Terms and Conditions

We at Martelli McKegg Wells & Cormack appreciate and thank you for your instructions to act on your behalf.  We look forward to being of service and to working with you.

These Terms apply in respect of all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent that we otherwise agree with you in writing.  We will take your continued instructions as your acceptance of these Terms.

Services

• The particular legal services we will provide for you are outlined in our engagement letter.
• We are committed to delivering a service that is consistent and prompt and which includes:
  • Having Partners available to you. 
  • Responding quickly.
  • Helping you achieve your objectives. 
  • Understanding your business or affairs.
  • Communicating well. 
  • Having excellent legal skills.
  • Giving pragmatic commercial advice. 
• You can help us by:
  • Giving clear instructions. 
  • Providing information to us quickly.
  • Discussing any time constraints. 
  • Asking if you are uncertain of anything.
  • Telling us if we are not meeting your expectations. 
• We will:
  • Confirm your initial instructions in a letter of engagement.
  • Tell you the name and status of the person or persons who will be carrying out the work.
  • Provide you with an Information for Clients form detailing your rights. 

Financial Matters

Fees:

• The fees that we will charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at are set out in our letter of engagement.  Our fees are calculated by reference to guidelines laid down by the New Zealand Law Society.  We are entitled to take account of such matters as:
  • The time spent.
  • The skill, knowledge and responsibility required.
  • The value of the property involved.
  • The complexity, novelty, importance and urgency of the matter.
  • The reasonable costs of running a law practice.
  • The result.

The relative importance of these factors will vary according to the particular circumstances.

• If our engagement letter includes an estimate of our fees, we will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it appears likely that our fees are going to exceed that estimate.  Unless specifically agreed by us in writing any estimate of our fees and expenses does not amount to a quote and our fees and expenses may exceed that estimate. 
• If our letter of engagement specifies a fixed fee we will charge this for the agreed scope of our services.  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 fees.
• Where our fees are calculated on an hourly basis only, the hourly rates will be set out in our engagement letter.  The differences in those rates reflect the experience and specialisation of our professional staff.  Time spent is recorded in six minute units with time rounded up to the next unit of six minutes.  

Disbursements and expenses

• In providing our services to you we may incur disbursements on your behalf such as land registration fees, valuation fees, court filing fees or other expenses payable to third parties.  We will generally ask you to make advance payments to us to cover these disbursements and expenses.  These payments will be detailed in our invoice to you. 

Services of Other Consultants

• Where it is necessary for us to engage the services of other consultants on your behalf to provide specialist advice or services, including advocacy services, we will discuss the terms of any consultant's engagement with you.  In general we will require payment of any consultant's fees prior to our instructing them.

GST (if any)

• Is payable by you on our fees and expenses.

Invoices

• For ongoing matters we will send interim invoices to you (usually monthly) and a final invoice on completion of the matter or on termination of our engagement.  We may also send you an invoice when we incur any significant third party expenses on your behalf.  Where a transaction will be completed within a short time we will send you an account prior to or on completion of that transaction.

Payment

• Other than for property related transactions where payment is generally required on settlement, we require payment of all accounts within 14 days of the date of our invoice.  We may require interest to be paid on any amount that is more than seven days overdue.  Interest will be calculated at 15% per annum.  Other action to recover unpaid fees may also be taken and the cost of such recovery may be added to the amount due by you.  We may deduct any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice from any funds held in our trust account on your behalf.

Security

• We may ask you to pay an amount into our trust account or to provide other security for our fees and other expenses.  By accepting these Terms you authorise us to draw on that money to pay our fees and other expenses as they become due.  These will be included in our invoice to you.

Third Parties

• It is possible that a court or tribunal may make an order that you pay another party's costs and expenses.  Payment of those costs is additional.  It does not alter your liability to pay any costs and expenses payable to us.  If your costs are due to be reimbursed by a third party (e.g. the costs of preparing a lease) you will remain responsible for payment to us if that third party fails to pay those costs.

Trust Account

• We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from or on behalf of clients (except monies received for payment of our invoices).  If we are holding significant funds on your behalf we will normally lodge those funds on interest bearing deposit with a bank.  In that case we will charge an administration fee of 5% of the interest derived.  You will need to supply us with your IRD number so we can ensure that resident withholding tax is deducted at the correct rate. 

Your Satisfaction

Your satisfaction is very important to us.  We have a procedure for dealing with any matters of concern.  Further detail is contained in our Information for Clients form. 

Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us upon giving us reasonable notice in writing.  We may terminate our retainer in certain circumstances including where you cannot or will not provide instructions to us or where you do not pay our fees and expenses when due.  In either case you must pay our fees and expenses up to the date of termination. 

Retention of Files and Documents

Any original documents that we are holding on your behalf will be filed in our secure deeds room but we will forward your completed file to a reputable secure document storage company who will hold it (or an electronic copy of it) for seven years following which it will be destroyed.  You can arrange to collect your file from us upon completion of any matter but in all cases we are entitled to retain possession of your files and deeds while there is money owing to us for our fees and expenses.

Accepting these Terms

These Terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement whether or not we send you another copy of them.  We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time and the most current Terms will be available on our website.  If you do not notify us to the contrary, you will be deemed to have retained us on the basis of such Terms except to the extent that we agree otherwise with you in writing.

Meritas - Our International Links

Martelli McKegg Wells & Cormack is a member of Meritas, a network of nearly 200 independent commercial law firms, located in major cities throughout the world.  While Meritas members are not engaged in the joint practice of law and do not share fees among themselves, membership in Meritas gives us, and our clients, important access to competent, legal resources in other jurisdictions and specialty areas of practice so that our clients' needs for legal services can be handled efficiently virtually anywhere.  While we will only work alongside and utilise the services of another Meritas firm in this matter with your express knowledge and consent, we want you to be aware of Meritas and its possible benefits to you.  Further information about Meritas can be obtained at the organisation's web site: www.meritas.org.