Services

The services Dev Law (we, us) will provide for you are outlined in our engagement letter.  We are not qualified to provide, and will not provide, investment advice, tax advice, or advice on insurance products to you.  We will, if you so request, assist you in obtaining such advice.

Anti Money Laundering/FATCA/CRS and other laws

We must comply with our obligations under all laws binding on us, including:

• Anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism laws; and

• Laws relating to tax reporting and withholdings.

In order to do so, we may be required to conduct customer due diligence (“CDD”) on you, persons acting on your behalf, and other relevant persons such as the persons who have effective control or are the beneficiaries of your entity (such as a trust). The information required will include:

• a current form of photo ID (driver’s licence/passport);

• an original utility bill addressed to your current address;

• a bank statement dated within the last 3 months to verify your bank account number.

You accept that we may use CDD services (including electronic based services from a third party) to verify your identity and conduct due diligence. We may not be able to act or continue acting for you, until this is completed.

We may be required to provide information about you, persons acting on your behalf, and other relevant persons as described above to government agencies. We may not be permitted to tell you or such persons if we provide such information. We may also be required to provide such information to banks whom we place your funds through our trust account, and information provided to banks may in turn be passed on by them to tax/other regulatory authorities in New Zealand and offshore.

Please ensure that any of the persons described above in respect of whom we collect information are aware of and consent to this and to the provisions of our Privacy Policy which can be viewed on our website. Please also ensure that all information provided to us is accurate. We are not responsible to you, or anyone else, for anything done or not done by us (including any provision of information by us to any third party or any withholdings made) in order to comply with our legal obligations.

Fees

The basis on which fees will be charged are set out in our letter of engagement. We can give estimates of the likely fees based on our experience with similar matters.  Estimates are given as a guide only and not as a fixed quotation

For a variety of reasons, some instructions are not completed. If this occurs, we will charge you for the work undertaken and costs incurred up to the time of termination.

Unless other arrangements have been made our fees will be charged taking into account the factors appearing at Rule 9.1 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (“Rules of Conduct and Client Care”).  When and how fees are to be charged is set out below:

• time and labour expended;

• the skill, specialised knowledge, and responsibility required to perform the services properly;

• the importance of the matter to you and the results achieved;

• the urgency and circumstances in which the matter is undertaken and any time limitations imposed, including those imposed by you;

• the degree of risk assumed by us in undertaking the services, including the amount or value of the property involved;

• the complexity of the matter and the difficulty or novelty of the questions involved;

• the experience, reputation, and ability of the lawyer undertaking the work for you;

• the possibility that the acceptance of the particular retainer will preclude engagement of us by other clients;

• whether the fee is fixed or conditional (whether in litigation or otherwise);

• any quote or estimate given by us to you;

• any fee agreement (including a conditional fee agreement) entered into between you and us;

• the reasonable costs of running a practice:

• the fee customarily charged in the market and locality for similar legal services.

Where our fees are calculated on an hourly basis, the hourly rates are $440 plus GST per hour for a Director, $280 plus GST per hour for a Solicitor and $240 plus GST per hour for a Legal Executive. The differences in those rates reflect the experience and specialization of our professional staff. Please note time spent is recorded in 6 minute units, with time rounded up to the next unit of 6 minutes. Please also note that time spent on your matter is only one factor and our fee will also take into account the factors above.

We will make an effort to provide you with an estimate of costs for your matter. Nevertheless, due to the variable nature of legal services which depend on factors like timely cooperation from third parties and the resolution of issues with or without the need for additional time and attendances. Our estimates are based on our professional judgement of similar straight forward cases. Any estimate given serves as a guide only rather than a fixed quotation. Please note all estimates are exclusive of GST.

We will do our best to notify you if it seem that we might exceed the estimated fee. However, unforeseen complications can arise suddenly during or at the end of a matter making it impossible to provide advance notice.

Disbursements

In providing services we may need to incur costs on your behalf while carrying out your instructions. Some services we charge for may be outsourced to third parties (i.e. title searches, valuations or identity verification). These will be included in our invoice to you when the expense is incurred.  In some situations we may require an advance payment for the disbursements or expenses which we will be incurring on your behalf.

Office expenses

Office expenses will be charged as follows:

• File opening fee and storage charge $25.00.

• An office service charge in respect of photocopying, phone, and office expenses will be included on invoices.

GST (if any)

Is payable by you on our fees and charges.

Invoices

We will send interim invoices to you, usually monthly and on completion of the matter, or termination of our engagement.  We may also send you an invoice when we incur a significant expense.

Payment

Invoices are payable within 7 days of the date of the invoice, unless alternative arrangements have been made with us.  We may require interest to be paid on any amount which is more than 7 days overdue.  Interest will be calculated at the rate of 14% per annum.  We reserve the right to pass on to you all collection charges incurred on overdue accounts.  We may deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice.

Security

We may ask you to pre-pay amounts to us, or to provide security for our fees and expenses.  You authorise us:

• to debit against amounts pre-paid by you; and

• to deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice.

Third Parties

Even if you expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses or you have requested that our invoice be directed to a third party for payment, you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.

Confidentiality

We will hold in confidence all information concerning you and your affairs that we acquire during the course of acting for you.  We will not disclose any of this information to any other person except:

• to the extent necessary or desirable to enable us to carry out your instructions; or

• to the extent required by law or by the Rules of Conduct and Client Care.

Confidential information concerning you will as far as practicable be made available only to those in our firm who are providing legal services for you.

We will, of course, not disclose to you confidential information which we have in relation to any other client.

Electronic Communications

Unless otherwise agreed with you, we may communicate with you and others at times by electronic means. These communications can be subject to interference or interception or contain viruses or other defects (“corruption”). We do not accept responsibility and will not be liable for any damage or loss caused in connection with the corruption of an electronic communication.

If you have any doubts about the authenticity of any communication or document purportedly sent by us, please contact us immediately.

Information Technology

Most of our communication are via email or other electronic means. We do not guarantee the security of those communications and we are not liable for any loss suffered as a result of any breach of severity or other default in our electronic services. We will discuss with you the use of encryption or Dropbox (see below) for sensitive material.

If required, we use the cloud sharing service of Dropbox, which is a secure and encrypted service to securely share large files which cannot be shared via email. If we are using Dropbox as part of our services, please refer to Dropbox’s Policy and advise us if you do not wish to use this service.

Termination

You may terminate our retainer at any time.

We may terminate the retainer in any of the circumstances set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care.  Examples include your failing to provide us with instructions in a sufficient timely manner or your unwillingness, inability or failure to pay our fee on an agreed basis or except in litigation matters you adopting against our advice a course of action which we believe is highly imprudent and may be inconsistent with our fundamental obligations as lawyers.  If we terminate the retainer we will give you reasonable notice so you can arrange alternative representation and we shall give you reasonable assistance to find another lawyer.

If our retainer is terminated you must pay us all fees due up to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that date.

If you wish to uplift your files or other documents at any time, we may make copies of them at your cost and require you to pay any outstanding invoices before they are uplifted.

Retention of files and documents

You agree that we can retain all files, deeds, titles and documents relating to your matters or those of a related entity until all fees due to us have been paid by you.

We may store your files, documents and personal information in any format we choose at our offices or at premises outside our offices, including data storage facilities or online storage located within or outside New Zealand, which may be operated by independent service contractors.  We do not accept responsibility and will not be liable for any damage or loss caused by third parties.

We reserve the right to charge a fee and any associated disbursements for archive/storage (including electronic)/retrieval/time and attendance in the case of upliftment of a file.

We retain the files/documents we establish, or you leave with us on a matter, for at least six years after our engagement ends.  If we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format we may then destroy the hard copy files (other than any documents we hold in safe custody for you).  Other arrangements can be made if you prefer.

Conflicts of Interest

We have procedures in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest.  If a conflict of interest arises we will advise you of this and follow the requirements and procedures set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care.

Duty of Care

Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person.  Before any other person may rely on our advice, we must expressly agree to this.

We will carry out all work to our usual high professional standards but will not be liable for, and you will not claim against us for any direct or indirect financial loss or damage arising from any delays in title issuing, or delays in settlements or transactions or otherwise in the absence of our recklessness or unprofessional conduct.

Trust Account

We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients or from a third party on a client’s behalf.  If we are holding significant funds on your behalf we will normally lodge those funds on interest bearing deposit with a bank.  Our operating trust account is with ASB Bank Limited. 

Diarisation

We accept no responsibility or liability for diarisation and follow up of future dates and time frames of your affairs and transactions including but not limited to gifting, lease renewals and rent reviews, PPSR renewals.  We urge you to diarise such matters.

General

These Terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of them. We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in which case we will send you amended Terms.

Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum standards specified by the Law Society.  We will provide you with particulars of the minimum standards upon request.

Client Care and Service

The Law Society client care and service information is set out below.  Whatever legal services we provide we 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 how 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.

The obligations lawyers owe to clients are described in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care.  Those obligations are subject to other overriding duties, including duties to the courts and to the justice system.  If you have any questions, please visit www.lawsociety.org.nz or call 0800 261 801.

Lawyers’ Fidelity Fund

The Law Society maintains the Lawyers' Fidelity Fund for the purpose of providing clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arising from theft by lawyers.  The maximum amount payable by the Fidelity Fund by way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000.  Except in certain circumstances specified in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, the Fidelity Fund does not cover a client for any loss relating to money that a lawyer is instructed to invest on behalf of the client.

Complaints

We maintain a procedure for handling any complaints by clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly. If you have a complaint about our services or charges, you may refer your complaint to the person in our firm who has overall responsibility for your work. If you do not wish to refer your complaint to that person, or you are not satisfied with that person’s response to your complaint, you may refer your complaint to any other Director of Dev Law. 

The Law Society operates the Lawyers Complaints Service and you are able to make a complaint to that service.  To do so refer to complaints@lawsociety.org.nz for advice about making a complaint.

Limitations on extent of our obligations or liability

Any limitations on the extent of our obligations to you or any limitation or exclusion are set out in our letter of engagement.

Person responsible for fees

Please note that if we are acting for a trust or company, you are personally responsible for payment of our costs and disbursements if for some reason the trust or company is unable to do so.