1. Services:

1.1 The services we are to provide for you are outlined in our Letter of Engagement.

2. Person(s) responsible for the work:

2.1 We will inform you in our Letter of Engagement who has overall responsibility for the services we provide to you. In order to provide services in an effective, efficient and timely manner, others may assist from time to time with the conduct of your matter.

3. Future Instructions:

3.1 Unless otherwise agreed in writing, these Terms will apply to all current and future instructions from you including matters we are currently handling.

4. Financial

4.1 Fees:

a) The fees we will charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at, are set out in our Letter of Engagement.

b) If the Letter of Engagement specifies a fixed fee, we will charge this for the agreed scope of our services. Work which falls outside that scope will be charged on an hourly rate basis unless otherwise agreed. Where our fees are calculated on an hourly basis, the hourly rates are set out in our Letter of Engagement. The differences in any rates between solicitors reflect their experience and specialisation. Time spent is recorded in six minute units, with time rounded up to the next unit of six minutes.

c) We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it becomes necessary for us to provide services outside the agreed scope and if requested, give you an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.

4.2 Estimates: If requested, written estimates of fees will be provided before work commences. Estimates are provided as a guideline only and are based on our professional judgement. Estimates are not maximum or fixed fee quotations.

4.3 Disbursements and Expenses

a) General office expenses include photocopying, facsimiles, telephone communications, deliveries, courier costs within New Zealand, (or Australia as the case may be) routine online searches and inquiries and similar. These are charged at a standard rate equal to 2.5% of our fees.

b) In providing legal services we may also incur disbursements or have to make payments to third parties on your behalf, such as fees payable to Immigration New Zealand, Australian Department of Home Affairs, Translation Services, Tribunals, Inland Revenue, Australian Tax Office or other organisations and includes court filing fees and travel costs such as air fares. These will be included in our invoice to you when the expense is incurred.

c) We take no responsibility for changes to fees as set by tany other external agency in respect of their services.

4.4 Cancellation Fee: A cancellation fee is payable by the client where a commitment does not eventuate after we have done preparatory work for the client and have excluded the opportunity for other work because of the commitment and this includes, but is not limited to, air fares, travel time and meeting time set aside for the client which will be charged on an hourly rate for additional work as stated in the Engagement Letter.

4.5 GST: Please note Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be payable on our fees and charges where applicable. An estimate of our fee or quotes are given exclusive of GST.

4.6 Invoices: You will be invoiced regarding the services we are instructed to perform. We may also send you an invoice if we incur a significant disbursement or expense on your behalf. If the work is carried out in stages, or in cases where a significant amount of work is done, interim invoices may be issued.

4.7 Payment: Invoices are payable within seven (7) days of the date of the invoice unless alternative arrangements have been made with us. You agree that we email you all our invoices.

4.8 Default: Where accounts are not paid on time, we reserve the right to stop work on your affairs, and charge interest at 12% per annum on the unpaid balance and recovery costs, without prejudice to our rights to recover any unpaid amounts. You will be responsible for all costs incurred by us (including our legal fees at normal hourly rates) in recovering any such unpaid account.

4.9 Security: We may ask for a guarantee for payment of our fees. If this requirement is set out in our Letter of Engagement, we will not undertake substantial work until a copy of the letter signed by the guarantor(s) has been returned to us.

4.10 Your Original Documents: When work has been done by us but we have not been paid by you, then as a general rule we have the right to retain any original documents and correspondence whether in paper or electronic form in which information may be held on your file until all our outstanding fees, disbursements and other expenses have been paid in full. This shall be known as a lien. This will be vital in a situation where you decide for whatever reason to instruct another lawyer or an adviser. We will require that person to give an undertaking to pay all your outstanding fees and disbursements before your file or original documents is or are released to them.

4.11 Third Parties: 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 will nevertheless remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to make payment to us.

4.12 Legal Aid: For information on your financial eligibility for legal aid please visit www.lsa.govt.nz or 
https://info.australia.gov.au/information-and-services/public-safety-and-law/legal-aid. 
It is not our practice to work on legal aid matters.

4.13 Refunds: Where a Retainer is paid and you decide to cancel your agreement or work cannot be completed for good cause, you may be eligible for a refund. We will charge for the solicitor’s time spent on file based on the hourly rate for additional work as stated in the Engagement Letter.

4.14 Fee Disputes

a) Should you have a complaint in regards to your invoice we would expect this is raised within seven (7) days of the issue of the invoice. Your complaint must be in writing and must specify the grounds for the dispute in reasonable detail and setting out the amount you consider is due.

b) On the due date for the invoice you must pay us the amount you have stated you consider is due. If you do not follow the above steps you are deemed to have accepted the invoice is payable in full.

c) Any dispute will be dealt with as a complaint using the procedure described in clause 6 of our Information for Clients.

5. Confidentiality

5.1 We will hold in confidence all information concerning you or your affairs acquired during the course of acting for you. We will not disclose any of this information to any other person except:

a) to the extent necessary or desirable to enable us to carry out your instructions; or

b) to the extent required by law or by the Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers in New Zealand or by the Queensland Law Society under the Legal Professions Act 2007.

5.2 Confidential information concerning you will as far as practicable be made available only to those within our firm who are providing legal services for you.

5.3 We will of course, not disclose to you confidential information which we have in relation to any other client.

6. Privacy

6.1 In acting for you we may collect personal information about you. If we collect personal information about people who are employees, directors or principals of yours you will make sure these people are aware that our acting for you involves collection of personal information about them. If we do not collect this personal information, we may not be able to carry out your instructions.

6.2 Personal information will be used by us to provide legal services to you, to obtain credit or other references about you, to undertake credit management and to tell you about issues and developments that may be of interest to you. You authorise us to obtain from any person or release to any person any information for these purposes, and you authorise any person to release information to us that we require for these purposes.

6.3 If you are an individual, you have the right to have access to, and correction of, your personal information held by us.

7. Intellectual Property

7.1 All copyright and other intellectual property arising or created or provided by us in connection with our services (including all intellectual property rights in any document, advice or thing created by us in the course of providing the services to you) remains our property.

8. Termination

8.1 You may terminate our retainer at any time.

8.2 We may terminate our retainer in any of the circumstances set out in the Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers or under the Legal Professions Regulations 2017 (Queensland).

8.3 If our retainer is terminated you must pay us all fees due up to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that date.

9. Retention of files and documents

9.1 You authorise us (without further reference to you) to destroy all files and documents for this matter (other than any documents that we hold in safe custody for you) seven (7) years after our engagement ends, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format.

9.2 If at your request we destroy any files or documents in advance of our usual destruction date, we will not be liable to you and you will indemnify us for any liability to a third party in relation to the matter, files and documents.

9.3 If you uplift your files and other documents at any time we may make copies of them before they are uplifted. We may charge for our time, and for photocopying, at our usual rates relating to the review of the files, copying of them where applicable, and making them ready for your uplifting.

10. Conflicts of Interest

10.1 We have procedures in place to identify and respond to 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 Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers, or by the Legal Professions Act 2007 in Queensland.

11. Duty of Care

11.1 Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person. Before any other person may rely on our advice, we must expressly agree to this.

11.2 Unless required by law, you may not provide our advice to any third party or submit our advice to any governmental agency without our agreement.

12. Trust Account

12.1 In New Zealand, we do not maintain a trust account for funds which we receive from clients (that is monies received for payment of our invoices). However, in New Zealand we have an arrangement made with another associated law firm to receive and manage trust account fund on our behalf.

13. Limitations on Liability

13.1 We will not be liable, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, for:

a) Any loss of profit or revenue, exemplary damages or any indirect or consequential loss or damage howsoever described or claimed.

b) Any loss or damage to the extent it is attributable to your conduct or a failure by you to take reasonable care of your own interests.

13.2 Obligations

a) We are not responsible for any failure to advise on any matter that falls outside of the scope of our engagement and we have no responsibility to you to update any advice to take account of events or changes in the law that take place after the advice is issued.

b) Please note from time to time external agencies we deal with may undergo changes in law or policy. We are not liable for such changes or any effect they may have on our advice if those changes came into effect after we have given our advice.

13.3 Information You Provide

a) You warrant all information you provide us with is accurate and not misleading and you agree we may rely on that being so.

b) We take no responsibility for any loss caused by the provision of inaccurate or misleading information.

c) Furthermore we take no responsibility for any loss caused by a failure to disclose any information to us.

13.4 Public Records and Other External Information or Advice: In supplying our services we may rely on and/or provide you with advice or information we have obtained from third parties (e.g. experts, governmental authorities and public records or registers). We do not accept responsibility and will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by errors and omissions in that advice or information.

13.5 Electronic Communication: Unless otherwise agreed with you, we may communicate with you at times by electronic means. Although we will take reasonable precautions we cannot and do not warrant these communications will be complete, secure and free from viruses or other defects and will not be delayed or fail to be received.

13.6 Outcomes not guaranteed: We do not guarantee the outcome of your visa applications, appeals, tax disputes, tax financial relief requests or the outcome of any other matters that we deal with on your behalf as those matters are decided by the New Zeaand Inland Revenue, Austraian Tax Office, Australian Department of Home Affairs, Immigration New Zealand, the Tribunals or the Courts.

13.7 Time frames

a) We will not take responsibility for work done by any external agency or for their timeliness in respect of that work. We may agree to provide an estimate based on our previous experience but please note that this is an estimate only and we cannot be held responsible for their failure to complete their work within that time frame.

b) We will not be held responsible for any losses or costs incurred due to the decisions or processing times of external agency.

c) We will contact you within a reasonable time frame regarding any information concerning you received from any external agency.

14. Limitation Period

14.1 You may not bring any action against us, regardless of form, more than three (3) years after the cause of the action has arisen.

15. Foreign Law Matters

15.1 We are only qualified to advise on New Zealand and Australian laws. if we assist you in respect of matters governed laws of any other country, we do so on the basis that we do not accept any responsibility in relation to your legal position under that foreign law.

16. General

16.1 These Terms and any other agreement we have with you are governed by New Zealand law and are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand Courts.

16.2 We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in which case we will send you amended Terms.

16.3 If there is any conflict between these Terms and our Letter of Engagement, the Terms of our Letter of Engagement have precedence.​