Terms of Engagement and
Client Care Information

These Terms of Engagement set out how our lawyer-client relationship will work going forward.

Please make sure you read through this before ‘engaging’ us to start work for you, to learn about super important things like fees, privacy, liability and complaints.

Let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to working with you.

1. General

(a) These Terms of Engagement (Terms) apply to all current and future matters where you ask Trusty Property Law Limited (we, us) to act for you, unless we agree otherwise in writing. If we update these Terms, we will send you the new version, and the updated Terms will apply to future work.

(b) Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law. The New Zealand courts have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any disputes.

2. Services

(a) The legal services we will provide (Services) are set out in our engagement email, together with any further instructions you give us in writing, or that we confirm in writing.

(b) As a one-person firm, our director, Sam French, will be both the person carrying out the day-to-day legal work for you, and the person with overall responsibility for that work.

(c) Occasionally, administrative work may be delegated to another person, under supervision, but Sam will always be your point of contact and retain overall responsibility.

3. Communications

(a) We will ask you for your contact details, including your email address, postal address and phone numbers. We may send documents and other communications to you by email or other electronic means. Please let us know if any of your contact details change.

(b) We will update you periodically on progress and let you know about any material delays, changes or complications in your matter. You are welcome to ask for a progress report at any time.

(c) From time to time we may send you information that we think might be useful or interesting for you, such as newsletters or updates. You can tell us at any time if you do not wish to receive this material.

4. Fees

(a) The basis on which we charge fees is set out in your engagement email.

(i) Fixed fees

If we agree a fixed fee, this will cover the scope of work described in the engagement email. Any work outside that scope will be charged on an hourly rate basis. We will let you know as soon as we reasonably can if extra work is needed, and can give you an estimate of additional costs if you ask.

(ii) Hourly fees

If we charge on an hourly basis, our hourly rate for Sam French, director is $460 incl. GST. Time is usually recorded in six-minute units.

(iii) Fair and reasonable fees

Our hourly fees may be adjusted (up or down) to ensure that the overall fee is fair and reasonable, taking into account matters such as complexity, urgency, the value and importance of the matter, and the results achieved. The relevant factors are set out in Rule 9 of the Rules.

5. Disbursements and third party costs

(a) In working on your matter, we may need to pay costs to others on your behalf. You authorise us to incur and pay these where they are reasonably necessary, for example:

(i) LINZ search or registration fees

(ii) Anti-money laundering verification check fees

(iii) PPSR search or registration fees

(iv) court filing fees

(v) experts’ or barristers’ fees

(vi) meeting room booking fees

(vii) printing and photocopying fees, and

(viii) travel and courier charges.

(b) We will include these in our invoices to you and describe them as disbursements. In some cases we may ask you to pay them in advance.

6. Estimates

(a) You can ask us at any time for an estimate of our fees. Where possible we will give you an estimate or a range. This is a guide only, not a fixed quote. Any important assumptions behind an estimate will be set out, and you should let us know if those assumptions are not correct or change. We will tell you if it looks likely that our fees will significantly exceed any estimate.

7. GST

(a) Our fees and most disbursements will usually be subject to Goods and Services Tax (GST). If GST applies, it will be added to our invoices and is payable by you.

(b) When giving fee estimates, we will endeavor to make it clear whether fees are GST inclusive or exclusive.

8. Invoices and Payment

(a) We will usually send an invoice when your matter is completed or our engagement ends. We may invoice more often if a significant amount of work is done in a short period or if substantial costs are incurred.

(b) For matters that extend over a number of months, we may send interim invoices monthly.

(c) For conveyancing and finance matters we will generally include our invoice as a debit on a Trust Account Statement prior to settlement. Upon settlement, we will send you an invoice and you authorise us to deduct our fees and expenses from the funds we hold for you in our trust account (unless those funds are held for a specific purpose).

(d) Other invoices are payable within 14 days of the invoice date unless we have agreed something different in writing.

(e) If you are having difficulty paying an invoice, please contact us promptly so that we can discuss payment arrangements.

(f) If your account becomes overdue, we may:

(i) charge interest on any amount more than 14 days overdue, at 10% per annum from the due date until payment is made

(ii) stop work on any of your matters

(iii) ask you to pay further fees in advance or provide security before we recommence work

(iv) recover from you our reasonable costs (including legal costs on a solicitor and client basis and any debt collection agency fees) of recovering overdue amounts.

(g) Payment may be made by electronic bank transfer to our nominated trust account:

(h) We may ask you to pay fees and disbursements in advance into our trust account in advance, or to provide other security for our fees and expenses. We may do this at any time on reasonable notice.

(i) You remain responsible for paying our invoices, even if you expect a third party (for example a purchaser, funder or employer) to reimburse you, and even if we have addressed the invoice to that third party at your request.

9. Trust account

(a) We operate a trust account. All money we receive from you or on your behalf is held to your credit in our trust account.

(b) Payments from the trust account will be made to you or to others as you authorise.

(c) Before a payment is made we may ask for written authority from you (and from all clients, if we act for more than one of you) and for verification of account details, such as a deposit slip, bank statement or bank letter.

(d) We keep full records of all trust account transactions. A statement of transactions for your matter will be provided at the end of your matter, or for ongoing matters, periodically (at least annually) and on request.

(e) If we hold significant funds for you for more than a short time, and it is reasonable and practical to do so, we will ask whether you wish to place those funds on interest bearing deposit with a registered bank. You will be required to provide any information the bank requires. Interest, less withholding tax, any bank fees and our administration fee (at least $50), will be credited to you.

(f) If you are unable to be contacted for instructions of where to pay funds, after six months you authorise us to pay any amounts less than $100 to a registered charity of our choice.

10. Confidentiality

(a) We will keep confidential all information about you and your affairs that we obtain while acting for you. We will not disclose this information to anyone except:

(i) where it is necessary or desirable to carry out your instructions

(ii) where you have agreed, expressly or by implication

(iii) where it is necessary to protect our interests in connection with a complaint or dispute

(iv) where we are required or permitted to do so by law or by the Rules.

(b) Confidential information about you will, so far as practicable, only be available to the people in our firm who are working on your matter.

11. Personal information and privacy

(a) We will collect and hold personal information about you in the course of acting for you. We use this information to:

(i) provide legal services to you

(ii) manage our relationship with you

(iii) contact you about legal issues, services or information we think may be relevant for you.

(b) Providing personal information is voluntary, but if you choose not to provide certain information this may affect our ability to act for you or to complete some tasks.

(c) Subject to clause 10, you authorise us to disclose personal information about you, in the normal course of providing the Services, to third parties where this is needed to carry out your instructions or for any other purpose set out in these Terms.

(d) You agree that we may give your name, address and contact details to our anti-money laundering verification agency to complete our AML checks, and credit agencies or collection agencies if it is reasonable to do so for credit checking or credit management purposes.

(e) We store information about you at our offices and at secure storage sites, including secure electronic storage (Xero, Clio, RealAML). If you are an individual you have the right to access and correct your personal information, subject to the Privacy Act 2020. If you wish to do this, please contact Sam French at sam@trustylaw.nz.

12. Verification of identity and source of funds

(a) We are required by law to verify your identity and, in some cases, the source of your funds. We may ask you to provide documents such as a passport or driver licence, proof of address and details of the source of funds. We may copy and retain these documents and carry out electronic verification and other checks as required by law.

13. Documents, records and information

(a) We will keep a record of important documents that we receive or create on your behalf on the following basis:

(i) We may keep records electronically and destroy the paper originals, except where the existence of an original is legally important, such as wills or deeds.

(ii) We may dispose of duplicate copies, trivial documents (for example routine emails that do not contain substantive information) and documents that belong to us.

(iii) Where you have asked us to give documents to you or to another person and we have done so, we are not required to retain copies, although we may choose to do so.

(b) We will provide you with copies or originals (at our option) of documents you are entitled to under the Privacy Act 2020 or any other law, if you request them. We may charge reasonable costs for this work.

(c) If we hold documents that belong to a third party, you will need that party’s written authority before we can release or copy those documents.

(d) Unless you tell us otherwise in writing, you authorise us to destroy or permanently delete our file for the Services (including electronic records) seven years after our engagement ends, except for documents that we hold in safe custody or that we are required by law to retain for longer. We may retain files for longer at our discretion.

(e) We may, instead of storing documents, return them to you (in hard copy or electronic form) at our cost.

(f) We own the copyright in all documents and work we create while providing the Services. We grant you a non exclusive licence to use those documents for your own personal or business purposes. You may not allow a third party to copy, adapt or use our documents without our written consent, except where the documents are intended to be provided to a third party as part of the Services.

14. Compliance

(a) We must comply with all laws that apply to us, including:

(i) anti money laundering and countering financing of terrorism laws

(ii) laws relating to tax, client reporting and withholdings.

(b) We may be required to carry out customer due diligence on you, anyone acting on your behalf, and other people connected with you, such as beneficial owners or controlling persons of a company or trust. We may not be able to start or continue acting for you until this is completed.

(c) To meet our legal obligations (and sometimes yours), we may be required to provide information about you, people acting on your behalf or other connected persons to government agencies or other third parties. In some cases we may not be able to tell you if we have provided that information.

(d) Please ensure that you and anyone else described above is aware of and agrees to this. It is important that all information you give us is complete and accurate. If required information is not provided, or appears to be inaccurate, misleading or in breach of any law, we may decline or terminate the engagement.

15. Conflicts of interest

(a) We must protect and promote your interests, as set out in the Rules. This means that we must identify and appropriately manage any conflict between your interests and those of other clients or our own interests.

(b) We have procedures to identify and manage conflicts of interest. If a conflict arises, we will let you know and follow the requirements of the Rules.

(c) This may mean that we cannot continue to act for you in a particular matter and may need to end our engagement with you on that matter.

16. Duty of care

(a) Our duty of care is owed only to you as our client. We do not owe any duty or accept any liability to any other person (such as directors, shareholders, related companies, employees or family members) unless we have agreed to this in writing.

(b) Our advice relates only to the specific matter on which you have engaged us, based on the facts you have given us, our understanding of the law at the time and our judgement. It may change if the law changes or if new facts come to light. When that matter is finished, we do not have any ongoing duty to advise you about related issues unless you specifically ask us to do so and we agree.

(c) Any comment on natural hazards, zoning, resource and building consents, surveys, building quality, tax or body corporate management, are outside our legal expertise, and should not be relied on.

17. Lawyers’ Fidelity Fund

(a) The legal profession also operates a lawyers’ fidelity fund through the New Zealand Law Society which may reimburse clients who suffer pecuniary loss due to theft or misappropriation of funds by lawyers. The maximum amount payable by the fidelity fund by way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000 and you must claim within 12 months of becoming aware of the loss.

(b) However, subject to certain limited exceptions as set out in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, the fidelity fund does not cover a client for any loss relating to money where the lawyer invests the funds on behalf of the client.

18. Insurance

(a) We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum indemnity limit specified by the New Zealand Law Society (currently $1.2 million).

19. Limitations on our liability

(a) To the extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you (whether in contract, tort, equity or otherwise) in connection with the Services is limited to the amount payable under our professional indemnity insurance.

(b) We cannot guarantee that electronic communications will always be secure, virus free or delivered. We are not liable for any loss arising from events beyond our reasonable control affecting electronic communications.

20. Limited scope retainers

(a) If we agree to act for you on a limited scope basis (sometimes called unbundled services), we will record the limits of our role in our engagement email or in writing. We will only be responsible for the work that falls within that agreed scope. You will be responsible for all other aspects of your matter.

21. Termination

(a) You may end our engagement at any time by telling us in writing.

(b) We may end our engagement in any of the situations allowed by the Rules. This includes where:

(i) a conflict of interest arises

(ii) you do not pay our fees or meet agreed payment arrangements

(iii) you do not give us instructions, or your instructions are unclear or require us to act in a way that would breach our professional obligations

(iv) you do not satisfactorily complete our AML verification process

(v) there is any other good cause.

(c) Whether our engagement is ended by you or by us, you must pay our fees, disbursements and expenses up to the date of termination.

22. Feedback and complaints

(a) We want you to be happy with the service you receive. Feedback helps us to improve. If you would like to comment on any aspect of our service, please contact Sam French at sam@trustylaw.nz.

(b) If you have concerns or a complaint about our services, please raise this as soon as you can with Sam French at sam@trustylaw.nz who will respond as soon as he can. We will look into your complaint and aim to resolve it with you in a fair and constructive way.

(c) If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your complaint, you can contact the New Zealand Law Society Lawyers Complaints Service. They can provide guidance, receive concerns or take formal complaints.

Lawyers Complaints Service

PO Box 5041

Wellington 6140

New Zealand

Phone: 0800 261 801

(d) To lodge a concern:

www.lawsociety.org.nz/for-the-community/lawyers-complaints-service/concerns-form

(e) To make a formal complaint:

www.lawsociety.org.nz/for-the-community/lawyers-complaints-service/how-to-make-a-complaint

Email: complaints@lawsociety.org.nz

23. New Zealand Law Society Client Care and Service Information

(a) Whatever legal services your lawyer is providing, he or she must:

act competently, in a timely way, and in accordance with instructions received and arrangements made:
protect and promote your interests and act for you free from compromising influences or loyalties:
discuss with you your objectives and how they should best be achieved:
provide you with information about the work to be done, who will do it and the way the services will be provided:
charge you a fee that is fair and reasonable and let you know how and when you will be billed:
give you clear information and advice:
protect your privacy and ensure appropriate confidentiality:
treat you fairly, respectfully, and without discrimination:
keep you informed about the work being done and advise you when it is completed:
let you know how to make a complaint and deal with any complaint promptly and fairly.

(b) The obligations lawyers owe to clients are described in the New Zealand Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. Those obligations are subject to other overriding duties, including duties to the courts and to the justice system.

Terms of Engagement and Client Care Information

Terms of Engagement and
Client Care Information