At Liberay Legal Limited (‘Liberay’) our aim is to provide the best quality legal service and client care to all our clients.
Our commitment to you:
We will:
- Always act in your best interests, negotiate matters on your behalf and, if necessary, issue County Court proceedings;
- Explain to you the risks and benefits of taking legal action and the prospects of success;
- Keep you regularly informed of the progress of your claim; and
- Deal with your questions and queries in a timely manner.
What we request from you:
- Provide us with accurate and honest instructions at all times and co-operate fully with us in the preparation of your claim;
- Do not ask us to act or work in an improper way and never mislead us;
- Attend Court if your attendance is required; and
- Do not enter into any direct negotiations with an opponent, agree settlement or withdraw your claim unless we agree in writing.
Failure to keep to your responsibilities may result in the termination of the agreement between you and Liberay.
Hours of business
Our offices are open between 9.00am and 5.00pm on Monday to Friday.
People responsible for your work
We will write to you at the start of your case and confirm who will be dealing with your matter and provide you with their contact details.
We operate a comprehensive system of file review and supervision under the control of the Managing Director and Compliance Officer for Legal Practice. Full details are available upon request.
Communication between us
Our aim is to always offer our clients an efficient and effective service and to communicate with you in whichever way you prefer (telephone/text/email/letter). If you have a preferred method of communication, please let us know.
Telephone calls received or made may be recorded for monitoring and training purposes.
Data Protection
As solicitors acting on your behalf, we collect a certain amount of personal data.
‘Personal Data’ is data relating to a living individual who can be identified from data or from data in conjunction with other information. We will only use your personal data for the purposes set out in our Privacy Notice. This notice explains the steps we take to ensure our processing of your personal data is GDPR complaint.
Charges and expenses
We have a professional duty to explain how our costs are calculated and ensure that you understand what the likely costs of your case will be. In our Damaged Based Agreement, we explain how our fees are calculated, the hourly rate charged and what your responsibilities are. We review the hourly rates charged from time to time to reflect inflation and any increases to the cost of running our business. If the hourly rate increases whilst we are dealing with your case, we will write to tell you about the change before it happens.
If your case is unsuccessful or we end the agreement because we no longer believe that your case has prospects of success, you will not have to pay anything to us by way of fees or disbursements. Details of the circumstances in which you would be responsible for our costs are detailed in our Damaged Based Agreement.
Disbursements are expenses that solicitors pay on behalf of clients, including but not limited to court fees, barrister’s fees etc. VAT is payable on most disbursements, but not all (e.g. Court fees).
Should you have any questions about our fees, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Other parties’ charges and expenses
It may be necessary for us to issue Court proceedings if we are unable to negotiate settlement of your claim. In most cases, if proceedings are issued and you lose, you would not have to pay your opponent’s legal costs but there are some exceptions.
If your opponent, (the Defendant), makes an offer to settle your claim which you reject, but are then not successful at achieving a higher settlement via court proceedings, you could be ordered to pay your opponent’s legal costs. As explained in your Damaged Based Agreement or Conditional Fee Agreement, we may recommend that you take out an After the Event (‘ATE’) Insurance Policy. This policy protects you against incurring a liability to pay the opponent’s costs and /or disbursements. If we recommend that you take out this ATE Insurance Policy, the premium will be payable by you, in addition to our fees. The ATE policy is only payable if your case is successful.
We have no financial interest and receive no financial benefit from this policy. The Policy is obtained purely in the interests of our clients.
Timescales
It is difficult to predict the timescale of your claim as there are several factors involved including the opponent’s response to your claim. We will keep you regularly updated throughout your claim.
Interest
Any money received on your behalf will be held in our Client Account. Subject to certain minimum amounts and periods of time set out in the Solicitors Regulation Authority Accounts Rules 2019 (or any superseding regulations), interest will be calculated and paid to you at the rate from time to time payable. The period for which interest will be paid normally runs from the date(s) on which we receive funds, until the date of issue of any cheque(s) from our Client Account.
If your claim is successful through court proceedings, your opponent may be required to pay interest on the charges and disbursements incurred by us on your behalf. In these circumstances, we would be entitled to retain such interest.
Identity, disclosure, and confidentiality
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of all clients confidential. Before we can proceed with your claim, we require evidence to prove your identity and your residential address. Your file handler will discuss with you what evidence is required, but it must be sufficient to establish your identity, not just to us, but also to any reasonable person who does not otherwise know you. Acceptable forms of identification can be a photographic driving licence or passport. For proof of address, a utility bill or bank statement dated in the last 3 months will suffice.
By accepting these terms and conditions you consent to such checks being made. In performing these checks, personal information provided by you may be disclosed to a registered Credit Reference Agency which may keep a record of that information. This is done only to confirm your identity. All information provided by you will be treated securely and strictly in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (the GDPR) and any implementing legislation.
This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception. Legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed Solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Where the situation arises, solicitors are legally obliged to make a money laundering disclosure. If it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure whilst we are acting for you, we may not be able to inform you because the law prohibits ‘tipping off’. In the circumstances where we are allowed by law to tell you, we will inform you and explain what action we may need to take.
Money Laundering legislation includes circumstances where someone is receiving earnings that the Inland Revenue are unaware of or claiming benefits when they are not entitled to or making a fraudulent claim.
Statement under the Provision of Services Regulations 2009
Under these regulations we are required to advise you of the following information:
Liberay Legal Limited is a company incorporated in England and Wales under company registration number 13833529. It is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under registration number 8002945. Accordingly, we are governed by the SRA’s Codes of Conduct and other professional rules, which you can access on the SRA’s website at www.sra.org.uk.
Our registered office and practising address is Atria, Spa Road, Bolton, BL1 4AG.
We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) under number ZB296128. We act as the data controller / data processor when processing your data.
The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority Codes of Conduct 2019
We comply fully with the SRA’s Codes of Conduct 2019 and any other professional rules in respect of its marketing methods. Should you require any further information in this regard, please write to us.
Termination
You can terminate your instructions with us at any time, however we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents until we have received payment of any outstanding costs and disbursements.
If you wish to cancel your instructions, you must notify us in writing. You may inform us by email at cancellations@liberaylegal.co.uk or by post at Atria, Spa Road, Bolton, Greater Manchester, BL1 4AG. Please address your email or letter to our Managing Director, Rick Law.
Jurisdiction
Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Business will be determined by the Law of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh Courts.
Document storage
After your claim has settled, we will keep your file of papers in storage for you for at least six years. No charge will be made to you for storage. We reserve the right to shred or destroy your file in accordance with our professional obligations or to retain your file for specific periods.
We are committed to remaining a completely paperless office. All incoming post and documents will be scanned upon receipt. Once an electronic version has been created, we will destroy the original letters and documents. Some documents are automatically returned following scanning such as original Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Death Certificates, and other statutory documentation.
Equality policy
Liberay is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all its dealings with clients, third parties and employees. A copy of our Equality & Diversity Policy is available upon request.
Professional Indemnity
We hold professional indemnity insurance in compliance with the appropriate regulations. Details of our Insurer are available on request.
Complaints
At Liberay we are committed to providing the highest level of service and client care to all our clients and we are confident that you will be happy with the service we provide. We constantly seek to improve our service and continuously monitor our service standards. In the unlikely event that you do have concerns or are unhappy with our service, please contact us so that we can discuss any issues you have and try and resolve them as quickly as possible.
Initially, please contact your file handler with your concerns. If you are not satisfied with the response from your file handler, you will need to raise a formal complaint. All formal complaints should be in writing and be addressed to the Managing Director, Rick Law, at rick.law@liberaylegal.co.uk The letter should be clearly marked ‘Formal Complaint’ and it should outline the reason(s) for your complaint.
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 days. Your complaint will then be fully investigated and responded to within 21 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Please be aware that there are time limits within which you can complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Full details can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk. The postal address for the Legal Ombudsman is PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
Further, the Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority directly at www.sra.org.uk
