Terms and Conditions

Legal Recoveries & Collections Limited is a limited company registered in England and Wales. Our registered company number is 04233843 and our registered office is at Grains Building High Cross Street, Hockley, Nottingham, NG1 3AX. We are licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The content and design of the Web site pages are subject to copyright owned by LRC or used under licence from third party copyright owners. We permit you to make copies of our site as necessary incidental acts to your viewing of it and you are welcome to print pages for your personal use but no part of this Web site may be reproduced or transmitted for any other purpose.

You may not link to this site, nor frame it, without our express written permission.

From time to time this Web site may feature content related to the law and legal developments. Such content is intended to provide general guidance only and should not be regarded as a substitute for taking legal advice in relation to your particular circumstances. Content related to the law and legal developments featured on this Web site is based upon the laws of England and Wales unless otherwise expressly stated.

From time to time this Web site may also include links to other Web sites. These links are provided in order to enhance the interest of other featured content and are not intended to signify that LRC endorses or otherwise has any responsibility for the content of the linked Web site.

This web site is made available for public viewing on the basis that LRC exclude to the extent lawfully permitted all liability whatsoever for any loss or damage howsoever arising out of use of this web site or reliance upon the content of this web site.

It is important that you are kept fully informed of progress in carrying out your instructions. In addition to any specific method of communication and reporting agreed with you, we will provide a direct Client Services Contact, who will conduct reviews as well as providing advice with regard to strategies and procedures.

When you instruct us in connection with a matter, any advice that we provide will be specific to that matter and for your benefit only. Our advice may not be used or relied upon for any other purpose or by any other person without our prior agreement. We shall not be responsible for any failure to advise or comment on any matter which falls outside the scope of your instructions.

Should court action be commenced, we will conduct all litigation on your behalf, unless you instruct us otherwise prior to the issue of legal proceedings. Some specific points that you should be aware of when involved in litigation are set out in section 15 of these Terms.

Fees and charges (“Charges”) are calculated on the basis set out in the fee schedule or as otherwise agreed with you. Unless agreed otherwise, we will normally charge fixed fees or commission charges for uncontested debt recovery.

If a matter becomes contested or if we identify complications when considering the scope of your initial instructions then our Charges are normally calculated by reference to the hourly rates set out in our fee scale in operation at the time.

If any debt has already been paid or credited, in whole or in part, following any work undertaken by us then the amount of the payment or credit is deemed to be commissionable. The appropriate Charge will be raised by us in line with the fee scale in operation at the time.

Hourly rates are reviewed periodically and will be increased automatically at that time. If our hourly rates are varied we will notify you of the changes. Any estimates we provide should not be regarded as a fixed fee, unless otherwise agreed in writing.

Expenses and disbursements may be paid on your behalf and you agree to reimburse us. These may include court and commissioner’s fees, bank charges incurred as a consequence of cheques received in payment of any outstanding account, being dishonoured or countermanded, and fees of barristers and other experts. We will consult you before incurring any significant expenses or disbursements.

If we are dealing with a contested matter, we reserve the right to charge expenses for travel, accommodation and meals whilst travelling away from the office and also for photocopying and document production costs incurred on your behalf.

Additional costs incurred on your behalf will be clearly identified in our invoice.

Any fee estimates or quotations are net of VAT. VAT will be charged at the appropriate rate on our Charges, expenses and disbursements which are subject to VAT.

We will provide invoices at regular intervals or at appropriate stages during a matter. We reserve the right to request payments in advance on account of fees, expenses and disbursements.

Payment must be made immediately upon receipt of our invoice, unless agreed otherwise. If we do not receive payment after 30 days, we will exercise our statutory right to claim interest and compensation for debt recovery costs.

If our invoice remains unpaid, we reserve the right to suspend work and to retain documents and papers belonging to you and retain any money we are holding for you in a client account, until all sums outstanding to us are paid.

Each person or company for whom we are acting in relation to any particular matter, will each be separately responsible for payment of the full amount of our Charges, expenses and disbursements.

You agree to reimburse us for any charges incurred by us for payments made to and from overseas bank accounts and foreign currency payments and/or conversions in connection with your matter.

Money held by us for you, whether on account or otherwise, will be placed in a client account with a bank or building society. You will be entitled to the interest which would have been earned, had the money been held in a separate designated deposit account unless the amount accrued is less than £20. Money held by us (and accrued interest) may be taken by us in payment or part payment of our invoices.

When your customer provides a payment in relation to a debt owed to you, we will refund any overpayment direct to your customer. In these circumstances, we reserve the right to charge you an administration charge as stipulated from time to time. If we have already transferred your customer’s funds to you, it is your responsibility to repay the overpayment to your customer and you agree to notify us once the payment has been made.

You can ask us to stop work on any matter for you at any time by writing to us. If you choose to terminate this agreement, fees, charges, expenses and disbursement properly incurred up to the date of termination will be payable by you. On termination, if you require us to transfer files to you, we may make an administration charge in line with the enclosed fee schedule and we will only release the files, once all monies owed to us by you are paid in full.

We are entitled to stop acting for you at any time but we will give you advance notice where possible. We would only stop working for you, if we had good reasons to do so (including failure to settle invoices in full or on time).

You will have the full right and licence to use copies of materials we create for you for the purpose that they were prepared. However, all copyright and other intellectual property rights in all documents, written advice or other materials provided by us to you remains with us. If you wish to use the materials for any other purpose than for which they were prepared, this will require our permission.

We carry professional indemnity insurance for the services we provide. Currently, insurance is in place which covers up to £3 million per claim. Contact details of our insurers are available on request. We exclude any and all liability for damages, claims, actions, proceedings, demands, awards, compensation, costs, expenses and all other losses and/or liabilities which exceed the amount covered by our professional indemnity insurance from time to time. This limit applies to the level of claim and not the value of the transaction or work to which a claim may relate. This limit and level of insurance is reviewed annually.

We exclude, to the extent permitted by law, any and all liability for any damages, claims, actions, proceedings, awards, compensation, costs, expenses and all other losses and/or liabilities to third parties who are not a client of ours in relation to the relevant matter.

No use may be made of any advice we give to you where such use would expose you or us to any sanction, prohibition or restriction under United Nations resolutions or the trade or economic sanctions, laws or regulations of the European Union, United Kingdom or United States of America. We exclude any and all liability for damages, claims, actions, proceedings, demands, awards, compensation, costs, expenses and all other losses and/or liabilities arising out of or in connection with any such use of any advice we give to you.

You agree not to bring any claim in respect of loss and/or damage suffered by you arising out of and/or in connection with the services provided by us (including but not limited to negligence or non-performance of the services by us) against any individual shareholder, officer, employee, agent and/or consultant of Legal Recoveries & Collections Ltd. This restriction will not operate to limit or exclude the liability of Legal Recoveries & Collections Ltd for the acts and/or omissions of any individual shareholder, officer, employee, agent and/or consultant of Legal Recoveries & Collections Ltd. It is agreed that any individual shareholder, officer, employee, agent and/or consultant of Legal Recoveries & Collections Ltd will have the right to enforce this clause under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

You agree to indemnify us and keep us indemnified against any damages, claims, actions, proceedings, awards, compensation, costs and expenses and other losses and/or liabilities which arise from a third party obtaining from you any aspect of the advice provided by us, unless we have agreed in writing to accept liability to such third party or the third party was a client of ours in relation to that advice. All third party rights are excluded and no third party may enforce the contract between you and us unless we expressly agree in writing to the contrary.

If you wish to extend the limit of our liability for any particular matter then we may agree a revised limit in writing with you. Our fees may be adjusted to reflect this additional risk.

Each of the limitations and/or exclusions contained in these Terms is deemed to be repeated and apply as a separate provision for each of liability in contract (including material/ fundamental breach), liability in tort (including negligence), liability for breach of statutory duty and liability for breach of common law except our cap on liability which applies once to cover all of these bases of liability.

The above limitations do not limit and/or exclude our liability for death or personal injury due to our negligence, liability for our fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation and/or any other liability of ours which it is not permitted to limit and/or exclude as a matter of applicable law.

We are required by United Kingdom legislation and the law of the European Union to report to the relevant government agencies and authorities any evidence or suspicion of money laundering, the use of the proceeds of crime or terrorist financing. We are prohibited from notifying you of the fact that a report has been made. This legislation also requires us to carry out client due diligence by obtaining certain information which verifies your identity and any beneficial owners.

We may employ the services of electronic verification providers for these purposes. If we cannot carry out the client due diligence verification measures required of us by law we are required to terminate our contract and relationship with you. If we have to terminate the contract with you for these reasons, you will be liable to pay us for all expenses and work carried out up to the time we terminate the agreement.

There are a number of specific points that you should be aware of when involved in litigation, arbitration or Alternative Dispute Resolution procedures.

If a claim becomes defended or the circumstances of the case require the provision of any detailed legal specialist advice and should you wish to pursue your claim you will have the option to deal with the matter in-house, refer the claim to your own preferred legal firm specialising in defended/contentious matters or instruct LRC to refer the file to our preferred Solicitor partners.

You are responsible for paying our fees and expenses even if the court, arbitrator or other official eventually orders another party to pay or contribute towards your legal costs. You should be aware that sometimes there are difficulties or delays in assessing and recovering these costs.

A court or arbitrator has wide-ranging discretion to determine which party(ies) should bear the cost of the proceedings and in which proportions. This is usually exercised to order an unsuccessful litigant to pay a proportion of the successful litigant’s costs. The proportion can depend on several factors.

Only in exceptional cases will the court or arbitrator make an award which gives the successful litigant a full indemnity for the costs of the proceedings. You should therefore assume that, even if your action is successful, there will be additional costs payable to us over and above anything recovered from the opponent. In cases where another party is legally aided, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to recover any costs.

You should be aware that certain expenses, for example, photocopying, document production, printing and faxes, cannot be recovered from the other side, even if you win.

If you lose an action, you will be liable to pay not only our fees and disbursements but the court or arbitrator is also likely to exercise its discretion to order you to pay a proportion of your opponent’s costs.

If you withdraw an action, the other party is entitled to have an order made by the court or arbitrator for you to pay the costs.

We may discuss with you, in appropriate cases, alternative methods of resolving particular issues, such as mediation, conciliation, adjudication or expert determination. We will discuss this in more detail with you where appropriate. These Alternative Dispute Resolution procedures may have different cost implications.

It is necessary that communications between clients and lawyers, where clients are seeking the benefit of a lawyer’s skill, are not open to scrutiny by others. For this reason, the principle of legal professional privilege protects certain communications from being disclosed to other parties. Losing legal professional privilege could weaken your position in relation to a subsequent dispute or hearing. Legal professional privilege is divided into two categories – “litigation privilege” and “legal advice privilege”.

Litigation privilege protects all documentary communications between a client and a lawyer (or between one of them and a third party), if they were created for the dominant purpose of getting/giving legal advice in relation to pending or contemplated litigation or the collecting of evidence for such litigation.

Legal advice privilege protects all documentary communications between a client and a lawyer, if they were created for the purpose of getting/giving legal advice. For documents to attract legal advice privilege there has to be legal skill being applied in a relevant legal context. If a lawyer is asked to advise on general matters of business, that advice may lack the relevant legal context. You may therefore not be able to stop documents containing that advice/information from being disclosed to another party in litigation. This could weaken your case. Only documents between lawyers and certain individual representatives of the client will attract legal advice privilege. Documents between lawyers and other individual representatives of the client would not attract legal advice privilege.

It is important that documents are protected by legal advice privilege. Only documents that are sent to or from individuals who a court will construe as being “the client” will attract legal advice privilege. If you prepare internal documents recording our legal advice and/or circulate internally any legal advice we may give, it may no longer attract legal advice privilege. If you are unsure whether any material will attract legal advice privilege, please seek our advice before it is prepared or circulated. Practically speaking it is important that you:

1. remember that only communications in relation to which we are wearing our “lawyer’s hat” will attract legal advice privilege;
2. nominate a sub-group of employees who will be “the client”; and
3. delegate preparation of all sensitive internal documentation to the nominated “client”.

Solely for the purposes of legal advice privilege we regard our “client” as being the individuals you nominate to be able to give us instructions and any other representative to whom you delegate providing us with information and/or instructions or with whom you ask us to correspond. However, this may not bind a court or other equivalent body who may regard our client as being a smaller group of individuals.

All information regarding your business and affairs will be regarded as and kept confidential at all times unless you instruct us to disclose the information, we are compelled to disclose it by law or the information is already in the public domain.

A actual or potential conflict between your interests and the interests of another client may arise during the course of a matter. If this situation arises, we will discuss the position with you and determine the appropriate course of action. Please be aware that in order to protect your interests, our professional rules may require us to stop acting for you on that matter.

Files and other papers relating to your matters will be stored for such time as we judge reasonable or for such time as we are required by law to do so, after which we will securely dispose of them. Files or papers may be stored electronically.

If you have any comments or concerns about the services that we provide, or, you wish to discuss the way in which your instructions are being handled, please contact our Operations Director in the first instance on RachelRowbotham@legalrecoveries.com or contact the Compliance Director, Claire Stocks on clairestocks@legalrecoveries.com.

We may correspond with you via email at times, unless you specifically request that we must not do so. If certain communications should not be sent over the Internet please let us know.

Viruses or other harmful devices may be spread via internet services. We take reasonable precautions to prevent these problems occurring but we recognise that such precautions cannot guarantee that emails will be virus free. We do not accept any liability for any virus or external compromise of security and/or confidentiality in relation to communications sent to you by email.

We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, as our designated professional body. We may provide additional terms governing the provision of certain services if necessary. We are governed by the SRA Code of Conduct which can be accessed on their website, along with details about the Solicitors Regulation Authority: www.sra.org.uk.

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We can only handle accounts/cases that are regulated under the Consumer Credit Act where there is a possibility that if the debt is not repaid as a result of pre legal activity, there is a real prospect that litigation will be undertaken.

The information which you have and/or will provide to us will be used by us in fulfilling our obligations to you in relation to any matter on which we are instructed by you. We will not pass your information to any third party other than for this purpose. We may therefore pass this information to third parties for use by them to perform services and/or supply products which are reasonably necessary for us to perform our services for you. You give your consent to such information being passed to such third parties.

We would also like to use your information to let you know about services offered by us which we think will be of interest to you, to inform you of new developments and to conduct satisfaction surveys. You will only receive this type of information by email if you have either confirmed to us that you are happy to receive this type of information in this way and/or you have not informed us that you do not wish to receive it. If at any time in the future you wish to stop receiving any marketing information from us then please contact RemoveMe@legalrecoveries.com

We reserve the right to assign our rights and/or obligations under our agreement with you to any business which is a successor to our current business.

Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms apply to any future instructions you give to us. Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms and any accompanying engagement letter. Even so, we ask you to sign, date and return to us the engagement letter accompanies these Terms.