1. Definitions
“The Act” means the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990;
“You”, “Client”, “Your” - means you, the person(s) entering into this agreement who has instructed the representative to provide advocacy services, litigation services (within section 119 of the Act and is liable to make payment for those services);
“Representative” “Us” “We” “Our” - means HD Law Ltd, the person/business providing the advocacy services, litigation services to which the damages-based agreement relates;
“Costs” means the total of the representative’s time reasonably spent, in respect of the claim or proceedings, multiplied by the reasonable hourly rate of remuneration of the representative;
“Expenses” means disbursements incurred by the representative;
“Payment” means that part of the sum recovered in respect of the claim of compensation/damages awarded that the client agrees to pay the representative, and excludes expenses but includes, in respect of any claim or proceedings to which these regulations apply, any disbursements incurred by the representative in respect of counsel’s fees;
“Court” The County Court
“Lender” - The company that has advanced you the credit to purchase the insurance policy in question
“Broker” – The company that spoke with you / sold you the insurance
“The FOS” – The Financial Ombudsman Service
“The FSCS” – The Financial Services Compensation Scheme
“Success” The claim is successful where the Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS and/or any other party, whether or not contacted by us, grants a final award or makes an offer either in full or part settlement of your claim relating to the commissions, policy or policies which form the subject matter of your instructions to us.
“Compensation” Any offer or payment. Such an offer and/or award can include an amount of money and/or a reduction and/or set-off an outstanding balance(s) owed to your Lender and/or Broker. This list is not exhaustive and relates to any financial benefit accruing to you, or accruing to any accounts you hold, as a result of your complaint;
2.
What work is covered
Your instructions (and/or) the scope of our services extend to:-
STAGE 1
- Writing a letter of complaint on your behalf, setting out the basis of your financial mis-selling/unfair relationship case including establishing the alleged breaches and quantification of losses;
-
Liaising with your Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS on your behalf as is necessary in order to progress your case;
-
Making a Data Protection Act 2018 and/or other such type requests for disclosure of personal information on your behalf;
-
Providing you with all necessary advice regarding your complaint.
STAGE 2
-
All the services in “Stage 1” as above; plus
-
Any advice or representation in respect of litigation in the civil courts;
(Except - Any advice, representation or work relating any application made by your opponent or any application required to be made by you, under Parts 23 & 24 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998)
-
There will be a time limit (limitation period) in which you can bring any civil claim;
3.
Funding
This agreement is a Damages Based Agreement constituted in accordance with the Damages-Based Agreements Regulation 2013. The funding of your complaint/claim is related to the two stages of work referred to in section 2 above.
You hereby confirm that should your claim be successful and you are awarded compensation, you agree to pay us:
STAGE 1
a)
The sum of 20% of any compensation awarded; plus
b)
Value added Tax (“VAT”) on the % deduction above;
STAGE 2
a)
The sum of 50% of any compensation awarded, inclusive of Value Added Tax (“VAT”); plus
b)
Travel Expenses (only where a court hearing is necessary) calculated at £0.45 per mile or where applicable the cost of a train ticket;
c)
Any costs (including fixed costs under Part 45 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998) paid or payable by the Lender/Broker;
d)
Any sum in respect of disbursements incurred by us in respect of court fees or counsel’s fees, that have been paid or are payable by the Lender/Broker.
If you are unsuccessful with your case, you will not have to pay any costs to this firm unless this agreement has ended pursuant to section 8, as a result of your breach of this agreement upon which you will be liable to pay for:-
- Any expenses, costs and disbursements incurred on your behalf as set out in this section; and
- The work which we have done. This will be calculated by reference to the time actually spent on your claim at guideline hourly rates;
- For all such work, reasonable charges will apply to cover the work completed to date;
4.
Reasons for setting the amount payable by you
In contemplation of the level of amount payable by you, we have had regard to a number of factors. The reason why we have set the amount of the payment at the level agreed (as stated above) as follows:-
- The likelihood that litigation will be a requirement;
- The level of expertise and experience needed to advance and navigate litigation in this area (insurance mis-selling);
- The likelihood that your opponent will be legally represented by solicitor(s) or an internal legal department(s) of the Lender/Broker;
- The complexity of the legal issues that an insurance mis-selling/nondisclosure of commissions claim encompasses;
- The requirement for legal documents and court documents to be drafted by us on your behalf;
- The likelihood of the requirement of counsel experienced in these types of matter at hearings;
- The usual level and extent of disclosure of documentation provided by your Lender and/or Broker;
5.
Responsibility for work
The person(s) responsible for dealing with your case will vary, however your case will always be supervised be Kevin Durkin who is a solicitor and Adam Hizzett, both of HD Law Limited. We will try to avoid changing the people who handle your work but if this cannot be avoided, we will tell you promptly of any change and why it may be necessary.
6.
Client information
i. Your objective is to obtain a fair award with the least hassle in the shortest time possible;
ii. The issues involved in your particular case include: obtaining a settlement in respect of establishing the upholding of a complaint and obtaining compensation against your Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS and/or obtaining a compensation award in respect of your financial mis-selling case, agreeing quantum with your Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS and/or their agents and following all lines of enquiry or case related to your Customer Agreement;
iii. The next steps to be taken will be completing this ‘No Win No Fee’ agreement and preparing the letter of complaint for submission to your opponent(s);
iv. The options available to you are that we will attempt first to have all documents disclosed and then negotiate settlement with your opponent; if that is unsuccessful we will consider progressing your claim through the FOS or the FSCS;
v. Our level of service: we will aim to reply to letters and other communications from you and others promptly, but it will not always be practical to do so the same day. We will not report to you for the sake of doing so, but normally only when there has been some development;
vi. Timescale a case of this sort if settled may be concluded within 12-18 months and occasionally much sooner, it may take around 12 months to resolve the dispute finally.
7.
Our & Your responsibilities
Our responsibilities
We must:
- explain to you the risks and benefits of taking legal action in the form of making a complaint to your Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS;
- give you our best advice about whether to accept any offer of settlement;
- give you the best information possible about the likely costs of your case;
- provide you with a good standard of service.
Your responsibilities
You must:
- give us instructions that allow us to do our work properly;
- not ask us to work in an improper or unreasonable way;
- not deliberately mislead us;
- co-operate with us;
- attend as necessary on any expert and at any court hearing
- preserve documents relevant to your case, even where harmful to it.
8.
Potential breaches of this agreement
i. If you fail to cooperate with us in the conduct of your case or provide us with misleading information.
ii. If you cancel this contract either expressly, or by ceasing to provide us with instructions. For the purposes of this clause you shall have ceased providing us with instructions if you fail to respond, within 28 days, to any correspondence from us, whether written, by telephone or any other means, which requests a response. Please note: you have a legal right under The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (‘the CCR’) to cancel this contract within 14 days of entering into it, by informing us of the decision to cancel (a form is enclosed with this document for this purpose, although the form is not necessary so long as you make a clear statement to us setting out the decision to cancel). This clause will not apply if you choose to exercise your right to cancel under the CCR.
iii. If you instruct other solicitors or another claims management company (or other such similar organisation), before our work on the case is finished.
iv. If you die before your case for compensation/damages is concluded.
v. If you reject our opinion about making a settlement with your Lender, Broker, FOS or FSCS.
9.
Termination
This agreement will come to an end and we shall be under no obligation to undertake any further work on your behalf in the following circumstances:
- The claim is successful and you have paid to us the fees and expenses referred to at section 3 (Stage 1(a) to (b)) or Stage 2 (a) to (e)) of this agreement.
- The claim is unsuccessful.
- Both parties agree to end the agreement by mutual consent.
- Whether your claim is successful or not, you commit a breach of one or more of the potential breaches of this agreement set out at section 8.(i-v) and we exercise our right to treat this agreement as at an end.
- We consider that there are insufficient prospects of success or the risks in continuing with your claim further are too great.
10. What risk of legal costs do you face?
If you have read this Agreement carefully, you will appreciate that, except in the circumstances set out at section 3 (Stage 1(a) to (b)) or Stage 2 (a) to (e)) of this agreement, you will not end up with any responsibility for fees and expenses to this firm.
11. Identity disclosure and confidentiality requirements
We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent. We may arrange to carry out an electronic verification of your identity if we consider that a saving of time and cost will be achieved by doing so. The cost of any such search will be charged to you. If the amount is in excess of £10 including VAT, we will seek your prior agreement.
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: Legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the solicitor may be required to make a disclosure. If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure, we may not be able to inform you that it has been made, or of the reasons for it, because the law prohibits ‘tipping-off’. Where the law permits us, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we may need to take.
Our firm may be subject to audit or quality checks by external firms or organisations. We may also outsource work. This might be for example typing or photocopying or costings, or research and preparation to assist with your matter. Information from your file may therefore be made available in such circumstances. We will always aim to obtain a confidentiality agreement with the third party.
We may have to disclose documents in order to progress the case and that subject to this you will not reveal any confidential information relevant to your case.
12. Client care
Our aim is to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service at all times. We hope that you will be pleased with the work we do for you and the result that we achieve. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concern in the first place with the assistant dealing with your matter on a day to day basis. If you still have queries or concerns, please contact Kevin Durkin & Adam Hizzett at this address.
The firm has a Complaints Procedure document, which is enclosed herewith. Your right to complain might relate to the way in which your matter is being handled, or the fee we are seeking from you. However, we would point out that if all or part of such a fee remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest - any such entitlement would be set out in our Terms and Conditions of Business and/or on the reverse side of the bill.
If you remain dissatisfied at the end of our cases process, you would then be at liberty to contact the Legal Ombudsman, whose address is PO Box 15870, Birmingham, B30 9EB. Their telephone number is 0300 555 0333. Their e-mail address is
[email protected]. Their website is at That organisation is the statutory body to whom you may refer your case, once we have concluded out professional obligation to try to resolve it. The time limits for you to make a case to the Legal Ombudsman are one year from your becoming aware of your right to complain and twelve months from our final response to the case.
We hold professional indemnity insurance and, should you so request, we would provide you with the name and contact details of our professional indemnity insurer, and details of the territorial coverage of the insurance.
The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, but responsibility for regulation and cases handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory body of the Law Society, and the Legal Cases Service is the independent cases handling body of the Law Society.
13. Cancellation
You may cancel the contract within 14 days of entering into the contract. We must stress that any cancellation will need to be made within 14 days of entering into the contract to avoid paying any fees or costs to HD Law Limited. A form for you to cancel the contract has been provided to you (please note you may cancel the contract by notifying us by any other means).
14. Acceptance of Terms
We look forward to acting for you on your case. We are unable to accept you formally as a client of the firm until you have signed and returned the copy of this letter to us in the enclosed self-addressed envelope.
