Terms and Conditions of Business

If you would prefer to receive this document in a large text format or another format please let us know. This is an important document – please read and keep a copy in a safe place for future reference.

These Terms and Conditions of Business (as updated from time to time), together with our service proposal and any other letter sent relating to the work we do for you, state the terms upon which we accept instructions from you. Unless otherwise agreed these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given to us by you.

These Terms of and Conditions of Business are subject to change from time to time and are updated on our website.

Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of Business.

R J Padgett Limited

R J Padgett Limited is a limited company registered in England & Wales with number 16661390 and whose registered office is at Unit 1 Riverside, Old Tannery, High Street, Porlock, Somerset TA24 8PU. R J Padgett Limited is authorised and regulated by CILEx Regulation for Probate Activities 3002949 (www.cilexregulation.org.uk).

The detailed professional rules applicable to us can be found in CILEx Regulation’s Practice Rules, which may be accessed via CILEx Regulation’s website.

Details of our VAT registration number and compulsory professional indemnity insurance are available on request.

References in these Terms and Conditions of Business to “we”, “our” and “us” shall be read as references to R J Padgett Limited.

Proof of Identity and Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing

To comply with regulatory guidance and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements, we are likely to ask you for proof of your identity and we may conduct searches or enquiries for this purpose. We may also be required to identify and verify the identity of other persons such as directors or beneficial owners. If you or they do not provide us with the required information promptly, your matter may be delayed.

You agree that we may make checks using online electronic verification systems or other databases as we may decide. We may invite you to complete our “Know Your Client and ID” due diligence process by submitting your information via our third-party app.

Where we ask you to complete an identity check or produce identification documents please do so promptly as we will be limited as to what work we can do until they are received.

You must not send us any money (or ask another party to do so) until we have told you these checks have been completed or have otherwise asked you to do so.

We charge an onboarding fee of £30 plus VAT (£36 in total) in respect of each new client. For both new and existing clients, we reserve the right to make a further charge where the checks are likely to be significantly more involved than we would normally expect. If that is the case, we will confirm the cost in our engagement letter.

We may ask you to confirm the source of any money you have sent us or will send us. If you do not provide us with that information promptly, your matter may be delayed.

Subject to the Insurance and Limit of our Liability to You section below, we shall not be liable for any loss arising from or connected with our compliance with any statutory obligation, or reasonable belief we may have, to report matters to the relevant authorities under the provisions of the money laundering and/or terrorist financing legislation.

Tax Advice

Unless we have agreed to do so in writing, we do not advise on tax including whether or not there may be tax consequences from any action that may or may not be taken by you following advice we have given. If you require advice upon such taxation consequences, we can recommend appropriate accountants or tax consultants to you. There are circumstances where we can advise upon taxation issues but have no obligation so to do unless that advice is specifically requested and we have agreed in writing to provide such advice.

Client Money, Commissions and Referral Fees

We will hold money on account in a client account and apply it, together with any interest earned against any invoices rendered or disbursements paid. We will ensure that funds are placed with a bank which is supervised by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) to accept deposits. We are ordinarily unable to accept payments from you in cash in excess of £500.00 except by prior arrangement.

Any monies received from you or on your behalf in connection with any matter shall be at your risk until applied by us in accordance with your instructions. We shall not be responsible for any loss or damage arising from failure, refusal or inability of any bank or other financial institution to repay all or any part of such monies, at any time or from their insolvency or failure, or the failure in or of the banking or interbank systems. In such circumstances it may not be possible to complete any matter in accordance with the terms of our engagement. However, nothing in this section shall limit our liability for loss or damage arising out of our reckless disregard of professional obligations, fraud or other liabilities which cannot lawfully be restricted or excluded, nor for loss occasioned by our negligence subject always to the limitation on such liability in these Terms or such other limitation as has been agreed with you in writing.

Under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) the first £120,000 (as at December 2025 but subject to change) of an individual’s savings, held with a qualifying UK bank or building society, is protected in the event of that institution’s collapse. This level of protection can only be received once under each bank or building society’s ‘compensation licence’. If you also hold savings with the same bank as that which operates our client account (or with a different brand of the bank which shares its authorisation licence) and the total deposits combined exceed the limit then you will still only by able to make one compensation claim for the maximum £120,000.

We do not normally receive commissions but, if we do, we will credit the amounts received against our fees or pay any commissions received to you.

If we receive money in relation to your matter from an unexpected source, we may charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to undertake, for example relating to the source of those funds and there may be a delay in your matter whilst those checks are carried out.

Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.

Interest Policy

Our objective is to achieve what we believe is a fair outcome for both the client and the firm. We have issued a Policy in respect of interest on money held on behalf of Clients a copy of which can be found on our website www.rjpadgett.co.uk or which can be obtained by requesting a copy from the person dealing with your matter. We will review this policy from time to time.

Under our Interest Policy, where calculated interest exceeds £20 it will usually be paid to you at the conclusion of your matter without deduction of tax. It is your obligation to account for any taxation payable on such interest. We will discuss with you, in appropriate circumstances, bespoke arrangements suitable for your particular needs.

Confidentiality

We are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of our clients confidential. We will keep your information confidential, unless (a) you consent to the disclosure of that information: (b) disclosure of the information is required or permitted by law or the regulatory requirements that apply to us; or (c) these Terms and Conditions of Business state otherwise. Examples of organisations we may be required to disclose your information to include (a) the National Crime Agency - Where a lawyer knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money-laundering, the lawyer may be required to make a money-laundering disclosure. If this happens, we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or the reasons for it; (b) domestic and international tax authorities; (c) regulatory authorities such as CILEx Regulation; (d) our professional indemnity insurer – if we have to make a notification to our insurer we will disclose to them such relevant information about you or your matter as the insurer may require; (e) Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) – if we make a claim under the FSCS in respect of client money on your behalf, we will give certain client information to the FSCS to help them identify clients and any amounts to which they are entitled; (f) Our bank – in the event of our bank requesting information about the beneficial owners of our pooled client account, we have a legal obligation to disclose any information we have gathered as part of our client due diligence; (g) Companies House – we are under an obligation to report to Companies House any discrepancies between the beneficial ownership information recorded on the company register and information that we gather during the client due diligence process; (h) External organisations – as set out in Quality Standards below (i) Other – Your files may also be reviewed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business, the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new business. If you do not wish your file to be used in this way, please let us know as soon as possible.

Quality Standards

External organisations such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and CILEx Regulation may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice from time to time. They may wish to audit or quality check your file and related papers for this purpose. We will require that these external organisations maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited or quality checked. The inspection is only for the purpose of assessing that we are handling your work in accordance with the relevant quality standard, and the auditors inspecting such files give an undertaking of confidentiality. If you object to a file being inspected please tell us but unless you do so we will assume that you agree to any file being inspected.

At the end of your instructions we may invite you to take part in a client questionnaire either online or on paper and we hope you will take part to help us improve our quality of service. If you are not asked but would nonetheless like to take part, please send an e-mail to enquiries@rjpadgett.co.uk and ask to be sent the link to the on-line questionnaire.

Storage of Documents and Destruction of Files

We may create and hold client files in hard copy, electronically or a combination of both. We store client files for a minimum period of six years after the conclusion of the matter.

Unless you instruct us to the contrary, we may destroy paper documents and scan them onto our system to be stored electronically. Following the minimum period of six years, our file may be destroyed without further reference to you.

We will not destroy original documents such as wills, deeds and other securities that we have agreed to hold in safe custody but we may, on reasonable notice, send or return them to you. We will not charge for storing these original documents in safe custody unless we consider the nature or volume of papers are such that a storage charge would be appropriate, in which case we will advise you of those charges in case you wish to make alternative arrangements. If you require copies of or advice concerning documents we are holding, we reserve the right to charge you for such assistance. Our Privacy Policy below contains more information about how long we keep personal data.

Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013

This section applies only if you are a “consumer” and we receive your initial instructions other than in a face to face meeting on our premises –such as by letter, phone or e-mail.

Under the current legislation you generally have the right to cancel those instructions without any cost to you within 14 days of the day after you receive these Terms and Conditions of Business. If however you have asked us to begin to provide our services within that 14 day period, you must pay for services provided even if the contract is later cancelled. The payment must be:

• based on the supply of the service for the period for which it is supplied, ending when we are notified of your decision to cancel.
• in proportion to what has been supplied in comparison with the full contracted service.

To exercise the right to cancel your instructions you must inform us of your decision to cancel by a clear statement. You may use post, email, or personal delivery. You may use the statutory “model form” set out below, or simply state that you wish to cancel.

By continuing your instructions you are agreeing that we may start work straightaway, and charge you for the reasonable costs of any work we do up to cancellation even if you exercise your cancellation rights.

You do not have any right to cancel once we have completed our work.

By your continuing instructions you are also agreeing that any period referred to in the current legislation within which a contract should be completed is not applicable, and the contract period will run until the work is fully completed in accordance with your instructions and the timetable agreed between us, or our engagement is otherwise terminated under the next paragraph.

Model form of Cancellation Notice

To: R J Padgett Limited of Unit 1 Riverside, Old Tannery, High Street, Porlock, Somerset TA24 8PU

I/We hereby give you notice that I/we cancel our instructions to you. Name of client[s]:

Address of client[s]:

Signature of clients [ only if notice given on paper ] Date:

Our Charges and billing

In some cases we can agree a fixed fee with you. Where this is not possible our charges are calculated mainly by reference to the amount of time spent on the file, but we can also take into account the complexity of the matter, its importance and urgency and the amount of any property or money involved. The time spent on the file will include, but is not limited to, making notes of meetings, telephone calls, file reviews, preparation for meetings. We reserve the right to recover any additional costs that may be incurred in undertaking client due diligence and conducting money laundering searches or enquiries. Overall there is a requirement that our charges should be fair and reasonable.

VAT will be added at the prevailing rate which is currently 20%. We may also need to make payment to others on your behalf (disbursements) and these may also be subject to VAT.

We keep detailed records of time spent which is recorded in 6-minute units, save for certain categories of work undertaken on a fixed fee basis. The hourly rates for our lawyers are based upon seniority and experience. Rebecca Padgett’s hourly rate is currently £300 plus VAT at £60, totalling £360. In some matters we are entitled to apply an uplift due to accreditations granted to the person dealing with the matter. Rates are periodically reviewed, and we will advise you of any changes. We may deliver interim bills (including for those matters for which we have agreed a fixed fee) unless other arrangements are agreed with you.

We will review the costs position regularly as the matter progresses and update any estimate if necessary. You may, of course, request an update on the costs estimate at any time. We may require a payment on account of our charges and disbursements at the commencement of our instructions and as the matter progresses. We will not ordinarily pay a third party on your behalf unless we hold money on account.

All bills are payable upon delivery of the bill unless otherwise agreed in writing. Even if a third party has agreed or been ordered to be additionally responsible for the payment of the charges and disbursements on a matter, the primary liability for payment remains with you. If you would like a third party to be responsible for paying our bills we must approve this in advance and will need the party’s name, contact details and any other information or identification documents we request.

We may deliver our bills to you by email and we shall assume this is acceptable to you unless you advise us to the contrary in advance of delivery.

We reserve the right to charge interest and other charges on any unpaid bill from the date of delivery until final payment at either the rate payable pursuant to the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 for commercial debts or in respect of sums due from individuals, interest at the rate allowable under the Judgments Act 1838. We are also entitled to retain all papers and documents until payment of all our outstanding bill(s) has been received.

We accept payment of our fees by credit or debit card, but we do not accept payment of significant disbursements by this method. We will charge a standard administration fee of £40.00 plus VAT (£48 in total) for each telegraphic transfer (if any) we are required to make on your behalf. We also charge a standard onboarding fee of £30 plus VAT (£36 in total) per person.

Ceasing to Act

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time.

We will only decide to stop acting for you with good reason, e.g. where we feel that the relationship has broken down, if you do not pay a bill, if you provide us with misleading information, a conflict of interest arises, a failure to provide us with any client due diligence documentation or information requested, or for any other good reason and upon reasonable notice.

If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, we will be entitled to invoice you for work done up to the date of termination and including any additional costs we have to incur in complying with any obligation to notify others of the termination of our instructions. You will also be liable for the costs incurred in transferring your papers to another advisor should that situation arise.

We are not responsible for reminding you about important dates and/or any deadlines after the conclusion of your instructions on a particular matter or rendering our final invoice, which shall include any termination in accordance with this section.

Problems

We aim to provide a high quality service for our clients. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided, please let us know. We will try to resolve any problem quickly and we operate an internal complaints handling service to help us resolve the problem between ourselves. We have a procedure for addressing complaints, a copy of which can be found on our web site www.rjpadgett.co.uk or which can be obtained by requesting a copy from the person dealing with your matter.

You should first discuss the matter with the person dealing with the matter, but if this does not resolve the problem please contact Mark Padgett, Head of Client Services, who has overall responsibility for complaints. He may also be contacted via e-mail at mp@rjpadgett.co.uk.

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Generally, this applies if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees and turnover or assets not exceeding a certain threshold, a charity or membership organisation with a net annual income of less than £1m, a trustee of a trust with an asset value of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories (you can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman whose contact details are below).

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint; and no more than one year from the date of act/omission being complained about; or no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman will investigate complaints free of charge.

If you would like more information, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman by:

• visiting www.legalombudsman.org.uk
• calling 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00
• emailing enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
• writing to Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 OEH

As the firm is authorised by the CILEX, if your complaint relates to the misconduct of a CILEX Approved Manager, CILEX member or CILEX Practitioner, you can refer your complaint free of charge to CILEx Regulation for them to investigate. Misconduct is defined as any breach of the CILEX Code of Conduct: 2.-Code-of-Conduct-2019.pdf (cilexregulation.org.uk) Misconduct complaints must be made within 12 months of the act or omission that gave rise to the complaint or within 12 months of the complainant having knowledge of the act or omission that gave rise to the complaint, whichever is the greater. CILEx Regulation can be contacted by:

• Telephone: 01234 845770
• Email on info@cilexregulation.org.uk
• Website: https://cilexregulation.org.uk
• Post: Room 301, Endeavour House, Wrest Park, Silsoe, Bedfordshire, MK45 4HS.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) bodies such as ProMediate of Brow Farm, Top Road, Frodsham WA6 6SP, www.promediate.co.uk exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. Currently we do not agree to using an ADR scheme as we believe our own inhouse investigation supported where necessary by that provided by the Legal Ombudsman and CILEx Regulation is sufficient.

Insurance and Limit of our Liability to You

While we do not expect things to go wrong, our liability to you is limited. Please ensure you have read this section of this document and understand it. If you have any doubt or concerns please speak to us straight away before continuing your instructions.

Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) and Compensation Arrangements

We are specialist and authorised by CILex Regulation to provide legal services in Probate (including Estate administration) and Will writing.

Not all areas of law must be authorised. This includes trust advice and administration, Inheritance Tax advice, preparation of Lasting Powers of Attorney, preparation of deputyship applications and Court of Protection work, and assisting with general affairs. We also provide these legal services.

We are required to have Professional Indemnity Insurance which covers all legal services that we provide. This insurance enables that you do not lose out financially in the unlikely event that the firm makes a mistake.

The CILEx Regulation Compensation Arrangements provide additional protection if legal services are provided in Probate (including Estate administration). Payments under the scheme are discretionary and subject to meeting certain criteria.

R J Padgett Limited has a duty to work for you with reasonable skill and care. The nature of many types of legal work means that it is not possible to guarantee a particular outcome.

Your contract is solely with R J Padgett Limited, which has sole legal liability for the work done for you and any act or omission in the course of that work. There is no contract between you and any of our members, employees or consultants. Any advice or work done for you by them is done on our behalf and not in their individual capacity. No such person therefore assumes any personal responsibility to you for the advice or work. Accordingly you agree that if, as a matter of law, any of our members, employees or consultants would otherwise owe you a duty of care that duty is excluded by our contract with you. You agree not to make any claim or take any action personally against any of our members, employees or consultants for any matter arising out of providing services to you. This does not alter or reduce any liability that R J Padgett Limited may have to you but any claim you wish to make may be made only against R J Padgett Limited.

R J Padgett Limited shall not be liable for any consequential or indirect losses which arise out of the work we do for you such as (amongst other things) loss of revenues or anticipated revenues, loss of profits, loss of opportunity, loss of use, loss of production, loss of contract, loss of or corruption to data, loss of savings, discount or rebate, or harm to reputation or loss of goodwill (whether or not it might have been foreseeable at the commencement of the matter).

We are not responsible for any failure to advise or comment on matters falling outside the scope of our instructions, as set out in these Terms and Conditions of Business and our engagement letter.

Our maximum liability to you (or any other party we have expressly agreed may rely on our services) in relation to any single matter or any group of connected matters which may be aggregated by our insurers will be £2 million including interest and costs, unless we expressly agree a different amount with you in writing. This agreement with you does not limit our liability for personal injury or death caused by our negligence, or damage caused by intentional or fraudulent misrepresentation, or restrict our liability other than as permitted by law. For the purposes of determining our maximum liability all claims arising from the same act or omission or from a series of related acts or omissions or from the same act or omission in a series of related matters or transactions will be regarded as one claim.

Please ask if you would like us to explain further any of the terms above.

Third Parties

The instructions you give us create a contract between you and R J Padgett Limited for the provision of services to you. Our contract with you is personal. It may be enforced by, and confer benefits on, you and R J Padgett Limited but not on any third party (save that any of our members, employees or consultants shall be entitled to the benefit of, and to enforce, the provisions of the section headed “Insurance and Limit of our liability to you”).

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, our advice and any documents we prepare are for use only in connection with the specific matter on which we are instructed; can only be relied on by you; and reflect the law in force at the relevant time.

We do not owe, nor do we accept, any duty to any person other than you; and we do not accept any liability or responsibility for any consequences arising from reliance upon our advice by any person other than you.

Outsourcing and Data Protection

We hold data on a cloud-based practice management computer system run by a third-party supplier. We require that any cloud-based supplier will comply with the obligations of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) by providing an adequate level of protection to any personal data that is transferred.

From time to time we also outsource certain other activities to third parties, for example to a typing service or legal cashiering service. This is usually done to provide a quicker, more specialist and/or cheaper service to clients. Confidentiality is of the utmost importance and where we outsource services we require the third party not to disclose any information they may obtain to anyone else. If however you prefer that none of your work is outsourced in that way, please let us know so that your preference is respected.

In the course of providing services to you we may hold personal data about you and others including, your family, your business and colleagues. We will use such personal data to provide legal services to you and for related services including, without limit: creating and updating client records, managing our practice, legal and statutory returns, to carry out credit checks and identity checks. We may also pass your personal data to other people or organisations (‘data processors’) to carry out those activities on our behalf in order to provide you with our services.

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the provision of support services. We may use third party service providers that process personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

We may retain your information, including personal data, after your contract with us has concluded.

We will require third party data processors to put in place suitable measures to protect your personal data.

By providing your data (or the data of others) you give consent to this transfer, storing or processing of data provided to or held by us (or you have obtained necessary consents from individuals concerned).

For more information see our Privacy Notice which forms part of these terms of business: Privacy Notice ›

CLIENT AUTHORITY

Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of Business.

Electronic verification provisions

We may obtain information about you from third parties in order to verify your identity.

In performing these checks, personal information provided by you may be disclosed to that third party which may keep a record of that information. This will be done to confirm your identity; a credit check is not performed and your credit rating will be unaffected.

All information provided by you will be treated securely and strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.