hold more ‘sensitive’ information about you such as about
      health. This may be necessary to pursue your legal matter. We are permitted to use such information to provide legal advice to you or in connection with equality legislation.
    3. You can withdraw consent to your information being used in a particular way but
      this may limit what more we can do for you (if anything).
    4. As a client we may also in the future send you a newsletter or similar and find that
      most clients find this helpful. We rely upon the ‘legitimate interest’ we have in
      maintaining contact with former clients to do this in data protection law and your
      agreement for the purposes of the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (which can be implied under these Regulations). However, we will never share your information with third parties to market to you and will not contact you about non-legal services. We will make it quick and easy to ‘opt out’ of future communications in every communication sent. If you already know that you don’t want to receive these messages then you can opt out now by emailing marketing@streetslaw.co.uk.
    5. Your information may be kept on computer servers within the European Union. If at any point information is stored on computer servers outside of the EU we have selected countries which are either approved for this purpose (under Article 45 of the General Data Protection Regulation or ‘GDPR’) or are located where we are happy that the safeguards in place in that country to protect your information are appropriate (under Article 45 of the GDPR).
    6. We do not use your personal information to make ‘automated decisions’ which
      affect you.
    7. Generally speaking we will not share your information with third parties unless this
      is part of the work on your legal matter. For example, we may need to send certain
      information about you to other lawyers working on the case, to Court or to government bodies such as the Land Registry. In rare circumstances we sometimes need to make reports of suspicious activity to the NCA. We do also work with some trusted contractors or consultants who may have access to your information such as service providers or copiers. As part of our anti-money laundering checks, we employ third party suppliers to provide services including utilising the services of a credit reference agency (https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal-information/bureau- privacy-notice). All contractors have a contract with us which requires that your information is accessed appropriately and kept confidential (among other GDPR requirements).
    8. Generally speaking files are destroyed after 6 years. Certain original documents or
      files may need to be kept longer if there is a big risk of destroying something which is needed. We will also always keep a small amount of information after file closure to do conflicts of interest searches in the future to comply with our professional duties.
    9. We normally have a right to payment of any outstanding costs before releasing a
      whole file but you do have a separate right under the GDPR to access your ‘personal data’ without charge. This may include having it in a particular electronic format (‘portable’ format). Please contact info@streetslaw.co.uk if you would like to request a copy of your personal data.
    10. Our general contact details are set out in our covering letter and our information
      officer is: Adam Aisthorpe, email: aaisthorpe@streetslaw.co.uk. Contact this individual if you want to exercise one of your data protection ‘rights’ and in particular if you:
      1. wish to complain about how your personal data is being used;
      2. wish to request that our records about your personal information be corrected or deleted.
    11. If you have a complaint about how your personal information is being used which we have not been able to address please note that you may be able to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) directly.

  14. COMMUNICATION BY EMAIL

    1. By instructing us and providing your email address you consent to us using the email address to send information and documents to you via email.
    2. Unless otherwise agreed with you, we will send all our invoices to you by email. Hard copy invoices can be posted to you on request. By instructing us you agree that we may send our invoices by email and that you will be deemed to have received our invoice upon delivery.
    3. We will not be liable for any loss arising from the non-delivery, redirection, interception or copying of emails. We are also not liable for any loss of or damage to your hardware or software (or the hardware or software of any third party) caused by any emails or electronic data sent by us which may without our knowledge contain viruses, malware or ransomware or similar, unless this was caused by our negligence.

  15. INSTRUCTION OF THIRD PARTIES

    1. We will seek your prior written approval before we engage third parties and incur their charges as agent on your behalf.
    2. We will disclose to you any arrangements or payments (if any) that we obtain in connection with your Engagement at the outset of such Engagement.
    3. We shall have no liability to you for the services provided by any third party or for any other loss arising from such third parties.
    4. You acknowledge that we may outsource or subcontract certain administrative functions such as printing, document production and storage, IT, compliance and internal accounting/bookkeeping to our affiliated firms or to third party organisations. You also agree that we may outsource certain legal services to our affiliated firms or third-party businesses who are authorised or licensed under the Legal Services Act 2007 to carry out such services.

  16. ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING

    1. Our acceptance of the Engagement is subject to your compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 and any other relevant legislation relating to money laundering (“Money Laundering Legislation”), including providing ID and source of funds information and documents that we may require from time to time to comply with Money Laundering Legislation.
    2. By instructing us you agree to provide us with any information and documents that we may require in order to comply with Money Laundering Legislation. We may not be able to act for you or may cease acting for you if you do not provide the necessary information and documentation (at our discretion) in order to satisfy our requirements under Money Laundering Legislation.
    3. Under the Money Laundering Legislation we are required to disclose to the appropriate authorities any suspicions of money laundering and we may also be obliged to make such reports without reference to you and without your consent, as it is an offence to “tip-off” any party suspected of money laundering. In certain cases we may also be obliged to cease acting for you temporarily or to terminate the Engagement entirely, without giving you further explanation.
    4. We will not be liable to you for any losses or liabilities suffered or incurred by you or any third parties by reason of our disclosure to the appropriate authorities under this clause 16 or our compliance with Money Laundering Legislation.

  17. DOCUMENT STORAGE AND RETENTION

    1. We may store documents and papers relevant to your Engagement either electronically and/or physically.
    2. We will keep all documents for six years after the date of our final invoice on the relevant Engagement but we may destroy documents and files after this period. We will not destroy documents which you ask us, in writing, to deposit in safe custody, however, we reserve the right to charge you for such storage.
    3. We will not charge you for retrieving documents from storage in relation to continuing instructions. However, we reserve the right to charge you a reasonable fee for time spent producing or retrieving stored documents or papers that you have requested after the end of an Engagement.
    4. We are entitled to exercise a lien on any files, papers or documents stored with us in circumstances where you owe any money to us.

  18. REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS

    1. We want our services to be accessible to everyone. If you have a disability, health problem or mental health issue and would benefit from a reasonable adjustment to the way in which we provide our services or have any questions about accessibility, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
    2. We have a duty to provide reasonable adjustments for disable people under the Equality Act 2010, but we may be able to support you even if you do not have a disability as defined by the Equality Act.
    3. Examples of reasonable adjustments we are able to accommodate are:
      1. Allowing more time for you to respond to our enquiries (we will tell you if we cannot extend a time limit prescribed by law);
      2. Providing information in a format that is easier for you to read (for example 14 point font);
      3. Using your preferred method of communication, by email, telephone or in person; and
      4. Involving someone who is supporting or caring for you.

  19. FORCE MAJEURE

    1. We shall not be liable to you if we are unable to perform any of our services or any part of the Engagement as a result of any cause beyond our reasonable control. In the event of any such occurrence affecting us we shall notify you as soon as possible.

  20. SEVERABILITY

    1. If any clause in these terms of business is or becomes invalid, illegal or unenforceable it shall be deemed to be modified to the extent necessary to make it valid, legal and enforceable. If such modification is not possible the relevant clause shall be deleted, and such deletion or modification shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the rest of these terms of business.

  21. GOVERNING LAW & JURISDICTION

    1. These terms of business and the Engagement shall be governed by and subject to the laws of England and Wales.
    2. The courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of any of these terms of business.

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