Legal & regulatory

By accessing or using our website, you agree to be bound by the provisions set out below and to use this site for lawful purposes only and in a manner consistent with any and all applicable law and regulation in any country in which you access this site.

If you do not agree to be bound in this way, do not continue to access or use our website. We may modify these provisions at any time. Any such modifications are effective immediately from the time they are included on our website. You agree to review these provisions regularly to ensure you become aware of any modifications to them.

Security

The internet is not a secure medium and privacy cannot be assured. We cannot accept any responsibility for any harm or damage you may experience or incur by sending personal or confidential information to us over the internet or by email.

Content

We may remove any material from our website at any time. We are not able to continuously monitor the material relating to any notice board, forum and/or chat room but we may reactively moderate or post-moderate. If you think that any material on any notice board, forum and/or chat room is offensive, infringes your rights or is otherwise inappropriate please contact us immediately.

Contracts

Contracts may not generally be concluded on behalf of ourselves by email. Where any client engagement with you is entered into via email, you may be able to bring a complaint about our services via the European Online Dispute Resolution platform which can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr.

Encryption

Please note that any e-mail sent to or from ourselves and any attachments will not be encrypted unless a secure e-mail service is utilised for communications with you. They may therefore be liable to be compromised. This is an inherent risk in relation to email.  We do not, to the extent permitted by law, accept any liability (whether in contract, negligence or otherwise) for any external compromise of security and/or confidentiality in relation to transmissions sent by email.

Forums, notice boards and chat rooms

Any views expressed on any notice board, forum and/or chat room are not our views but the views of the contributor of that material.  Any notice boards and/or forums or other similar communication channels must not be used by you to upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate any material which is or may be libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, illegal, invasive of any privacy and/or publicity rights, infringing of any third party intellectual property rights, criminal, in violation of any law or which is otherwise objectionable.

Intellectual property

All website design, text, pictures, graphics and the selection and arrangement of them and all software compilations, coding, underlying source code, software and all other material on this website are copyright the relevant Austen Hays member unless otherwise acknowledged. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.  Any material you upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate via our website will be non-confidential and non-proprietary. We have the right to use, copy, upload, distribute, disclose, publish or otherwise disseminate any such material to any person for any purpose. We have the right to disclose your identity to a regulator and to any person who claims that any material you upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate via our website infringes their rights.  Infringement of our copyright in this website or the materials associated with this website may lead to criminal and/or civil sanctions in the UK, US and other countries.

Permission is granted to you to electronically copy and to print hard copy portions of this website for the sole purpose of using this website as a research and information resource provided you agree not to change and/or delete any content, web design and/or layout contained in that material and acknowledge us (and any identified contibutors) as authors of such material. Any other use of materials on this website including modification, distribution, or republication are strictly prohibited. If you believe that any content of our website in any way infringes intellectual property rights belonging to you or any third party, please contact us immediately.

Any rights not expressly granted by us are reserved.

Links

You may link to our website homepage from a website owned and controlled by you in a way that is lawful and does not damage (or risk damage to) our reputation or take unfair advantage of it. We may withdraw linking permission without notice.  You must not use any link to our homepage to suggest any association, approval or endorsement by us.   You must not frame our website on any website.  We do not accept any responsibility for the information practices of a website you are able to access through a link on our website. We make no representations about any other websites which you may access through links on our website.   The inclusion of a link to a third party website contained on our website does not mean that we endorse that third party website.

Liability

We shall have no liability to you for any loss or damage you may suffer if you enter into any contract as a result of viewing a third party website linked to our website.   Neither we nor any of our affiliates, directors, employees or other representatives will be liable for losses arising out of or in connection with the use of and/or inability to use this website.   We are only providing this website and its contents on an 'as is' basis.  To the maximum extent permitted by law, we make no (and expressly disclaim all) representations, terms, conditions or warranties of any kind with respect to this website or its contents including without limitation warranties of satisfactory quality and fitness for a particular purpose.  In addition, we do not represent or warrant that the information accessible from or via this website is accurate, complete or current.  Materials on our website are commentary, not advice. We will not be liable for any losses arising out of reliance placed on any such materials by you, or any person informed of its contents. If you would like bespoke advice in relation to any matter, please contact one of our team.

The limitations of liability in relation to this website apply to all damages of any kind, including (without limitation) compensatory, direct, indirect or consequential damages, loss of data, income or profit, loss of or damage to property and claims of third parties.

The limitations of liability in relation to this website do not limit our liability to the extent that it cannot be limited and/or excluded by applicable law.

Your use of our website is subject to English law. Any dispute and/or claim arising out of this website is subject to the non exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.
 

In the first instance, it may be helpful to contact the person dealing with your matter or your Relationship Manager to discuss your concerns. We will do our best to resolve the problem. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, or you do not have a Relationship Manager, then please send your complaint to complaints@austenhays.com or Austen Hays, 1 Paternoster Sq. London EC4M 7DX.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter confirming that we've received your complaint within three working days. We'll also send you a copy of this policy.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. 
3. We will write to you within a further 10 working days with a view to resolving your complaint. We may invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. Within five working days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what we discussed and any solutions we agreed with you.
4. You will then be asked to confirm whether there is anything else that needs to be considered or whether any additional clarification is required.
5. We will write to you within 10 working days of receiving any further information or any request for further clarification confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

Austen Hays and our regulators

Our legal regulators 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. You can find information on raising concerns about solicitors and law firms via the relevant regulator’s website.

Our legal regulators are the Solicitors Regulation Authority – www.sra.org.uk.

Austen Hays and the Legal Ombudsman 

If your complaint relates to advice under the laws of England and Wales provided by Austen Hays, and you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, on written receipt of our final position, you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers and will look at your complaint independently. Complaining to the Legal Ombudsman will not affect how we handle your matter. 

If you make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, save in exceptional circumstances and by prior agreement with us, we still require invoices we have submitted to be paid on the date payment falls due, and interest for late payment will continue to accrue.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. 

Please note that the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them:

• within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint; and
• within one year of the date of the act/ omission about which you are concerned; or
• within one year of you realising there was a concern.

If you would like more information, the Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:

• Telephone: 0300 555 0333 Minicom: 0300 555 1777 
• Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk 
• Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH.

Austen Hays Limited maintains cover that is compliant with the minimum terms and conditions required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales in accordance with the Solicitors' Indemnity Insurance Rules 2013. Minimum mandatory cover is provided by Qualifying insurer, Aviva Insurance Limited.

Under the regulations it is our responsibility to ensure that client money is kept safe and available for the purpose for which it is provided and is kept separate at all times from Austen Hays' own bank account.

Our interest policy seeks to provide a fair outcome for clients where funds are held by us on their behalf.

Client monies will normally be held in a general client bank account titled “Client Account” where the majority of client funds are held for different matters and clients. In doing this, funds are clearly identified as client monies.

Funds held in a general client account will be on an instant access basis to ensure funds are accessible at all times. It is unlikely clients will receive as much interest on this money as might be obtained had they held and invested the funds themselves.

A sum in lieu of interest will be payable on amounts held in general client bank accounts on the following basis:

• Interest will be calculated daily on the balance held for each individual matter, compounded on a monthly basis.
• Due to regulatory requirements and administration costs, we will not pay interest if the sum calculated is less than £100 in total for the full period for which we hold your money.
• We will retain interest paid to us by the bank on the aggregate of all client money held in our general client account.
• In calculating interest, we will apply a rate that we believe reflects the market rate of interest paid on an instant access current account offered by the high street banks over the period when interest would otherwise accrue.
• The sum in lieu of interest will be paid without any deduction of income tax as it is the recipient’s responsibility to declare the payment to HMRC for income purposes.

We will review the interest rates whenever the Bank of England changes its base rate.

If a client instructs us to place their funds in a separate designated client account rather than our general instant access client account, all interest earned on those funds while held in the separate designated client account will be paid to the client in full.

Please note:

If the bank in which Austen Hays holds funds should fail, we reserve the right to disclose to the FSCS the names and other details of clients whose money is held there in order for those clients to claim compensation up to the applicable limit, currently £85,000.