Terms of business

The purpose of this document is to confirm the arrangements between us. Although your continuing instruc-tions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms of Business, we ask that you sign, date and return one copy for our file.

Table of contents

• Business hours
• Our responsibilities
• Your responsibilities
• Service levels and frequency of communication
• Limit of liability
• Regulated services
• Non-regulated services
• Data protection
• Storage and retrieval of files
• Outsourcing
• External auditing
• Terminating your instructions
• Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
• Confidentiality
• Receiving and paying funds
• Complaints
• Our bill
• Payment of interest
• Investment advice services
• Insurance mediation activity
• Equality and diversity
• Applicable law
• Future instructions

Business hours

We are normally open between 9.00 am and 5.30 pm from Monday to Friday  We may be able to arrange appointments outside of these hours, in cases of emergency.  We are closed on all bank holidays

Our responsibilities

We will:

• treat you fairly and with respect
• communicate with you in plain language
• review your matter regularly
• advise you of any changes in the law that affect your matter
• advise you of any reasonably foreseeable circumstances and risks that could affect the out-come of your matter

Your responsibilities

You will:

• provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions
• provide all documentation and information that we reasonably request in a timely manner
• safeguard any documents that may be required for your matter, including documents that you may have to disclose to another party

Service levels and frequency of communication

We will update you by telephone or in writing with progress on your matter regularly.

We will explain to you by telephone or in writing the legal work required as your matter progresses.

We will update you on the likely timescales for each stage of this matter and any important changes in those estimates. Whenever there is a material change in circumstances associated with your matter, we will update you on whether the likely outcomes still justify the likely costs and risks.

We will update you on the cost of your matter at the intervals set out in our letter confirming your instructions. If appropriate, we will continue to review whether there are alternative methods by which your matter can be funded.

Limit of liability

We have professional indemnity insurance giving cover for claims against the firm.  Details of this insurance, including contact details of our insurer and the territorial coverage of the policy, can be inspected at our office or made available on request.they are also available at our webpage

Our maximum aggregate liability to you in this matter will be £2 million including interest and costs unless we expressly state a different figure in our letter confirming your instructions. If you wish to discuss a variation of this limit, please contact the person dealing with your matter. Agreeing a higher limit on our liability may result in us seeking an increase in our charges for handling your matter.

We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profit or opportunity.

We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

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

Regulated services

Alberto Perez Cedilo Spanish Lawyers and Solicitors is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Ipsley Court, Berrington Close, Redditch, B98 0TD (the SRA).

This means that we are governed by a Code of Conduct and other professional rules, which you can access on the SRA's website www.sra.org.uk or by calling 0870 606 2555.

Data protection

We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related pur-poses including:

• updating and enhancing client records
• analysis to help us manage our practice
• statutory returns
• legal and regulatory compliance

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. Under data protection legislation you have a right of access to the personal data that we hold about you.

We may from time to time send you information that we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please notify our office, preferably in writing.

Storage and retrieval of files

After completing the work, we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still mon-ey owed to us for fees and expenses.

We will keep our file of your papers for up to 6 years, except those papers that you ask to be returned to you. We keep files on the understanding that we can destroy them 6  years after the date of the final bill. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody.

If we take papers or documents out of storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for the retrieval.  However we may charge you for:

• time spent producing stored papers that are requested
• reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers

Outsourcing

Sometimes we ask other companies or people to do translations on our files to ensure this is done in the most cost effective manner. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced provid-ers. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.

External auditing

External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice [eg our regulator, the SRA]. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.

Terminating your instructions

You may end your instructions at any time, by giving us notice in writing. We can keep all your papers and documents while our charges or disbursements are outstanding.

We can only decide to stop acting for you with good reason and we must give you reasonable notice.

If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you are liable to pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated on the basis set out in our letter confirming your instructions.

Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing

We are required by law to get satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and sometimes people re-lated to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wanting to launder money.

To comply with the law, we need to get evidence of your identity as soon as possible. This is explained in our letter confirming your instructions.

We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be re-quired by statute to make a disclosure to the Serious Organised 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.

Confidentiality

The information and documentation you provide us is confidential and subject to legal professional privilege unless:

• stated otherwise in this document or our letter confirming your instructions, eg in relation to prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
• we advise you otherwise during the course of your matter

We cannot absolutely guarantee the security of information communicated by email or mobile phone. Unless we hear from you to the contrary, we will assume that you consent for us to use these methods of communication.

Receiving and paying funds

Our policy is only accept cash up to £500 If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may decide to charge you for any additional checks we decide are necessary to prove the source of the funds. Where we have to pay money to you, it will be paid by cheque or bank transfer. It will not be paid in cash or to a third party.

Complaints

We are committed to providing high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you receive or about the bill, please contact Alberto Perez Cedillo, the senior partner by post or by email.

We have a written procedure that sets out how we handle complaints. It is available upon request

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may com-plain to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman's contact details are:

PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

0300 555 0333--from 8.30am to 5.30pm

enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within a year of the act or omission about which you are complaining (or you becoming aware of it).

The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints by consumers and very small businesses. This means that some clients may not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, eg charities or clubs with an an-nual income of more than £1 million, trustees of trusts with asset value of more than £1 million and most businesses (unless they are defined as micro-enterprises). This does not prevent you from making a com-plaint directly to us about the service you have received or about the bill.

Our bill

You are liable to pay legal costs as set out in our letter confirming your instructions.  We will also usually discuss this at our initial meeting with you.

Bills should be paid within 14days.  We may charge interest on overdue bills at 8%. Per annum

We may cease acting for you if an interim bill remains unpaid after 30 days or if our reasonable request of a payment on account of costs is not met.

You have the right to challenge or complain about our bill. Please see the Complaints section above for details of how to complain about our bill. The procedure for challenging a bill varies depending on whether it relates to a matter involving court proceedings.  When we send you a bill, we will explain the relevant proce-dure for challenging it.

We can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses.

Payment of interest

As a general rule, where we reasonably expect to hold monies on behalf of a client or third party for at least the period stated below, we will pay it into a separate designated client account with BBVA.

This is not a rigid rule and we will give our clients the opportunity to request that we make different arrange-ments. This will be explained in our client care letter or  Terms of Business

Investment advice services

We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority. If, while we are acting for you, you need advice on investments, we may refer you to someone who is authorised to provide the necessary advice.

However, we may provide certain limited investment advice services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you. This is because we are members of the Law Society of England and Wales, which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Om-budsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any investment advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.

Insurance mediation activity

We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority. However, we are included on the register main-tained by the Financial Services Authority so that we may carry on insurance mediation 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 authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Services Authority website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.

The Law Society of England and Wales is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any in-surance advice you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.

Equality and diversity

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and em-ployees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our equality and diversity policy.

Applicable law

Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Business will be determined by the law of England and Wales, and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh courts.

Future instructions

Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms of Business will apply to all future instructions you give us on this or any other matter.

Alberto Perez Cedillo Spanish Lawyers and Solicitors  is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regula-tion Authority (SRA).  Our SRA registration number is 427421.  Any reference to the firm means Alberto Pe-rez Cedillo sole practitioner

VAT number 868138782