Service Terms & Complaints Policy

Hours of Business

Our office is open from 10.30 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. each weekday. Consultation is strictly through prior appointments. The staff of this office may be available outside normal office hours or during weekends with the prior arrangement if it is difficult for you to visit during office hours.

Regulatory Information

Joseph Raphael Solicitors is authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), No. 512623. We work within the SRA Code of Conduct, details of which can be found at http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page

We have the benefit of professional indemnity insurance with AXIS Specialty Europe SE with worldwide territorial coverage. Details are available on request if required.

Raising Concerns & Complaints

Joseph Raphael Solicitors is committed to high-quality legal advice and client care. We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service provided by Joseph Raphael solicitors, then you should inform us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. In the first instance, it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues promptly, openly, fairly and effectively through our complaints handling procedure. Before a complaint is made, please first raise your concerns with Mr Joby J Kuttikkat on 01484 530003 or 07792546031 and email, joby@jrsolicitors.co.uk who will review the matter. If you are still not happy with the response and steps taken to resolve the issues we would advise you to initiate our formal complaints handling procedures.

Our Complaints handling procedure
To raise a formal complaint please contact the sole principal Mr Joby Joseph Kuttikkat by email at joby@jrsolicitors.co.uk or through the post to Joseph Raphael Solicitors, 6 Middlemost Close, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD2 2PU. You must provide as much information as possible regarding your complaint for Mr Kuttikkat to deal with it promptly. Further to the receipt of your formal complaint you can expect the following action from us:

We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 working days of receipt of your complaint

You will receive a full written response from us within 14 days.

If we need more time to investigate the issues we will inform you about the time scale involved and will update you once this is complete

We will provide you with our written proposals to resolve the issues and will take appropriate actions to rectify the issues identified

If you are not satisfied with our actions or proposals to resolve the issues you can appeal this decision within 7 days.

If the appeal does not resolve the issues to your satisfaction you will have the option to approach the Legal Ombudsman. Please follow the information given below.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint?

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case. Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with our firm first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

• Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint
and
• No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or

• No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them directly.
Contact details
Visit: Legal Ombudsman
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00.
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

Should you be unable to make a complaint through the Legal Ombudsman, then you should be aware that you can only obtain redress by using our Complaints Handling Procedure or by mediation or arbitration, or by taking action through the Courts.

Issues regarding our Bill

If you have any queries in respect of any element of a bill, you should still promptly pay all other elements of the bill. If you wish to make a complaint about one of our bills, you may do so by using our complaints procedure referred to above. You also have the right to object to a bill by making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and/or applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If you apply to the Court for an assessment of the bill you may lose your right to complain about the bill to the Legal Ombudsman.

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour?

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority


Costs and Billing Information

The hourly rate for the services of Mr Joby J Kuttikkat is £200/ Hour. Where we have offered you a fixed fee service then this is payable in full immediately after confirming the instructions. If fixed fee is not agreed or fixed fee is agreed but the client has not complied with the terms of the fixed fee then we are entitled to charge you in line with our hourly rates for the time spent dealing with your matter. The basic principle is that you are responsible for all your legal costs and disbursements.
If you are involved in Court Proceedings and are successful it is likely that the Court will make an order requiring the losing party to pay your legal fees. The initial liability for the fees remains with you but you would be entitled to recover them from a losing third party. The amount of those fees would either be agreed with the losing party or approved by the Court. It is sometimes the case that the Court only requires the opponent to pay part of your fees in which case you would have to pay the difference. We are not VAT registered and we will not charge VAT on our professional fees unless expressly included in our fixed fees agreed with you.

Client's Authority

By instructing us you authorize us to use our discretion in conducting your matter and incur expenses on your behalf. This is the method preferred by the majority of clients. It allows payments to be made as required over the course of your matter.

You also authorize us to deduct all monies due to us from monies held on account, to pay all outstanding bills and also retain monies to cover existing and projected work.

Monies in Client Account

The money you pay us is held in a special bank account called a Client Account, which only holds client's money. We are not permitted to use one client's money for other payments even whilst waiting for a cheque to clear even if the Bank of England issues that cheque. Our fixed fee is due immediately after taking the instructions. Any money held in our client account for the purposes of any disbursements as agreed will be transferred to our office account once the disbursement has been paid.

Cash Payments
Please note it is this firm's policy to only accept cash up to £500.00
If clients circumvent this policy by depositing cash direct with our bank we reserve the right to charge for any additional checks we deem necessary regarding the source of the funds.

Equality & Diversity

Joseph Raphael Solicitors is committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of its dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our equality and diversity policy.

Data Protection

JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS is law firm and provides legal advice and assistance to its clients. It is authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The personal data that JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS processes to provide these services relates to its clients and other individuals as necessary, including staff and suppliers' staff.
This policy sets out JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS's commitment to ensuring that any personal data, including special category personal data, which JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS processes, is carried out in compliance with data protection law. JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS processes the personal data of staff from all over the world, including the personal data of a large number of non-EU citizens, but is committed to ensuring that all the personal data that it processes is done in accordance with data protection law. JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS ensures that good data protection practise is embedded in the culture of our staff and our organization.

JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS's other data protection policies and procedures :
• record of processing activities
• privacy notices (website, clients, employees)
• personal data breach reporting process and a breach register
• data retention policy
• data subject rights procedure
• data protection impact assessment process
• IT security policies

'Data Protection Law' includes the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679; the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and all relevant EU and UK data protection legislation.

Scope

This policy applies to all personal data processed by JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS and is part of JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS's approach to compliance with data protection law. All JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS staff are expected to comply with this policy and failure to comply may lead to disciplinary action for misconduct, including dismissal.

We use information about you primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes, including, updating client records, legal and regulatory compliance, statutory returns and administration, analysis and marketing to help us manage our practice

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Law 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 or access to auditors and consultants. You have a right of access under GDPR 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 us in writing.
Responsibility for the processing of personal data

The sole Principal of JOSEPH RAPHAEL SOLICITORS takes ultimate responsibility for data protection.
If you have any concerns or wish to exercise any of your rights under the GDPR, then you can contact the data protection lead in the following ways:
Name : Mr Joby Joseph Kuttikkat
Address: Joseph Raphael Solicitors, 6 Middlemost Close, Birkby, Huddersfield, HD2 2PU
Email: joby@jrsolicitors.co.uk
Telephone: 01484530003, 07792546031

If you require, a copy of our detailed Data Protection Policy can be provided upon request.

Outsourcing

Sometimes we may ask other companies or people to do typing, administration or other work on our files to ensure that your work is carried out promptly. We will always seek a confidentiality agreement with these outsourced providers. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please notify us in writing as soon as possible.

Financial Services

We are not authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can 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 regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website atwww.fca.org.uk/register.
Termination
We confirm that we will allow you to withdraw from the instructions at any time except that the contract between us would remain fully in force to the extent that we may recover from you any amounts that we have paid out to third parties in connection with the transaction in addition to our reasonable costs subject to a minimum of £100.00. Please be informed that we may be able to charge interest on all, or part of, the bill if it is unpaid.

We may stop acting for you and will only do so with good reason, which may be due to a conflict of interest with any third party. If we decide to stop acting for you, you will be liable to pay any disbursements in addition to our reasonable costs subject to a minimum of £100.00 for which you will be responsible which has been incurred by us at that time. When the matter is closed, a Statement will be provided, itemizing each and every movement of money.

While terminating a matter instructed on a fixed fee basis where we have already commenced work, we will be entitled to the fixed fee agreed in full or the costs calculated based on time spent on the matter up to the time of termination whichever is lower.

Documents and their Storage

It is important that you keep all documents which relate in any way to this matter. For present purposes, the term 'documents' includes anything recorded, whether in permanent, semi-permanent or electronic form, such as letters, contracts, receipts, diaries, computer records, photographs, videos, and anything else of that kind.
Whilst I do not need to see all of those documents at this stage, such documents may have to be produced in court proceedings, and duty is owed to the Court to ensure the documents are preserved in case they should be required. Similarly, any documents you subsequently obtain, which relate to the matter should also be kept. Also, if you have any other property connected with the matter in any way, you should preserve that property until the case is concluded.

After completing the work, the firm is entitled to keep all papers and documents while there is money owing for charges and expenses. The firm keeps papers (except for any papers you ask to be returned to you) for no more than six years and keeps the file on the understanding that the firm has authority to destroy it after six years from the date of the final bill, although documents you ask to deposit in safe custody will not, of course, be destroyed.
If it becomes necessary to retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act on your behalf, the firm would not normally charge for such retrieval. However, the firm will make a charge, based on time spent producing stored papers or documents to you or to another person at your request, in other circumstances. The firm may also charge for reading correspondence or other work necessary to comply with instructions given by you or on your behalf in this connection.

Money Laundering

1. Proof of Identity
The law now requires solicitors, as well as banks, building societies and others, to obtain satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wishing to launder money. In order to comply with the law on money laundering, we need to obtain evidence of your identity as soon as practicable. We should be grateful, therefore, if you would provide us with documents to verify your identity and address, as set out below:

List A - 1 document

• A valid full passport; or
  
• A valid UK Photo-card driving licence; or
  
• A valid HM Forces identity card with your photograph on it; or
  

List B - 2 documents

• A receipted utility bill less than three months old; or
  
• A council tax bill less than three months old; or
  
• A bank statement less than three months old;
  
• A council rent book showing the rent paid for the last three months;
  
• A mortgage statement from another lender for the mortgage accounting year just ended.
  

We will keep on file photocopies of the above documentation provided.

Please note that we reserve the right to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal who you may represent.

2. Confidentiality

Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of clients confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: recent legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. 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 money laundering disclosure. If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make a money laundering disclosure, we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or of the reasons for it because the law prohibits 'tipping-off'.

Law

We will advise you on English law (including European where this applies). We will not provide advice on the laws of any other jurisdiction. English law applies to these terms, and all disputes will be deal with by the English courts or otherwise by agreement.

You may terminate your instructions to us at any time, but we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while money is owing to us from you.

We will keep you informed about the position, and if you have any other queries, please do not hesitate to ask. This is an important document, which we suggest you keep in a safe place for future reference.

Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these terms and conditions of business and those contained in our accompanying client care letter.