Terms of Engagement

We act only for the client named in our letter of engagement. If you instruct us on behalf of a trust or company, we will treat you as authorised to do so. You and the trustees or director(s), as applicable, personally guarantee payment of our fees.

We owe our duty of care to you alone and not to any other person, unless we agree otherwise in writing or the law requires otherwise.

Our obligations to you are set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers and are summarised in clause 2. Those obligations sit alongside our other professional duties, including our duties to the courts and the justice system.

Whatever work we undertake for you, we will:

Your matter may be handled, or parts of it delegated, by someone other than the person you first dealt with. Whoever is responsible for your matter will comply with the obligations above.

Please provide us with your full name, postal address, phone number and, where possible, an email address.

We may occasionally send you information that we think may interest you. Please let us know if you would prefer not to receive it.

We use generative AI tools in some parts of our practice. Any use of generative AI is subject to human supervision and safeguards designed to protect your confidentiality.

Our separate Generative AI Policy provides further information. We are also happy to explain how generative AI has been used in relation to your matter.

Some work is charged at a fixed fee, which will be set out in our letter of engagement.

Unless we have agreed on a fixed fee or another basis for charging, our work is charged at the hourly rate(s) set out in our letter of engagement, plus GST. Time is recorded in six-minute units and rounded up to the next unit.

In setting our fees, we take into account the factors set out in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008. These include the time and labour involved; the skill, specialised knowledge and responsibility required; the importance of the matter to you and the result achieved; urgency and any time limits, including those imposed by you; the degree of risk we assume; the complexity and novelty of the matter; our experience, reputation and ability; whether accepting your instructions prevents us from acting for another client; whether the fee is fixed or conditional; any quote or estimate we have given you; any fee agreement between us; the reasonable costs of running our practice; and the fee normally charged for similar work.

We may ask you to pay fees, expenses or disbursements in advance, or to provide other security for payment.

In addition to our fees, we may charge you for office expenses, such as stationery, telephone and travel costs, and for third-party disbursements we incur on your behalf, such as search, registration, court filing and courier fees.

For conveyancing matters, we generally invoice on completion. For other ongoing matters, we generally invoice monthly.

Our invoices are payable within seven days of the invoice date. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, payment must be made in full without deduction or set-off.

We accept payment by direct credit, EFTPOS or credit card.

If an invoice is not paid by its due date, we may charge interest on the overdue amount at 18% per annum (including GST), calculated monthly. We may also stop work on your matter until your account is brought up to date.

If you expect someone else to reimburse you for our fees, you remain responsible for paying us, even if our invoice is addressed to that person.

If we need to take recovery action against you, you will be responsible for our actual recovery costs, including debt collection costs and legal fees on a solicitor-client basis.

If you are unable to pay an invoice, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can discuss a payment arrangement.

You authorise us to apply any amounts you have prepaid towards our invoices and, once invoiced, to deduct our fees and expenses from money we hold for you in our trust account.

If you ask us to pay money to you, you must provide us with a hard copy of the bank account details for the account into which you want payment made. If you do not provide us with a hard copy of those bank account details, we will not be liable for any payment made to bank account details provided to us electronically.

We hold client money in our trust account. If we hold money for you for a period of time, we may place it on an interest-bearing deposit. Any interest earned will be credited to you after deducting tax and an administration fee equal to 5% of the interest earned.

We are required by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 to verify your identity and, in some cases, the identity of other people connected with your matter.

We may ask you to provide a passport, driver licence or other government-issued photographic identification, proof of address and your IRD number. We may retain electronic copies of this information.

You authorise us to provide your information to third parties where necessary to complete these checks. If we cannot complete the required verification, we may be unable to act for you or may need to stop acting.

We must also comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). If you ask us to place money on interest-bearing deposit, we may need to establish your tax residency.

This information may be provided to our bank, which may in turn be required to report it to Inland Revenue. We will ask you to complete the required certification before placing funds on deposit.

We will keep your information confidential in accordance with our professional obligations, solicitor-client privilege and the Privacy Act 2020.

We collect and hold personal information so that we can carry out your instructions. We may also use your information to contact you about matters we think may interest you.

We hold your information securely and may disclose it to third parties where reasonably necessary to carry out your instructions, including to verify your identity, or to a credit reporting agency where appropriate.

If you are an individual, you have the right to access and request correction of the personal information we hold about you.

Documents we create for you belong to you, although we retain copyright in them. You may use and copy those documents for your own personal or commercial purposes, but you may not provide them to another person for that person’s use without our written consent.

Documents we create for our own purposes in providing our services belong to us.

If you owe us money, we may retain your files and documents rather than releasing them to you, to the extent permitted by law.

Unless you tell us otherwise, we may destroy your files and documents six years after your matter ends, or earlier if we have converted them to electronic form. This does not apply to documents we hold for you in safe custody.

We may return documents to you instead of retaining them. If you uplift your file, we may make a copy before releasing it and charge you the reasonable cost of doing so.

We take care not to act where there is a conflict of interest.

If a conflict arises, we will tell the people affected and recommend that they obtain independent legal advice. If necessary, we may stop acting for one or more parties.

To the extent permitted by law, our total liability to you, whether arising in contract, tort, equity or otherwise, including the liability of our directors, employees, agents and contractors, arising from or connected with our work for you or our engagement (including a series of related matters), is limited to the amount recovered from our professional indemnity insurer in respect of the claim.

If, for any reason, our professional indemnity insurance does not respond to the claim, our liability is limited to three times the fees we charged for the matter giving rise to the claim, subject to a maximum liability of $25,000.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, no claim relating to our services may be brought against us more than 24 months after the date of the act or omission giving rise to the claim, regardless of when you discover, or ought reasonably to have discovered, the loss.

We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum standards prescribed by the New Zealand Law Society.

The legal profession operates the Lawyers’ Fidelity Fund through the New Zealand Law Society. The Fund may compensate clients who suffer loss through a lawyer’s theft or misappropriation of money, up to $100,000 per claimant.

Except in limited circumstances, the Fund does not cover money that a lawyer has invested on a client’s behalf.

Our advice does not include or amount to investment advice. If you require investment advice, you should obtain it from an independent financial service provider.

You may end our engagement at any time.

We may end our engagement in the circumstances permitted by the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. These include, for example, where you do not pay our fees, do not provide us with instructions, or where we can no longer ethically continue to act for you.

When our engagement ends, you must pay all fees and expenses owing up to that date. To the extent permitted by law, we may retain your file until those amounts are paid.

If you have a concern or complaint about our services or your relationship with us, please tell us as soon as possible. We will try in good faith to resolve the issue fairly and will provide you with a written response.

You may raise a complaint with the person responsible for your matter, or with Ben Lupton or Julia Ingham.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may contact the New Zealand Law Society on 0800 261 801, which can connect you with the appropriate Lawyers Complaints Service office.

You must not use our name, directly or indirectly, in connection with any matter without our prior written consent. This includes use in offer documents, promotional material or public statements.

These Terms of Engagement, together with our letter of engagement, form the entire agreement between us concerning our engagement and replace any earlier discussions or agreements relating to it.

If any provision of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply.

We may update these terms from time to time. We will notify you of any update, and the updated terms will apply to future work.

Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law. The New Zealand courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction.