(Version – Dec 2024)

This Terms of Business, together with the provisions set out in your Client Care Letter, are the contractual terms on which we will provide you with legal services in connection with your matter.

Reference to “we” “us” and “our” means Nicola Sunderland TEP as providers of the service to you. References to “you” and “your” means you as the recipient of the service. Nicola Sunderland TEP is a trading name of Sunderland Wills & Trusts Ltd. Registered in England & Wales. Company No: 1054520. VAT No: 261355221. Registered Office: 6 Manor Park, Church Road, Gt Barton, Bury St Edmunds, IP31 2QR.

1. Ensuring the accuracy of your documents

You instruct us to prepare your documents in accordance with the instructions you have provided to us. You confirm that the information you provide us is accurate and complete, and you accept that we will advise on and prepare your documents based on this information. Any inaccuracies, errors or omissions may affect the validity of the documents we prepare for you and/or the disposal of your estate. We will provide draft versions of your documents for your review. On instructing us you accept full responsibility to check all documents we provide to you (whether in draft or otherwise) carefully and thoroughly and to ensure they accurately state your wishes and that all details are shown correctly.

2. Preparing your documents

Once the Cooling Off Period has expired (see Section 22) we expect to issue you with draft versions of your documents for your approval, by post within 10 working days, providing we are in receipt of the following:

• • • • • a signed copy of your Client Care Letter
        • your acceptance of our terms of business
        • your full instructions
        • a copy of your passport or photo driving license

We expect to prepare your final documents 10 working days from receiving your approval of your draft documents, unless you indicate to us that they should be prepared sooner. We will offer you a meeting to take you through your final documents and to assist with their attestation. There is a charge for this. If you choose to sign your documents yourself, you will be responsible for ensuring that they have been properly signed and witnessed. You must let us know if your matter is urgent and you need us to prepare your documents immediately. A priority drafting fee may apply.

3. Our fees

Our fees are detailed in your Client Care Letter. We expect to invoice you for work we have completed on your behalf once you have received drafts of the documents you have instructed us to prepare. Our invoice will be issued with four-week terms which is normally sufficient time to complete your Wills. How long it takes to finalise your documents will depend on how quickly you respond to our requests for information and meetings. We accept that we cannot control the time you need to consider your drafts and you understand that you do not have valid documents until final versions are signed and witnessed. All invoices are payable by bank transfer or cheque. We reserve the right to charge statutory interest for outstanding invoices.

Once we have produced your final documents, any further changes you require that you had not previously notified us of will be chargeable. It is therefore important that you check your draft documents carefully and inform us of any changes required before your final documents are produced.

4. Client identification

As with other professional services firms, we are required to identify our clients for the purposes of the UK anti-money laundering legislation. We may request from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases.

If a third party, who is not our client, is sending us money on your behalf, then we must have identification from that person and we also need to know the source of the funds being sent to us. if you fail to tell us that money will be paid to us by a third party, this will cause a delay in proceeding with your matter. If you fail to satisfy us about the source of the money, we reserve the right to stop acting for you.

5. Client money

We will not hold money on your behalf.

6. Communicating with you

We may contact you by email, telephone or writing for the purposes of confirming your instructions or providing information to you. The recipient is responsible for virus checking emails and any attachments. Electronic communication is not totally secure, and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused by viruses nor for communications which are corrupted or altered after dispatch. Nor can we accept any liability for problems or accidental errors relating to this means of communication. There are risks you must accept in return for greater efficiency and lower costs. If you do not wish to accept these risks, please let us know and we will communicate by hard copy, other than where electronic submission is mandatory.

Any communication by us with you sent through the post is deemed to arrive at your postal address two working days after the day that the document was sent.

You agree that we can notify any of the parties you appoint in your documents of their appointment and give us permission to contact them for the purposes of finalising your documents, if necessary.

7. Confidentiality

Communication between us is confidential and we shall take all reasonable steps to keep confidential your information except where we are required to disclose it by law, by regulatory bodies, by our insurers or as part of an external peer review. Unless we are authorised by you to disclose information on your behalf this undertaking will apply during and after this engagement.

All information provided by you to us in connection with the service will be used by us in the course of providing the service.

8. Data Protection

We confirm that we will comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 when processing personal data about you. In order to carry out the services of this engagement and for related purposes such as updating and enhancing our client records, analysis for management purposes and statutory returns, legal and regulatory compliance and crime prevention we may obtain, process, use and disclose personal data about you. Further information is available on our privacy notice at – https://www.nicolasunderlandtep.co.uk/privacy-policy

9. Conflicts of interest

You confirm that there is no conflict of interest which remains unresolved at the time you instruct us which may prevent us from being able to act for you. If you become aware of such a conflict you will notify us as soon as possible as we may be unable to continue to act for you.

10. Joint Instructions

Where instructions are taken jointly from more than one client in a meeting regarding more than one legal document you are advised that:

• • • • • • You have both asked us to act for you;
          • No information received in connection with this matter from one can be treated as confidential as far as the other is concerned;
          • If a conflict develops that cannot be resolved, we cannot continue to act for both of you and may have to withdraw completely (and this will include subsequent changes to either legal document of which the other would not be aware of).

11. Our advice

We will only provide such inheritance tax advice as is necessary to prepare your documents and the extent of our advice will be detailed in your Client Care Letter. You are responsible for obtaining or confirming your own independent tax advice regarding any potential tax liability even if we have discussed this with you (beyond that mentioned above).

We will not provide any ongoing advice to you and will not be obliged to contact you if there are any changes to UK legislation, including tax legislation, which may have an effect on the provisions or effect of any document(s) we have prepared for you, but we may choose to do so. We cannot be liable to you for any losses, damages or costs arising as a result of our not contacting you in these circumstances.

It is your responsibility to ensure that any HMRC returns related to your matter are correct and complete, are filed by the due date and payment of tax due is made on time. Failure to do this may lead to automatic penalties, surcharges and/or interest.

You should seek to review your documents regularly in view of any changes in legislation that may affect you directly or indirectly, or if your circumstances change, such as divorce, marriage, birth of children or inheritance of a large sum.

12. Professional indemnity insurance

We maintain professional indemnity insurance of at least £2 million for each claim.

13. Limitation of liability

We will provide our services with reasonable care and skill. Our liability to you is limited to losses, damages, costs and expenses directly caused by our negligence or wilful default. Our total liability to you (and that of our employees), whether in contract, tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, arising under or in connection with our agreement with you shall be limited to £2 million.

14. Exclusion of liability for loss caused by others

We will not be liable if such losses, penalties, interest or additional tax liabilities are caused by the acts or omissions of any other person or due to the provision to us of incomplete, misleading or false information or if they are caused by a failure to act on our advice or a failure to provide us with
relevant information.

15. Exclusion of liability in relation to circumstances beyond our control

We will not be liable to you for any delay or failure to perform our obligations under our terms of business if the delay or failure is caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control.

16. Exclusion of liability relating to the discovery of fraud etc.

We will not be responsible or liable for any loss, damage or expense incurred or sustained if information material to the service we are providing is withheld or concealed from us or misrepresented to us. This applies equally to fraudulent acts, misrepresentation or wilful default on the part of any party to the agents or advisers. This exclusion shall not apply where such misrepresentation, withholding or concealment is or should (in carrying out the procedures which we have agreed to perform with reasonable care and skill) have been evident to us without further enquiry beyond that which it would have been reasonable for us to have carried out in the circumstances.

17. Limitation of Third Party Rights

The advice and information we provide to you as part of our service is for your sole use and not for any third party to whom you may communicate it unless we have expressly agreed in the Client Care Letter that a specified third party may rely on our work. We accept no responsibility to third parties for any advice, information or material produced as part of our work for you which you make available to them. A party to this agreement is the only person who has the right to enforce any of its terms and no rights or benefits are conferred on any third party under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

18. Period of engagement and termination

TAs stated in your Client Care Letter, our work will begin when we receive
your implicit or explicit acceptance of that letter and these terms. Our engagement terminates once we have completed the agreed upon work. During this period each of us may terminate this agreement by giving not less than 7 days’ notice in writing to the other party except where you fail to cooperate with us or we have reason to believe that you have provided us with misleading information, in which case we may terminate this agreement immediately. Termination will be without prejudice to any rights that may have accrued to either of us prior to termination. In the event of termination of this contract, we will endeavour to agree with you the arrangements for the completion of work in progress at that time, unless we are required for legal or regulatory reasons to cease work immediately. In that event, we shall not be required to carry out further work and shall not be responsible or liable for any consequences arising from termination.

19. Disengagement

Should we resign or be requested to resign we will normally issue a disengagement letter to ensure that our respective responsibilities are clear.

Should we have no contact with you for a period of 6 months or more we may issue to your last known address a disengagement letter and thereafter cease to act.

20. Professional rules and statutory obligations

We will observe and act in accordance with the bye-laws, regulations and ethical guidelines of STEP and will accept instructions to act for you on this basis. We will not be liable for any loss, damage or cost arising from our compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations. You can

21. Reliance on advice

We will endeavour to record all advice on important matters in writing. Advice given verbally is not intended to be relied upon unless confirmed in writing. Therefore, if we provide verbal advice (for example during the course of a meeting or a telephone conversation) and you wish to be able to rely on that advice, you must ask for the advice to be confirmed by us in writing.

22. Your cancellation rights

You may cancel your instructions to us at any time by notifying us in writing to Cancellations, Nicola Sunderland TEP, 50 School Road, Copford, Colchester, CO6 1BU or by email to nicky@nicolasunderlandtep.co.uk. If you cancel your instructions to us within fourteen days of signing your Client Care Letter (the ’Cooling Off Period’) then our agreement will end. If your cancellation is received after the Cooling Off Period, then our agreement will end, and we may bill you for all costs and expenses incurred by us up to the point of cancellation.

23. If you are not happy

We are committed to providing you with an efficient service. However, should there be any cause for complaint in relation to any aspect of our service please write to the Service Team at Nicola Sunderland TEP, 50 School Road, Copford, Colchester, Essex, CO6 1BU. We shall look at any complaint carefully and promptly and do all we can to resolve it to our mutual satisfaction. We will do everything reasonable to put it right. If you are still not satisfied you can refer your complaint to our professional body, STEP. A copy of our complaints procedure is available upon request.

24. Interpretation

If any provision of these terms of business, the permissions declaration and your Client Care Letter is held to be void, then that provision will be deemed not to form part of this contract and the remainder of this agreement shall be interpreted as if such provision had never been inserted.

25. Investment advice

Investment business is regulated under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. If, during the provision of professional services to you, you need advice on investments, including insurances, we may have to refer you to someone who is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority or licensed by a Designated Professional Body as we are not authorised to give such advice.

26. Lien

Insofar as we are permitted to do so by law or professional guidelines, we reserve the right to exercise a lien over all documents and records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.

27. Applicable Law

Your Client Care Letter and our standard terms and conditions of business are governed by, and should be construed, in accordance with English law. Each party agrees that the courts of England will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this engagement letter and any matter arising from it. Each party irrevocably waives any right to object to any action being brought in those Courts, to claim that the action has been brought in an inappropriate forum, or to claim that those Courts do not have jurisdiction.