General

These Standard Terms of Engagement (Terms) apply to any current engagement of Toan Law Limited trading as Toan Law and also 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 the New Zealand courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

​

Services

These services we are to provide for you (Services) are outlined in our letter of engagement along with any further instructions that you provide to us in writing or that we record in writing.

​

Communication

We will obtain from you contact details including your name, email address, postal address, and telephone number. We may provide documents and other communications to you by email (or other electronic means). You will advise us if any of your contact details change.

​

We will report to you periodically on the progress of any engagement and will inform you of any material or unexpected delays, significant changes or complications in the work being undertaken. You may request a progress report at any time.

You agree that we may provide you from time to time with other information that may be relevant to you, such as newsletters and information bulletins. You may request that this not be sent to you at any time.

​

Fees

We charge for our services in accordance with the guidelines established by the New Zealand Law Society and may take the form of fees charged on a time in attendance basis. Hourly rates are available on request and may be adjusted (upwards or downwards) to ensure the fee is fair and reasonable to take into account matters such as the complexity, urgency, value, and importance of the Services, and the specialist expertise required to complete the Services in accordance with the relevant fee factors set out in Rule 9 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (Rules).

​

In providing the Services, we may incur disbursements and payments to third parties on your behalf. You authorise us to incur these disbursements (which may include such items as search fees, court filing fees, registration fees, and travel and courier charges) which are reasonably necessary to provide the Services. You also authorise us to make payments to third parties on your behalf which are reasonably required to undertake the Services. These will be included in our invoice to you, shown as “disbursements” when the expenses are incurred or in advance when we know we will be incurring them on your behalf.

​

Our Services will usually attract Goods and Services Tax (GST). If this is the case, GST is payable by you on our fees and charges.

We will send interim invoices, usually monthly, and on completion of the matter or termination of our engagement. We may send you invoices more frequently when we incur a significant expense or undertake a significant amount of work over a shorter period of time.

​

Invoices are payable within 10 working days of the date of the invoice, unless alternative arrangements are made us in advance. If you have difficulty paying any of our invoices, please contact us promptly so that we may discuss payment arrangements. If your account is overdue we may require interest to be paid on any amount that is more than 10 working days overdue, calculated at the rate of 2.5% per annum, stop work on any matters in respect of which we are providing Services to you, require an additional payment of fees in advance or other security before recommencing work, and recover from you in full any costs we incur (including on a solicitor-client basis) in seeking to recover the amounts from you, including our own fees and the fees of any collection agency.

​

We may ask you to pre-pay amounts to us or to provide security for our fees and expenses by paying funds on account of fees into another solicitor’s trust account. We may to this, on reasonable notice, at any time.

You may request an estimate of our fee for undertaking the Services at any time. If possible, we will provide you with an estimate, which may be a range between a minimum and a maximum amount or for a particular task or step. An estimate is not a quote. Any significant assumptions included in the estimate will be stated and you must tell us of those assumptions are wrong or change. We will inform you if we are likely to exceed the estimate by any substantial amount. Unless specified, an estimate excludes GST, disbursements, and expenses.

​

Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request or with your approval be directed to a third party, you remain responsible for payment to us in accordance with these Terms if the third party fails to pay us.

​

Confidentiality and Personal Information

We will hold 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, as expressly or impliedly agreed by you, as necessary to protect our interests in respect of any complaint or dispute, or to the extent required or permitted by law.

​

In our dealing with you we will collect and hold personal information about you. We will use that information to carry out the Services and to make contact with you about issues we believe may be of interest to you. Provision of personal information is voluntary but if you do not provide full information this may impact on our availability to provide the Services.

You authorise us to disclose, in the normal course of performing the Services, such personal information to third parties for the purpose of providing the Services and any other purposes set out in these Terms, including for the purpose of credit management or collection processes.

​

The information we collect and hold about you will be kept at our offices and/or at secure file storage sites including electronic file storage sites elsewhere. If you are an individual, you have the right to access and correct this information. If you require access, please contact our Privacy Officer on vicki@toanlaw.com.

​

Documents, Records, and Information

We will keep a record of all important documents which we receive or create on your behalf on the following basis: we may keep a record electronically and destroy originals (except where the existence of an original is legally important such as in the case of wills and deeds), at any time, we may dispose of documents which are duplicates, or which are trivial (such as emails that do not contain substantive information), or documents that belong to us, and we are not obliged to retain documents or copies where you have requested that we provide them to you or another person and we have done so, although we are entitled to retain copies for our own records if we wish to do so.

​

We will provide to you on request copies or originals (at our option) of all documents to which you are entitled under the Privacy Act or any other law. We may charge you our reasonable costs for doing this.

Where we hold documents that belong to a third party you will need to provide us with that party’s written authority to uplift or obtain a copy of that document.

​

Unless you instruct us in writing otherwise, you authorise and consent to us (without further reference to you) destroying or deleting all files and documents in respect of the Services seven years after our engagement ends (other than any documents that we hold in safe custody for you or are otherwise obliged by law to retain for longer). We may retain documents for longer at our discretion. We may, at our option, return documents in hard copy or electronic form to you rather than retain them. If we choose to do this, we will do so at our expense.

​

We own copyright in all documents or work we create in the course of performing the Services but grant you a non-exclusive licence to use and copy the documents as you see fit for your personal and commercial use. However, you must not permit a third party to copy, adapt, or use the documents without our written permission.

​

Compliance

We are obliged to comply with all laws applicable to us in all jurisdictions, including but not limited to anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism laws and laws relating to tax and client reporting and withholdings.

​

Conflicts of Interest

We are obliged to protect and promote your interests to the exclusion of the interests of third parties and ourselves as set out in the Rules. This may result in a situation arising where we have a conflict of interest. We have procedures in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest or potential 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. This may mean we cannot act for you further in a particular matter and we may terminate our engagement.

​

Duty of Care

Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person.  We owe no liability to any other person, including for example any directors, shareholders, associated companies, employees or family members unless we expressly agree in writing. We do not accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever to any third parties who may be affected by our performance of the Services or who may rely on any advice we give, except as expressly agreed by us in writing.

​

Our advice is not to be referred to in connection with any prospectus, financial statement, or public document without our written consent.

​

Our advice is opinion only, based on the facts known to us and on our professional judgement, and is subject to any changes in the law after the date on which the advice is given. We are not liable for errors in, or omissions from, any information provided by third parties.

Our advice relates only to each particular matter in respect of which you engage us. Once that matter is at an end, we will not owe you any duty or liability in respect of any related or other matters unless you specifically engage us in respect of those related or other matters.

​

Unless otherwise agreed, we may communicate with you and with others by electronic means. We cannot guarantee that these communications will not be lost or affected for some reason beyond our reasonable control, and we will not be liable for any damage or loss caused thereby.

​

Limitations on our Obligations or Liability

To the extent allowed by law, our aggregate liability to you (whether in contract, tort, equity or otherwise) in connection with our Services is limited to the amount available to be payable under the Professional Indemnity Insurance held by the firm.

​

Termination

You may terminate our engagement at any time. We may terminate our engagement in any of the circumstances set out in the Rules including the existing of a conflict of interest, non-payment of fees, and failure to provide instructions. If our engagement is terminated you must pay us all fees, disbursements and expenses incurred to the date of termination.

​

Feedback and Complaints

Client satisfaction is one of our primary objectives and feedback from clients is helpful to us.  If you would like to comment on any aspect of the service provided by us, including how we can improve our service, please contact Vicki Toan. If you have any concerns or complaints about our services, please raise them as soon as possible with Vicki Toan. We will enquire into your complaint and endeavour in good faith to resolve the matter with you in a way that is fair to all concerned. If you are not satisfied with the way we have dealt with your complaint the New Zealand Law Society has a complaints service to which you may refer the issue. You can call the 0800 number for guidance, lodge a concern or make a formal complaint. Matters may be directed to: Lawyers Complaints Service, PO Box 5041, Wellington 6140; telephone: 0800 261 801; email: complaints@lawsociety.org.nz.