Wills terms and conditions

1. Introduction

About us Co-op Legal Services is a trading name of Co-operative Legal Services Limited, a private limited company registered in England and Wales with company number 05671209. Its registered office address is 1 Angel Square, Manchester, M60 0AG. A list of Directors is available on request.

Regulator

Co-op Legal Services is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) with SRA ID number 567391. This means that we are required to comply with a number of professional rules and standards set out in the SRA Standards and Regulations which you can view at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/who-we-are/sra-regulate/. Alternatively, you can contact the SRA at ‘Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN’ or by calling the SRA’s contact centre on 0370 606 2555 (inside the UK).

VAT

Co-operative Legal Services Limited is registered for VAT with VAT registration number 403314604.

Defined terms

In these terms, the following words have the following meanings:

• ‘We’, ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘Co-op Legal Services’ and ‘company - mean Co-operative Legal Services Limited, trading as Co-op Legal Services.
• ‘You’ and ‘your’- mean you, the client who is the other party(ies) to this contract besides us.
• ‘SRA’- means the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
• ‘SRA Standards and Regulations’ - means the SRA Standards and Regulations which came into force on 25th November 2019, as amended from time to time.
• ‘These terms’ – means the Terms and Conditions set out in this document.
• ‘Contract’ – means the agreement between you and us as set out in these terms, our client care letter and any other documents referred to within either these terms, or our client care letter.
• ‘CEP’ – means Co-op Estate Planning which is the trading name of Dovedon Limited. Registered in England and Wales under Company Number: 06077167. Registered office: 1 Angel Square, Manchester, M60 0AG.
• ‘Documents’ – mean basic Will, Wills with Trusts, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Lifetime Trusts, Advance Directives or any other Legal Documents drafted by us.
• ‘Estate Planner’ – the individual(s) with whom you will have meetings.
• ‘Service’ – Legal Document Fulfilment Service provided by Co-op Legal Services.

Important: your specific attention is drawn to the following sections within these terms:

• Joint clients – applicable only if you are instructing us as joint clients
• Limitation of liability
• Cancellation rights

These terms

These terms may not be altered unless agreed in writing by the Head of Practice.

You should read these terms carefully, along with your client care letter and any other documents referred to within that client care letter, as these documents set out the basis on which we will provide services to you and forms the contract between us.

By accepting these terms, you are entering into a contract with us. Your continuing instructions will amount to acceptance of these terms.

2. Joint clients

If we are advising more than one person, we will, unless otherwise agreed in writing, act for those persons jointly and severally.

If you are instructing us jointly, it is your responsibility to tell us straightaway if you require more than one person to give us instructions in relation to your matter. Otherwise, we will accept instructions from any one person on behalf of all persons.

Joint clients agree that all information, correspondence, communications and all documents (including those which are confidential, legally privileged or contain personal data) which we receive from one joint client, may be disclosed to or provided to all other joint clients, and each joint client irrevocably authorises us accordingly. If a joint client attempts to terminate this irrevocable permission we may at our discretion, suspend or terminate our agreement with that client, or if necessary all clients, if it makes the conduct of the matter unmanageable, or if our professional rules require it, for example, if it creates a conflict of interests, or if it makes our duties of confidentiality and disclosure owed to each client irreconcilable.

If a joint client asks us to return documents or money, we shall return them to the same client who provided them to us in the first place.

3. Our service

Starting your Will online

By using our online Will service and by submitting your details to Co-op Legal Services, you agree that:

• Information provided by you to us through our online Will service does not constitute your formal Will writing instructions.
• Co-op Legal Services will contact you to discuss your instructions and the requirements for your Will.

How long will the process take?

We are unable to dispatch your documents to you until you have provided us with your full and complete instructions. Once we are in receipt of your full and complete instructions, we aim to dispatch all draft documents to you within 14 working days.

Instructions will be considered “full and complete” when any questions or issues pursuant to the instructions raised by the us have been resolved.

We will acknowledge the return of all documents for checking and storage via email or letter within 10 working days of their receipt at our offices. If an issue with the signing and witnessing of your documents is detected as part of this process, new documents will be dispatched to you within the same timescale with details as to how to remedy the defect.

In the unlikely event that your case handler is unable to adhere to the above timescales, you will be contacted, the reason for the delay explained and a new timescale for completion provided.

We offer no assurances that we are able to accelerate the process should you have more urgent requirements; in these circumstances we recommend you contact an alternative service provider.

What are your responsibilities?

Responsibility for the accuracy of all information held by us about you and those individuals named within your documents rests with you.

You must answer any questions we ask fully and accurately as we will not verify the information you provide.

You must provide all requested information and documentation to us in a timely matter as failure to do so will delay or prevent the dispatch of your documentation.

Should you fail to return documents to us, we will be unable to complete our obligations under these terms, but you will still be charged the agreed fees for the service undertaken.

Our failure to acknowledge receipt of any documentation at these offices is likely to mean that your document has not been received by us. If you do not receive an acknowledgment within 14 working days of having sent the document, you must contact us and inform us of this so remedial action can be taken as a priority.

What are our responsibilities?

We will make clear to you what information is required from you to enable us to complete your documents on your behalf.

We will use the information you provide to create documents that accurately reflect your needs and wishes.

We will make it clear to you what needs to be done to ensure that your documents are signed and witnessed in a way which makes them legally valid. Please refer to the Our service and the execution of documents section of these terms, for important information about ensuring that your documents are executed correctly.

When you request us to do so, we will take care to ensure that documents are stored safely and securely.

4. Limitations to our service

Is our service suitable for everyone?

In providing our service, we understand that some clients may be more vulnerable than others and, in these instances, we aim to provide greater levels of sensitivity and attentiveness to any specific needs. Vulnerability in these circumstances may arise, for example, by virtue of a sensory disability.

We may have to decline to act for anyone who we believe will not be best served by the service we can offer them but will not do this until we have considered and shared options for the delivery of our service.

Due to the importance of the documents, we are preparing for you, we are unable to take instructions from third parties on your behalf.

We are not able to prepare legal documents in Braille as they will not have any legal standing.

Our service and testamentary capacity

In order to write a Will or Lasting Power of Attorney any potential client must, in the eyes of the law, have sufficient mental capacity or ‘testamentary capacity’ to undertake this procedure. Before taking instructions from you, you will be asked a series of questions designed to identify any potential capacity issues at the earliest stage.

We cannot be held responsible for failure to detect any non-verbal signs which may question your soundness of mind, memory and understanding or raise doubts as to whether You are being influenced by another.

Our service and the execution of documents

Our service does not include supervising the execution of your documents. As such, we will not be liable for any failure by you (or any party you ask to witness your documents), to execute your documents correctly.

By entering into this contract, you acknowledge and accept, that supervising the execution of documents does not form part of our service.

What advice is our service unable to provide?

Our service does not provide tax advice. There will also be occasions where the size and complexity of your assets make our service inappropriate. When such occasions arise, we will notify you of this and refund in full any fees paid.

Our service can only advise in relation to assets held in England and Wales.

5. Our fees and disbursements

What will our service cost?

Before we carry out any work, we will have provided you with a fixed fee quotation plus VAT and disbursements for the provision of our service. The quotation is based upon the complexity of the work that you have asked us to undertake. You have an obligation to provide as much accurate information about your circumstances and requirements as possible as the quotation is based on the information provided by you. In the event that the work involved is materially more than indicated by the information provided by you at the time of quotation, or you require us to do more work which is outside our normal practices, then we reserve the right to provide an alternative quotation.

If you have purchased a Lasting Power of Attorney, in addition to our fee for drafting your Lasting Power of Attorney, there is also a fee payable directly to the Office of the Public Guardian which is the court dealing with the registration of these documents. Details of the Office of the Public Guardian’s registration fee can be found at https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/register.

Reductions in court fees are however available for those individuals in receipt of certain benefits or below defined income thresholds. We will be able to advise you as to your eligibility for such reductions.

If the work that you have asked us to undertake involves updating and/or amending details with His Majesty’s Land Registry (HMLR) for property located in England & Wales, then there may be registration service fees payable by you to HMLR. Further details can be found at: HM Land Registry: Registration Services fees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Where CEP provide meetings for clients of Co-op Legal Services, they do so under a fee sharing agreement. The amounts Co-op Legal Services pay to CEP, reflect the time spent by their staff speaking to customers about the services that Co-op Legal Services can offer them (whether or not they then chose to take those services) and for general marketing. The amounts that Co-op Legal Services pay to CEP are not linked to how many customers actually decide to take our services and they are calculated retrospectively.

For these reasons it is not possible to state here how much Co-op Legal Services pay. Please rest assured that Co-op Legal Services does not pass the cost of this payment on to you, that it does not increase the cost of the service that is provided to you and that it will not affect the independence of the advice given to you.

What does our fee include?

In addition to completed, professionally drafted documents, our fee includes the following:

• An appointment during which your needs and wishes will be discussed and guidance offered in relation to your specific circumstances (the ‘initial appointment’).
• Any subsequent conversations you require with your designated case handler.
• Support with signing your documents should you require it. Our fee does not include a further meeting to have your documents signed but we are committed to supporting those who need assistance. Please ask us if you feel your circumstances require this additional support.
• Checking of your documents where they have been signed and returned to us along with any accompanying documentation to ensure, as far as we are able, that the legal requirements for signing have been met.
• Contacting you when there are issues regarding the signing of your documents and arranging for re-signing when required.
• Safe storage of your Last Will and Testament and/or Trust Deed prepared by us and any accompanying letter of wishes.
• Access to ongoing legal advice regarding your documents.
• Access to legal advice for your loved ones in the event of your passing.

On occasion you will be advised to prepare a document called a Letter of Wishes which should be stored with your Will. It is your responsibility to write the content of this letter but storage of the letter with your documents is provided free of charge as part of our service.

6. Invoicing and payment arrangements

When do I pay?

Whether your appointment is face-to-face, via telephone or video, payment is required in full at the end of our appointment.

A full refund will be given if you choose not to proceed with our service within 14 days of your appointment.

Payment can be made by debit or credit card, cheque, or BACS transfer. Cash payments are not accepted.

You are ultimately responsible for the payment of all our fees plus VAT and the cost of any disbursement incurred.

Interest charged on unpaid invoices

We reserve the right to charge interest on any invoices payable by you that remain unpaid after 14 calendar days of the date stated on the invoice at a rate of 5% above the Bank of England base rate. We also reserve the right to hold onto any of your documents in our possession until all invoices are paid by you.

7. Holding client money

Banking

Any client money held by Co-op Legal Services for you, will be in a clearing bank authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (‘PRA’), to accept deposits at a branch or head office in England and Wales, unless you instruct us otherwise. We hold client accounts with a panel of UK banks and it is our policy to distribute monies between them. Should you wish us to provide you with further information about this then please contact us.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (‘FSCS’)

If a bank in which we hold funds for you should fail, you may be able to claim compensation under the FSCS. The current limit on such compensation can be found at https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/. This limit includes any other money held with the bank concerned, even if it is held under a different brand of the same organisation. In the event of a banking failure, we will disclose to the FSCS, the names and other details of our affected clients on the basis that it will be in your best interests for us to do so. However, you may contact us to request that we do not make this disclosure if you have any concerns, but in doing so, you may affect or delay receipt of any such compensation that you become eligible for.

Limitation of liability

We will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss or damage suffered as a result of any act, omission, fraud, delay, negligence, insolvency or default of any bank, financial institution, clearing or payments system, nor that of any of their directors, officers, employees, agents, or representatives. This includes where we transfer money on your behalf with your authority to a third party, if the bank into which the money is paid by the third party, is unable to repay it for any reason.

Interest payments made on client money

In accordance with the SRA Accounts Rules, we are required to account to you for a fair sum of interest on any client money that we hold on your behalf.

We are required to hold client money in an instant access account to facilitate transactions. As a result, the rates of interest paid are unlikely to be as high as those obtainable by you. The holding of client money is incidental to the carrying out of your instructions.

A copy of our Client Money Banking and Interest Policy is available on our website at https://www.co-oplegalservices.co.uk/about-us/interest/.

If you do not want to receive interest, please write to the Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration, Co-op Legal Services Limited, Aztec 650, Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol, BS32 4SD.

Residuary balances

On the rare occasion that we receive funds equating to £500.00 or less after our service has concluded, and after making reasonable enquiries as to who those funds are owed to, you agree that in the event we are unable to reasonably identify the rightful recipient of those funds, or we are unable to reasonably trace or contact the rightful recipient of those funds, that we may place such sums received into a suspense account to hold for a period of 12 months. If the sums remain unclaimed on the expiry of the 12-month period, you agree that we may pay them to our nominated charity. Please note that we are required by our regulator to take reasonable steps to return the money to the rightful owner and this is therefore not a decision that will be taken lightly.

For any sums of this nature in excess of £500.00, we are required to seek authorisation from our regulator in order to pay the unaccounted funds to our nominated charity.

8. Professional indemnity insurance

Co-op Legal Services carries professional indemnity insurance in England and Wales as required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Details of our insurer and territorial coverage are available on request.

9. Limitation of liability

This section sets out the limitation of our liability to you, our client. Please ask us if you would like us to explain any of the terms used here.

We have professional indemnity insurance cover to the limit of £15 million. We consider it reasonable, in all the circumstances, to limit our liability to this amount. We have considered the nature of the work we do, our charges, and the current and potential future costs and availability of insurance.

Accordingly, our total aggregate liability to you is limited to £15 million. This limit applies to all acts and omissions, including any negligence.

We are happy to discuss any of this with you. You should tell us if you think this limit is not sufficient for the work you ask us to do.

The effect of the limitation on liability is to limit your ability to claim against us in respect of all of the work we do for you on a particular matter, or any variation or extension to a matter. We do not accept responsibility for work third parties do for you, whether we instruct them on your behalf or not. If we are held to be responsible in any way for a third party’s work, acts or omissions, the limit will apply and our aggregate liability to you, including for the work we do, will be limited to £15 million.

The limit applies to any work we do for you in the future, subject to any different limit we agree with you at that time.

The limit applies to all claims arising from a single act or omission or a series of acts or omissions.

The limit applies to all claims arising from the same or similar acts or omissions on related matters.

Where we are jointly instructed by more than one party, this limit of liability applies to all parties collectively including anyone claiming through them.

We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect, or exemplary damages, costs, or losses, or for any damages, costs, or losses attributable to loss of profits or opportunities.

We will not be liable for any loss relating to any obligation which we have, or which we reasonably believe we may have, to make reports to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. No employee or director of Co-op Legal Services Limited, will be personally liable to you for any matter in respect of which the employee or director is uninsured.

Instructing us to act for you constitutes your acceptance of these terms (including the associated Service Level Agreement where appropriate) and the limitation of liability.

If the SRA prescribes a sum higher than £15 million as the minimum level of liability which we must apply, then that higher limit will apply to your work.

We limit our liability only to the extent allowed by law. In particular, we do not seek to limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence. We do not limit our liability for contentious business, as prescribed by the Solicitors Act 1974.

Each of the above provisions is a separate and independent limitation. If any of them is found to be invalid for any reason, the remaining provisions, or the original provisions as varied, will continue to apply.

Nothing in these terms of business restricts your statutory rights.

Please note that by instructing us, you agree to limit your ability to claim as set out above.

10. Financial services

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’). However, we are included on the register maintained by the FCA so that we can carry on insurance distribution activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed by the FCA’s website at https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.

The limited regulated activities that we carry out are issuing certain insurance policies, such as after the event legal expenses insurance.

Any insurance policy arranged by us on your behalf, shall, in our opinion, be adequate to meet your needs but we do not recommend any policy over and above any other and it is therefore your responsibility to check that you are satisfied with the excess levels, exclusions, limitations and other policy terms. We do not conduct a fair analysis of the insurance market prior to arranging insurance policies. You can request details of the insurance undertakings with which we conduct business at any time.

You must provide us with details of any relevant existing insurance policies you may have at the outset. We will not be liable to you for any losses you suffer as a result of your failure to provide us with such details.

11. Our business partners

Payments we receive for services provided by third parties

From time to time, we will inform you of and introduce you to third parties when we believe that they could help you in some way. We may agree with the party concerned to receive payments from them if you decide to take their services but if a payment to us is involved, this will be made clear to you and, where it is required, your written consent will be requested by us or on our behalf by the party providing the service before we retain the sum.

Regulatory protections

If we recommend or introduce you to a particular firm, agency, or business, we will do so in good faith and because we believe it to be in your best interests. However, if that particular firm, agency, or business is not another firm of solicitors, then you will not be afforded the regulatory protection of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (‘SRA’), the SRA Codes of Conduct and the SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules, nor will you be entitled to the benefit of the SRA Compensation Fund.

12. Anti-money laundering

Our legal obligation

The Money Laundering Regulations require solicitors to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients and, where there is a beneficial owner who is not the client, the beneficial owner. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be targeted by criminals attempting to launder money.

Identity checks

To comply with the law and/or our regulatory obligations, we may need to obtain evidence of your identity depending on the type of legal service we are providing to you. Where we inform you that we need to conduct identity checks, your identity checks will need to be completed before we can progress your case. We will need you to provide information about your identity in order for the identity checks to be completed. Failure to provide the information we request to complete your identity checks, will result in us being unable to provide our legal services to you.

Our usual practice is to conduct an electronic identity verification check for you which will include screening against electoral role records, records held by credit reporting agencies and records of politically exposed persons and sanctions. Please note that these electronic checks will not affect your credit rating.

Where appropriate, we may also ask you to upload photos of your identity documents, along with a live photograph of yourself via our ID checking platform. This data will be received by us and held on your client file.

Our charges for conducting such checks will typically amount to one unit of time per check per person and will be invoiced to you in accordance with our normal billing and invoicing procedures as outlined in these terms. Where we have agreed a fixed fee with you, our charges for conducting these checks will be included within that fee.

On occasions where we are not able to gain satisfactory results from electronic checks or we deem them to be inappropriate, we will require certified copies of original documents from you. The required original documents will need to evidence both your identity (such as your passport or photo-card driving licence) and your address (such as a bank statement or utility bill dated within the last 3 months. You can ask a solicitor, legal executive or notary local to you to certify your documents.

If you cannot provide us with the specific identification requested, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss other ways to verify your identity.

We are required to hold copies of your identity documents on our file for the duration of our service to you and for at least five years after we conclude our service to you.

Please note that data obtained for the purposes of conducting identity checks, will not be used for any other purpose unless permitted by law or we obtain your consent to use the data for another purpose.

Our cash policy

It is our policy not to accept payment in cash from clients. This means that we will not accept physical cash being brought into our offices or being sent to us. In addition to this, we will not accept money being deposited into our bank account prior to us authorising such a transfer.

If you try to avoid our policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to prove the source of funds and/or wealth.

When we make payments to you, those payments will be in the form of a cheque or bank transfer. We will not make payments to you in cash or make payments to any third party on your behalf.

Confidentiality

We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by law to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.

Limitation of liability

We will not accept liability for any loss caused to you or any other party as a result of our refusal to proceed with a matter or transaction or otherwise complying with our legal obligations.

13. Anti-facilitation of tax evasion

We have a zero tolerance towards the criminal facilitation of tax evasion. We are obliged under the Criminal Finances Act 2017 to ensure that we have systems and controls in place to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion and failure to do so would amount to a criminal offence. Therefore, please be aware that we will not assist clients who have not regularised their tax positions.

14. Confidentiality

We will keep your information confidential, unless:

• You consent to the disclosure of that information;
• Disclosure of the information is required or permitted by law or regulatory requirements that apply to us; or
• These terms state otherwise.

Please refer to the Data protection section below for further details about how we use your information. Details provided in respect of Use of third-party service and technology providers, Continual improvement of our systems and services, Outsourcing, Referrals and Quality audits and file reviews below also apply to this section of our terms.

15. Data protection

Privacy notice

Our full privacy notice is available on our website at https://www.co-oplegalservices.co.uk/privacy-notice/.

The key provisions of our privacy notice for clients are set out in this section of these terms.

Lawful basis for processing personal data

Our reasons for processing your personal data will fall into at least one of the lawful bases for processing listed below which require that processing is:

• Authorised by you (consent)
• Necessary as part of the legal services we are providing to you (to perform our contract with you)
• Required by law or our professional rules
• Necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party (in other words, we have a compelling justification for the disclosure of the processing, or we are using your data in a way that you would reasonably expect), or
• Necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person e.g., to protect a life.

We keep your personal data confidential and will not disclose it to third parties unless at least one of the lawful bases above applies.

Where we process special category personal data (such as health data, racial or ethnic data religious data etc.) our processing will be based on at least one of the following lawful bases:

• Explicit consent from you
• It is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another natural person where you are physically or legally unable to give consent
• Processing relates to personal data which you have manifestly made public, or
• Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise of defence of a legal claim.

Please contact us if you would like more information about our lawful basis for processing your personal data.

How we use your personal data

We use your personal data primarily to provide legal services to you. We also use your personal data for accounting and billing purposes, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and to manage our business effectively. With your authority, we may also send you information about our services or events that we think you might be interested in.

Sharing personal data with third parties

We may work with other professionals to progress your matter and may need to disclose relevant information about you to them. Examples include barristers/ counsel, experts, costs specialists and other lawyers. We will inform you, as appropriate, when we need to work with other professionals on your matter.

Where there is another party(ies) to your matter (i.e., opponent in litigation, respondent/ petitioner in a divorce matter etc.), we will liaise with their legal representative (or the third party directly if they are not represented) in order to progress your matter. This may involve us disclosing the relevant information about you to this party(ies) in order for us to provide our legal services to you. Please contact us if you have any queries about this.

Please also refer to the sections on Use of third-party service and technology providers, Continual improvement of our systems and services, Outsourcing, Referrals and Quality audits and file reviews below for further details about instances where we may share your personal data with third parties.

Use of third-party service and technology providers

We use third party service and technology providers (including cloud-based providers) to help us deliver efficient, cost effective and innovative legal services. This may include document/ information hosting, sharing, transfer, analysis, or storage. We ensure any third-party service and technology providers we may share your data with, have at least the same privacy and security standards as ourselves and will only use your information for the specific reasons we ask them to.

Continual improvement of our systems and services

We prioritise continual improvement of our systems and services and regularly develop and test our systems, to ensure that they support us to provide a high standard of legal services. We may, where necessary, use your information to assist us in our development and testing work. Where we do this, we will ensure that any information used is kept to a minimum and that our usual security procedures and controls are applied to this work.

Retention and destruction of personal data

Once you matter has concluded, we will hold your file and store it securely in line with our retention periods set out below.

Our lawful basis for retaining data in line with the above retention periods to ensure that we maintain records for at least the length of the applicable claim periods set out in the Limitation Act 1980 (as amended from time to time). After our retention period has ended, we will permanently delete your file from our systems and securely destroy any physical records that we hold. Once, that has happened, your file will no longer be available.

Transferring personal data outside of the United Kingdom (UK)

We may transfer your personal data outside of the UK where our service providers (including but not limited to our storage and/or backup systems) are located or hosted outside of the UK. However, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place obliging our service providers to process your personal data to the standards expected in the UK. Our providers are bound by the same data protection laws as us meaning that they have the same obligations to keep your data safe.

Call recording

We may record incoming and outgoing telephone calls for the following reasons:

• Quality monitoring – to help us to monitor our service levels.
• Training – to help us to identify training needs and to provide training material from different scenarios we encounter when making or receiving telephone calls.
• Complaints and disputes – to provide us with additional information to help us with investigations for complaints or disputes.
• Colleague protection – to provide us with evidence in the event of abusive behaviour towards our colleagues.

Our legal basis for recording calls is to protect our legitimate interests in ensuring that we have the information available for the reasons stated above.

Call recordings may be disclosed to third parties if required to defend or settle a dispute or report any abusive behaviour. Call recordings will also be disclosed to third parties if required by law.

All call recordings are kept for up to 3 years after which time they are permanently deleted.

Your data protection rights

All individuals have the following rights under UK data protection legislation:

• Right to access your personal data – you can request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you.
• Right to object to processing – you can make an objection to us processing your personal data.
• Right to object to automated individual decision-making including profiling – you can object to us making decisions about you solely by using a computer system without any human consideration. We do not currently do this.
• Right to rectification – you can make a request for us to correct personal data that we hold because you believe it is inaccurate.
• Right to erasure – you can make a request for us to delete the personal data that we hold about you.
• Right to restrict processing – you can request that we only use your personal data for a specific reason(s).

Please note that these rights are not absolute rights (they are not rights that will be automatically granted), as we have to consider whether there are any reasons why we cannot meet your request. For example, we will not be able to delete data that we are legally obliged to keep. We will let you know if we are not able to meet your request and the reason why (where it is appropriate to disclose this to you).

Subject access requests

We will not generally be able to meet requests from third parties to our clients’ matters, where the data sought relates to information that our client has given to us in order to obtain legal services from us. Many of our communications with our clients, regardless of whether they include another individual’s personal data, are subject to legal professional privilege which cannot be overridden by the right of access under data protection laws. Therefore, any data that we are able to provide, is likely to be extremely limited.

If you are a client, please note that a subject access request does not give you a right to a complete copy of your client file. It only gives you the right to copies of data within that file that constitutes your personal data. Therefore, if you are looking for a copy of your full file, please contact your case manager as we have a separate process for responding the client file requests. Please see the Charges for file and document requests section of these terms for further details on file requests.

Erasure requests

Once you have instructed us to undertake legal work for you and you have entered into a retainer with us, it is very unlikely that we will be able to grant a full data erasure request. Also, if you pay any money to us, then we will not be able to delete all of your data. This is because we have regulatory and legal obligations to keep your data in these instances. We may, however, be able to meet a partial erasure request but this would be considered on a case-by-case basis and dependent on the activity that had happened on your case to the date of the request. We will provide explanations in the event that we are not able to meet a data erasure request.

Please note that where we have asked you to provide your consent to us using your personal data, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. You can this by informing your case manager.

Data protection laws allow a timescale of one month for us to respond to a data rights request. We are also permitted to extend the timescale to respond by a further two months if we deem the request to be complex or we have received a number of requests from an individual. We will inform you within one month of receiving your request, if we feel that we need to apply the extension permitted.

If you have queries or concerns about data protection, you can contact our Compliance Team at compliance@theco-operativelegal.co.uk. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (‘ICO’) if you are not happy with the way that we handle your personal data. You can contact the ICO at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF or by calling the ICO’s helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Outsourcing

We may use other organisations to carry out work on our behalf to help us provide our products and services. We ensure any third parties we may share your data with have at least the same privacy and security standards as ourselves and will only use your information for the specific reasons we ask them to.

Referrals

If you were referred to us by a third party, we may tell that third party the outcome of the referral. Any information we send will be limited to that necessary for them to update their records and manage the referral relationship. This may include, but is not limited to, dates, names, products taken, and amounts paid. We may, if we deem it appropriate to do so, share other service information with a third party that has referred you to us. We will not send any specific information relating to any advice we have given you. The exception to this is where you were referred to us by Co-op Estate Planning and your estate planner is assisting you throughout your case, such as to discuss draft and final documentation with you. Please contact us if you would like more information about this.

If we refer you to a third party, we may ask the third party to provide us with updates from time to time. Any information sent to us will be limited to that necessary for us to update our records and provide our service to you in respect of continuing instructions. It may include, but is not limited to, dates, names, products taken, and amounts paid. Please contact us if you would like more information about this.

Quality audits and file reviews

We are a regulated law firm and our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), has a right to review any file that we have. If you complain to the Legal Ombudsman about our service, they may ask us for details of the work we have done for you. It is our duty to comply with requests from regulatory bodies for information.

We may need to disclose information about your file to our professional indemnity insurers, brokers and the Co-op Group teams who manage these arrangements for us.

It is possible that other organisations may wish to review your file, for example where work is referred to us by third parties or where external quality assessors perform audits for accreditation or compliance purposes. If this is necessary, we will ensure your confidentiality is protected.

Our accounts, including client transactions, are audited by external accountants.

16. Security of communications

Contacting you

We may correspond with you by email if you provide us with an email address, unless you advise us in writing, that you do not wish for us to do so. You acknowledge that email may not be secure. Email will be treated as written correspondence, and we are entitled to assume that the purported sender of an email is the actual sender and that any express or implied approval or authority referred to in an email has been validly given. Please be aware that we may monitor and read any email correspondence travelling between you and any mail recipient at Co-op Legal Services as part of our monitoring activities and to ensure compliance with our internal information handling and security procedures.

We will aim to communicate with you by your preferred method. More often than not, our communications will be in writing (via post or email) but may also be by telephone and SMS text as appropriate. Where you provide us with an email address for sending communications and documents to, you are responsible for ensuring your arrangements are sufficiently secure and confidential to protect your interests. You must tell us if this method of communication is not secure so that we can use an alternative method.

Computer systems and the internet

The internet is not secure and there are risks if you send sensitive information over the internet or you ask us to do so. Please be aware that the data we send by email is not routinely encrypted. We will take reasonable steps to protect the integrity of our computer systems by screening for viruses on emails received. We expect you to do the same for your computer systems.

Bank details

It is very unlikely that we will change our bank account details during the course of your matter. In any event, we will never contact you by email to tell you that our details have changed. If you receive any communications purporting to be from us, that you deem suspicious or have any concerns about (however slight), please contact us by telephone straightaway. Do not pay any monies until you have been able to verify the authenticity of any such communication with us.

17. File and document storage

Right to exercise a lien over your file and documents

We may be entitled to refuse requests for copies of your file or any documents forming part of your file where there is still money owed to us for our fees, VAT, and disbursements.

Electronic file storage

We hold the majority of our clients’ files in electronic form. You therefore accept that we will scan original documents and correspondence received from you or third parties to your individual file and after scanning, we may destroy the originals unless you have provided us with specific instructions in writing not to do so.

Ongoing storage of your file and documents

Once your matter has concluded or upon termination of our agreement with you, we will keep your file and any other relevant documentation in line with our retention period (see section Retention and destruction of personal data of these terms), except for any of your papers which you ask to be returned to you which have not been destroyed. Continued storage after that period is on the understanding that we have the right to destroy your file and documentation after such period as we consider reasonable and/or in line with guidance published by our professional and/or regulatory body.

Charges for file and document requests

If you require a copy of your file or specific documentation within it, then we may charge you for time spent producing, copying, and delivering/ sending the file or documents that are requested. We may also charge you for time spent reading correspondence or other work necessary to meet your instructions. Our charges will be invoiced at the hourly rates applicable at the time of your request.

If you are instructing us as a joint client, and one joint client requests a copy of the client file, we will respond to this request without requesting authority from the other joint client to release a complete copy of the client file.

Please note that nothing in this section of these terms affects any rights of access that you may have in accordance with data protection legislation. However, access rights under data protection legislation are limited to information on your file that contains your personal data, they do not entitle you to a complete copy of your file.

18. Responsibilities

You as our client have a number of responsibilities that you must keep and similarly, we have a number of responsibilities to you that we must keep.

Your responsibilities

Your responsibilities include:

• You must provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions.
• You must provide all documentation required to complete your matter in a timely manner.
• You must safeguard any documents that are likely to be required for disclosure.
• You must keep your contact details up to date with us.
• You must pay our bills in a timely manner to allow us to continue delivering our services to you.

Our responsibilities

Our responsibilities include:

• We must review your matter regularly.
• We must advise you of any changes in the law, arising during our instruction under this contract, that are relevant to your matter. Please note that this responsibility ceases once we have issued final documents to you, or in the event that you do not meet Your responsibilities as set out above.
• We must advise you if we become aware of any circumstances that could affect the outcome of your matter.

Please also refer to the Our service section of these terms for more details about the responsibilities that you and we have specifically in relation to our estate planning services.

19. Complaints

Our complaints procedure

We are committed to providing excellent service and client care, but we appreciate things occasionally do go wrong.

In the event that you are dissatisfied regarding any aspect of our services or our charges, in the first instance, please speak with the Team Leader/ Team Manager of the person handling your case. If that does not satisfactorily resolve the issues raised, you can contact the Customer Service Team who will carry out a further review of your complaint and provide you with our final response.

Our address to contact us in writing is ‘Customer Service Manager, Co-op Legal Services, Aztec 650, Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol, BS32 4SD’; or email: complaints@coop.co.uk.

A copy of our Complaints Procedure is available on request or on our website: www.co-oplegalservices.co.uk.

The Legal Ombudsman

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with solicitors and can be contacted at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH. Telephone number: 0300 555 0333. Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

Alternative complaints bodies (such as Pro Mediate UK Limited: 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. We do not though agree to use such a scheme.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (‘SRA’) 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. The SRA can be contacted at ‘Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN’ or by calling the SRA’s contact centre on 0370 606 2555 (inside the UK). You can make reports to them by emailing report@sra.org.uk and you can find more information by visiting their website at www.sra.org.uk.

20. Equality, diversity, and disability

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our Equality and Diversity Policy.

We are also committed to equal opportunities, and it is our policy to try to accommodate our clients’ needs and requirements resulting from disability as far as is reasonably possible. Please let us know if you have any difficulty communicating or meeting with us or if you require us to make any other reasonable adjustments to meet your needs.

Our letters and associated ancillary documents can be made available in large text. If you would like to use this service or need any other help, please let us know.

21. Copyright

Unless we agree otherwise, we retain all copyright in the documents and other materials that we create whilst carrying out work for you. You will have the right to use such documents and materials for the purposes for which they are created. You agree not to make our work, documents, or materials available to third parties without our prior written permission and we accept no responsibility to third parties for any aspect of our professional services or work that is made available to them.

22. Third party rights

Unless permitted to do so by law or our professional rules, a person who is not a party to this contract shall not be entitled to enforce any of its terms.

23. English law

All of our advice is given on the basis of the laws of England and Wales. To the extent that we advise on documents governed by the laws of other jurisdictions, we will not be advising on any specific implications of the laws of those jurisdictions. These terms are subject to English law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

If any provision of these terms is found by any court or administrative body of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, such invalidity or unenforceability, shall not affect the other provisions of these terms which shall remain in full force and effect.

24. Termination

Your right to terminate this contract

You may end this contract (and therefore your instructions to us) at any time by writing to us by post or email. However, you will remain responsible for the payment of all our fees plus VAT and the cost of any disbursements incurred, up to the limits we have agreed with you. We may be entitled to refuse requests for copies of your file or any documents forming part of your file where there is still money owed to us for our fees, VAT, and disbursements (including any fees or disbursements that have been incurred but not yet billed).

Our right to terminate this contract

We reserve the right to stop acting for you in any of the following circumstances:

• It becomes clear that we cannot act at any stage of your matter, including because a conflict of interest has arisen.
• In our opinion, you have failed to meet your responsibilities under this contract.
• You ask us to do something that would breach our professional rules or be unlawful.
• You fail to follow our advice and therefore we do not feel that we can continue to act in your best interests.
• There is a breakdown in trust and confidence between us and you, including if you fail to co-operate with us.
• If a fixed fee service was initially agreed but it subsequently becomes apparent that this is no longer appropriate, and you are not prepared or able to instruct us to act for you on payment of either an agreed fee or on the basis of our hourly rates.

Should You fail to make payment of fees due under these terms, we may terminate this contract by giving You 14 days’ notice. In this circumstance, we will retain any fees received.

Where we have commenced work based upon your initial instructions, we may terminate this contract if you fail to provide sufficient or further instructions to allow us to complete our service. In this circumstance, we will give you 14 days’ notice to provide the necessary instructions, failing which, we will cease to act though we will retain any fees received. As you are ultimately responsible for the payment of all our fees plus VAT and the cost of any disbursement incurred, you must also pay the balance of those fees.

Where we terminate this contract, we will take no further action on your behalf and will not be liable for any loss and/or expense you may incur regarding estate planning subject to the provisions of the Limitation of liability section of these terms.

If we stop acting for you, and unless otherwise agreed, we will invoice you as follows:

• For the avoidance of doubt, our prior invoicing frequency arrangements will not be applicable if our contract is terminated by you or us. All fees and disbursements owing to us (including those which have been incurred but not yet billed) will become payable immediately. We may however be able to agree payment terms for any outstanding amount, but this will be at our discretion.
• We will return any payments to third parties which have not fallen due.
• We will charge you an hourly rate (at a rate applicable at the time of the termination of this contract) for work done since the last billing point to the date on which this contract is terminated. If no billing point has been reached, we will charge you an hourly rate (at a rate applicable at the time of the termination of this contract) for work done since the date of instruction. Where we have agreed a fixed fee for the work, our charges will not exceed this fixed fee.
• Any refund owed to you, will be paid to you within 14 days of us ceasing to act for you. However, in order to comply with our money laundering obligations, we will need you to provide satisfactory evidence of your identity (if you have done so already), prior to us making a payment to you.

25. Cancellation rights

Your right to cancel this contract

Separate to the termination provisions above, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving a reason.

The cancellation period will expire after 14 days from the day you enter into the contract for the provision of our service.

To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g., a letter sent by post or email). You can use the attached Cancellation Form, but it is not obligatory.

Our contact details to inform us of your decision to cancel are Co-op Legal Services, 650 Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, BS32 4SD or estateplanningcancellations@coop.co.uk.

To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired.

Effects of cancellation

If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, unless you asked us to start work during the cancellation period (see the Asking us to start work during the cancellation period section below).

We will make the reimbursement:

• Without undue delay and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to cancel this contract, and
• Using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement.

Asking us to start work during the cancellation period

Unless you instruct us to start work during the cancellation period, you will not be charged if you cancel this agreement within the cancellation period.

In most cases, if you ask us to start work during the cancellation period, you will not lose your right to cancel. If you subsequently cancel during the cancellation period, we can charge you for the work we have done on a pro-rata basis and will also charge you for any disbursements we have incurred on your behalf. This will be an amount which is in proportion to what has been performed, until you told us you wished to cancel, in comparison with the full coverage of the contract.

You will, however, lost the right to cancel and will have to pay in full once the contract has been fully performed (i.e., we complete the work), even if this happens within the cancellation period.

Cancellation of service

Download our cancellation form here.

To cancel please print, complete and submit the cancellation form, via email or post, to:

The Estate Planning Team, Co-op Legal Services, 650 Aztec West, Bristol, BS32 4SD
Email: estateplanningcancellations@coop.co.uk

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