Terms of Engagement
Services
The services which we are to provide for you are outlined in our letter of engagement.
Fees
Our fees are calculated in accordance with:
- The guidelines laid down by The New Zealand Law Society.
- Our hourly rates (which may be varied at our discretion).
- The nature of the work and other reasonable factors which may be taken into account when determining an appropriate fee.
Estimates are given as a guide only and not as a fixed quotation. Often it is not possible to give more than an estimate of the final costs because of the number of variable factors and outside agencies involved.
Please note any estimate of our fee is given as Goods and Services Tax (GST) Exclusive.
Unless we agree with you otherwise, our fees will be calculated based on the time we spend on a matter charged at our hourly rates, and adjusted where appropriate for other factors permitted by the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers (such as the complexity, urgency, importance, specialised knowledge, responsibility and risk involved and the results achieved). We will provide you with our hourly rates on request (which may be varied at our discretion). The differences in hourly rates reflect the experience and specialisation of our professional staff.
For work charged on an hourly rate basis we record time in six (6) minute units, with time rounded up to the next unit of six (6) minutes.
Work that we may record time for includes (but is not limited to) time spent: preparing for and meeting with you; telephone discussions with you and on your behalf; attendances on representatives of other parties; considering the issues relevant to you; researching the law relating to your matter; reading and considering relevant information (including, letters, contracts, emails and other documents); dictation, drafting, editing and checking of documents; supervision of staff members; dealing with third parties; obtaining assistance from other providers or experts; time spent travelling.
An office services fee may be included with your fees. This fee is for administration costs and covers postage, tolls/mobile calls, photocopying, and facsimile transmissions as these are not charged individually. It also covers file administration and long-term storage of your file. Our standard office services fee is $30 + GST, but this is subject to increase for matters which are particularly resource-intensive.
If you decide not to proceed with the matter to completion, work done and payments made on your behalf are still payable by you.
A retainer may be required. You will be advised of this is in our Letter of Engagement. The retainer will be deposited in the Practice Trust Account. No Court documents will be filed, nor Court appearances made, until we have received a retainer.
You authorise ARL Lawyers to make reasonable and confidential credit enquiries from an appropriate information provider.
Disbursements and Expenses
These include charges for fees charged by third parties (for example Local Authorities, the Courts, RealAML) and are GST inclusive where applicable. In addition to the fee charged by RealAML, we charge for the time spent verifying your identity in line with our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. Depending on the type of verification required, the total charge can vary from $40 + GST for an individual, or $125 + GST for a Trust.
Payment of Accounts
We will send interim invoices, usually monthly, for matters of an ongoing nature.
On completion of your matter or termination of our engagement, a letter and an invoice will be sent to you.
Our invoices are payable within 14 days of receipt.
Payment may be made by direct credit, cash, Visa/Mastercard or EFT-POS. Sometimes we may be required to incur additional time or expense following the completion or termination of the matter. We will charge for this in the normal way.
A retainer may be required. You will be advised of this is in our Letter of Engagement. The retainer will be deposited in the Practice Trust Account. No Court documents will be filed, nor Court appearances made, until we have received a retainer.
The legal costs of property transactions are due on or before settlement of the transaction.
You authorise ARL Lawyers to deduct legal costs and disbursements from funds held on your behalf in the Trust Account.
If you have difficulty meeting these terms please contact us immediately to discuss your circumstances.
If an account is not paid, we reserve the right to:
- charge interest at the rate of 15% per annum,
- refer the account to a Collection Agency and all costs incurred in the collection of the debt will be added to your outstanding account.
Should your outstanding account be referred to a Collection Agency, please be aware that, in signing this document, you consent to the disclosure of your personal information to that Collection Agency. This disclosure is limited to full name, date of birth, residential address, place of work and any other means to contact you that we have on file.
Confidentiality
We will hold in confidence all information concerning you or your affairs that we acquire during the course of acting for you. We will not disclose any of this information to any other person except to the extent necessary to enable us to carry out your instructions and/or to the extent required (a) by law; (b) by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, including the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers; or (c) by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. We have a Privacy Policy which can be found on our website.
Termination
You may terminate your retainer at any time. We may terminate our retainer in any of the circumstances set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. If our retainer is terminated, you must pay us all fees due up to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that date. When you pay your account, you have the right to uplift your file. Until your account is paid, we have the right to keep any property in our possession (including your file). This is called a solicitor’s lien.
Retention of Files and Documents
We will retain all files and documents for this matter (in either physical or electronic form) for seven (7) years after our engagement ends. We will hold any documents in safe custody for you until you or your authorised representative require them.
Conflicts of Interest
We have procedures in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest. If a conflict of interest arises, we will advise you of this and follow the requirements and procedures set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers.
Duty of Care
Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person. Before any other person may rely on our advice, we must expressly agree to this.
Money Handling Procedures
We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients. In some circumstances, we will place your funds into our interest-bearing deposit account provided we have received the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) / Common Reporting Standards (CRS) forms we require from you to do this.
FATCA and CRS are global initiatives designed to detect and deter tax evasion. Both apply under New Zealand law. As a result, we are required to collect certain information from you before we can place your funds in an interest-bearing deposit account. The information required is collected through a self-certification form.
Compliance is required by our bank to enable exchange of customers’ foreign tax residency information between countries. By completing the self-certification form, you consent to the information enclosed in the form being disclosed to our bank if requested. If you are a foreign tax resident or a US person, the bank may in turn provide this information to the IRD, who may share this information with the relevant foreign tax department. If you do not complete this form and return it, we are unable to place your funds in an interest-bearing deposit account. This means that your funds will be held in our trust account, which does not earn interest.
We are not responsible for obtaining the best interest rate available, or for any loss of interest from delay in placing your funds in an interest-bearing deposit account.
When funds are placed in an interest-bearing deposit account, we will charge an administration fee of 7.5% of the gross interest derived.
Withholding tax will be deducted on the interest earned and paid to the IRD. If we have your IRD number, you can elect to have withholding tax deducted at your applicable rate. If we do not have your IRD number, or if you do not elect a withholding tax rate, we are required to deduct tax at the default rate (which may be higher than your actual rate).
We will send out annual withholding tax certificates when interest is earned.
When you transfer funds to our trust account in a foreign currency, we will convert those funds into New Zealand dollars at the prevailing exchange rate offered by our bank. We are not responsible for seeking or obtaining a better exchange rate.
When we are instructed by you to make payments to a foreign bank account, we will make that payment at the exchange rate offered by the recipient bank on the relevant date and are not responsible for holding funds or delaying payment until such time as exchange rates improve unless we receive your explicit instructions to the contrary and we agree to do so. We are not responsible for any fees relating to the exchange of or receipt of foreign currency into your recipient bank account.
Any international payment charges or foreign currency conversion fees incurred will be met by you.
Anti-Money Laundering
We are required to verify your identity as part of our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. You consent to us passing on to RealAML your identifying information (full name, date of birth, address, driver’s licence number and licence version) and we will charge you a disbursement for the above.
General
These terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of them. Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts and have non-exclusive jurisdiction.