Client Care Information

CLIENT CARE INFORMATION

Applicable Law

Our engagement letter, the schedule of services and our standard terms and conditions of business are governed by, and should be construed in accordance with, the law and practice of England and Wales. Each party agrees that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning the engagement letter and any matter arising from it. Each party irrevocably waives any right to object to any action being brought in those courts, to claim that the action has been brought in an inappropriate forum, or to claim that those courts do not have jurisdiction.

Authorisation and Regulation

Eke Probate Services Limited is licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales ('ICAEW') to carry out the reserved legal activity of non-contentious probate in England and Wales. The estate administration work is carried out by the accountancy firm, Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants ('ACCA'). You can talk to us if you need more information about this.

Client Identification and Verification

As with other professional services firms, we are required to identify and verify our clients for the purposes of the UK anti-money laundering legislation. Save in exceptional circumstances we cannot start work until this requirement has been met. We may request from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases including ID verification software. Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited will undertake the identity and money laundering checks and share the information with Eke Probate Services Limited.

Client Money

If we hold money on your behalf, such money will be held in trust in a client bank account of Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited, which is segregated from the firm’s funds. The account will be operated and all funds dealt with in accordance with the ACCA rules.

Commissions and Other Benefits

In some circumstances we may receive commissions and/or other benefits for introductions to other professionals or in respect of transactions that we arrange for you. Where this happens we will notify you in writing of the amount and terms of payment and receipt of any such commissions or benefits. The same will apply where the payment is made to or the transactions are arranged by a person or business connected with ours. The fees you would otherwise pay will not be reduced by the amount of the commissions or benefits. If we reduce the fees that we would otherwise charge by the amount of commission retained, we will apply the HMRC concession, which allows VAT to be calculated on the net fee after deduction of the commission.

Complaints

We are committed to providing you with a high-quality service that is both efficient and effective. However, should there be any cause for complaint in relation to any aspect of our service, please bring this to the attention of Mr. Bernard Eke for resolution via email. If you are still not satisfied you can refer your complaint to our professional body, the ACCA, in respect of the work undertaken by Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited, or to the Legal Ombudsman or to the ICAEW, in respect of the work undertaken by Eke Probate Services Limited. The more detailed Complaints Handling Procedure is available here.

Confidentiality

Communication between us is confidential. We shall take all reasonable steps not to disclose your information except where we are required to and as set out in our privacy notice. Unless we are authorised by you to disclose information on your behalf, this undertaking will apply during and after the engagement.

We may, on occasions, subcontract work on your affairs to other tax or accounting professionals. The subcontractors will be bound by our client confidentiality and security terms.

Conflicts of Interest

If there is a conflict of interest in our relationship with you or in our relationship with you and another client that is capable of being addressed successfully by the adoption of suitable safeguards to protect your interests, then we will adopt those safeguards.

Where conflicts are identified that cannot be managed in a way that protects your interests then we regret that we will be unable to provide further services. If this arises, we will inform you promptly. We reserve the right to act for other clients whose interests are not the same as or are adverse to yours, subject, of course, to the obligations of confidentiality referred to above.

Continuity of Practice

If for any reason, Mr. Bernard Eke is unable to run the practice, alternate arrangements exist for the completion of any unfinished work.

Data Protection

Introduction

The Data Protection Act 2018 ('DPA 2018') and the General Data Protection Regulation ('GDPR') impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data.

Eke Probate Services Limited is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data. The firm’s contact details are as follows: Mr. Bernard Eke, 1 Central Place, Leeds, LS10 1FB.

Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data. The firm’s contact details are as follows: Mr. Bernard Eke, 1 Central Place, Leeds, LS10 1FB.

We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. If we do so, we will supply you with and/or otherwise make available to you a copy of the amended privacy notice.

Where we act as a data processor on behalf of a data controller, we will provide an additional schedule setting out required information as part of that agreement. That additional schedule should be read in conjunction with this privacy notice.

The purposes for which we intend to process personal data

We intend to process personal data for the following purposes:

To enable us to supply professional services to you as our client;
To fulfil our obligations under relevant laws in force from time to time (e.g., the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 as amended ('MLR 2017'), etc.);
To comply with professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of the ACCA and as a licensed probate firm with the ICAEW;
To use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings;
To enable us to invoice you for our services and investigate/address any attendant fee disputes that may have arisen;
To contact you about other services we provide which may be of interest to you if you have consented to us doing so.

The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data

Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:

At the time you instructed us to act, you gave consent to our processing your personal data for the purposes listed above;
The processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you;
The processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g., MLR 2017, etc.);
The processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests which we pursue (e.g., investigating/defending legal claims, etc.).

It is a requirement of our contract with you that you provide us with the personal data that we request. If you do not provide the information that we request, we may not be able to provide professional services to you. If this is the case, we will not be able to commence acting or will need to cease to act.

Persons/organisations to whom we may give personal data

We may share your personal data with HMRC, any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond, subcontractors, an alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death, tax insurance providers, professional indemnity insurers, our professional bodies (the ACCA/ICAEW) and/or the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors ('OPBAS') in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation).

Eke Probate Services Limited will grant the ICAEW access to the firm’s client files so that they can audit the firm’s work. Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited will grant the ACCA access to the firm’s client files so that they can audit the firm’s work.

If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may share your personal data with the police and law enforcement agencies, courts and tribunals and/or the Information Commissioner’s Office ('ICO').

We may need to share your personal data with the third parties identified above in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you. If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties we may need to cease to act.

Transfers of personal data outside the EEA

Your personal data will be processed in the EEA only.

Retention of personal data

When acting as a data controller and in accordance with recognised good practice within the taxation and accountancy sector we will retain all of our records relating to you as follows:

where tax returns have been prepared it is our policy to retain information for seven years from the end of the tax year to which the information relates;
where ad-hoc advisory work has been undertaken it is our policy to retain information for seven years from the date the business relationship ceased;
where we have an ongoing client relationship, data which is needed for more than one year’s tax compliance (e.g., capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted to HMRC, etc.) is retained throughout the period of the relationship, but will be deleted seven years after the end of the business relationship unless you as our client ask us to retain it for a longer period.

Our contractual terms provide for the destruction of documents after seven years and, therefore, agreement to the contractual terms is taken as agreement to the retention of records for this period, and to their destruction thereafter.

You are responsible for retaining information that we send to you (including details of capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted) and this will be supplied in the form agreed between us. Documents and records relevant to your tax affairs are required by law to be retained by you as follows:

Individuals, trustees and partnerships:
- with trading or rental income: five years and 10 months after the end of the tax year;
- otherwise: 22 months after the end of the tax year;
Companies, LLPs and other corporate entities:
- six years from the end of the accounting period.

Where we act as a data processor, as defined in DPA 2018, we will delete or return all personal data to the data controller as agreed with the controller annually/at the termination of the contract.

Requesting personal data we hold about you (subject access requests)

You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as ‘subject access requests’ ('SARs').

Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention of Mr. Bernard Eke.

To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:

your date of birth,
previous or other name(s) you have used,
your previous addresses in the past five years,
personal reference number(s) that we may have given you, for example your National Insurance number, your tax reference number or your VAT registration number, and
what type of information you want to know.

If you do not have a National Insurance number, you must send a copy of:

the photo page of your passport or a copy of your driving licence, and
a recent utility bill.

DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and, in any event, within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal data in response to a SAR (e.g., if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request, etc.).

We will not charge you for dealing with a SAR.

You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf – for example, a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have your authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.

Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor (e.g., by processing payroll), we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.

Putting things right (the right to rectification)

You have a right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you that we hold. You also have a right to have any incomplete personal data that we hold about you completed. Should you become aware that any personal data that we hold about you is inaccurate and/or incomplete, please inform us immediately so we can correct and/or complete it.

Deleting your records (the right to erasure)

In certain circumstances you have a right to have the personal data that we hold about you erased. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). If you would like your personal data to be erased, please inform us immediately and we will consider your request. In certain circumstances we have the right to refuse to comply with a request for erasure. If applicable, we will supply you with the reasons for refusing your request.

The right to restrict processing and the right to object

In certain circumstances you have the right to ‘block’ or suppress the processing of personal data or to object to the processing of that information. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or you object to processing so that we can consider what action, if any, is appropriate.

Obtaining and reusing personal data (the right to data portability)

In certain circumstances you have the right to be provided with the personal data that we hold about you in a machine-readable format, e.g., so that the data can easily be provided to a new professional adviser, etc. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk).

The right to data portability only applies:

to personal data an individual has provided to a controller,
where the processing is based on the individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract, and
when processing is carried out by automated means.

We will respond to any data portability requests made to us without undue delay and within one month. We may extend the period by a further two months where the request is complex or a number of requests are received but we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary.

Withdrawal of consent

Where you have consented to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please inform us immediately if you wish to withdraw your consent.

Please note:

the withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing,
if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to continue to provide services to you,
even if you withdraw your consent, it may remain lawful for us to process your data on another legal basis (e.g., because we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data, etc.).

Automated decision-making

We do not intend to use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.

Complaints

If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think that we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can complain to us. Please send any complaints to Mr. Bernard Eke.

If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).

Disengagement

Should we resign or be requested to resign we will normally issue a disengagement letter to ensure that our respective responsibilities are clear.

Should we have no contact with you for a period of 12 months or more, we may issue to your last known address a disengagement letter and thereafter cease to act.

We reserve the right following termination for any reason to destroy any of your documents that we have not been able to return to you after a period of six months unless other laws or regulations require otherwise.

Electronic and other Communication

As instructed, we will communicate with you and with any third parties you instruct us to, as set out in our engagement letter and privacy notice, via email or by other electronic means. The recipient is responsible for virus-checking emails and any attachments.

With electronic communication there is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection or interception by third parties. We use virus-scanning software to reduce the risk of viruses and similar damaging items being transmitted through emails or electronic storage devices. However, electronic communication is not totally secure and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused by viruses, nor for communications that are corrupted or altered after despatch. Nor can we accept any liability for problems or accidental errors relating to this means of communication, especially in relation to commercially sensitive material. These are risks you must accept in return for greater efficiency and lower costs. If you do not wish to accept these risks, please let us know and we will communicate by hard copy, other than where electronic submission is mandatory.

Any communication by us with you sent through the post or DX system is deemed to arrive at your postal address two working days after the day that the document was sent.

When accessing information held electronically by HMRC, we may have access to more information than we need and will only access records reasonably required to carry out the contract.

You are required to keep us up to date with accurate contact details at all times. This is important to ensure that communications and papers are not sent to the incorrect address.

Fees and Payment Terms

The fees for probate work will be payable to Eke Probate Services Limited, whereas the fees for estate administration work will be payable to Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited. Our fees will usually be computed on the basis of time spent on your affairs and on the levels of skill and responsibility involved at the charge-out rates prevailing at the time. A note of our charges and disbursements will be rendered when the work is completed, and will be due for payment within 14 days. Our fees are exclusive of VAT, which will be added where it is chargeable. Unless otherwise agreed to the contrary, our fees do not include the costs of any third party, counsel or other professional fees. If we provide you with an estimate of our fees for any specific work, then the estimate will not be contractually binding unless we explicitly state that that will be the case.

Where this contract exists between us and a purchaser acting in the course of a business we reserve the right to charge interest on late-paid invoices at the rate of 8% above the Bank of England base rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. We also reserve the right to suspend our services or to cease to act for you on giving written notice if payment of any fees is unduly delayed. We intend to exercise these rights only where it is fair and reasonable to do so.

On termination of the engagement you may appoint a new adviser. Where a new adviser requests professional clearance and handover information we reserve the right to charge you a reasonable fee for the provision of handover information.

Intellectual Property Rights

We will retain all copyright in any document prepared by us during the course of carrying out the engagement save where the law specifically provides otherwise.

Interpretation

If any provision of the engagement letter, schedules of services or standard terms and conditions is held to be void, then that provision will be deemed not to form part of the contract and the remainder of the agreement shall be interpreted as if such provision had never been inserted.

In the event of any conflict between these standard terms and conditions and the engagement letter or schedules of services, the relevant provision in the engagement letter or schedules will take precedence.

Lien

Insofar as we are permitted to do so by law or professional guidelines, we reserve the right to exercise a lien over all funds, documents and records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.

Limitation of Liability

We will provide our services with reasonable care and skill. Our liability to you in respect of losses, damages, costs and expenses directly caused by our negligence, fraud or wilful default shall be the higher of £10,000 and 10 times the amount invoiced by the firm, net of VAT.

We will not be liable if such losses, penalties, interest or additional tax liabilities are caused by the acts or omissions of any other person or due to the provision to us of incomplete, misleading or false information, or if they are caused by a failure to act on our advice or a failure to provide us with relevant information. In particular, where we refer you to another firm whom you engage with directly, we accept no responsibility in relation to their work and will not be liable for any loss caused by them.

We will not be liable to you for any delay or failure to perform our obligations under the engagement letter if the delay or failure is caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control.

We will not be responsible or liable for any loss, damage or expense incurred or sustained if information material to the service we are providing is withheld or concealed from us or misrepresented to us. This exclusion shall not apply where such misrepresentation, withholding or concealment is or should (in carrying out the procedures that we have agreed to perform with reasonable care and skill) have been evident to us without further enquiry beyond that which it would have been reasonable for us to have carried out in the circumstances.

You agree to indemnify us and our agents in respect of any claim (including any claim for negligence) arising out of any unauthorised disclosure by you or by any person for whom you are responsible of our advice and opinions, whether in writing or otherwise. This indemnity will extend to the cost of defending any such claim, including payment at our usual rates for the time that we spend in defending it.

Limitation of Third-Party Rights

The advice and information we provide to you as part of our service is for your sole use and not for any third party to whom you may communicate it unless we have expressly agreed in the engagement letter that a specified third party may rely on our work. We accept no responsibility to third parties, including any group company to whom the engagement letter is not addressed, for any advice, information or material produced as part of our work for you that you make available to them. A party to this agreement is the only person who has the right to enforce any of its terms and no rights or benefits are conferred on any third party under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

Money Laundering Regulations 2017

In accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act, The Terrorism Act, and The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, you agree to waive your right to confidentiality to the extent of any report made, document provided or information disclosed to the National Crime Agency ('NCA').

You also acknowledge that we are required to report directly to the NCA without prior reference to you or your representatives if during the course of undertaking any assignment the person undertaking the role of Money Laundering Reporting Officer becomes suspicious of money laundering.

As with other professional services firms, we are required to have appropriate risk- based policies and procedures for assessing and managing money laundering risks: this applies at the start of any business relationship and through the lifetime of the relationship. This includes undertaking appropriate customer due diligence. We may request from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases. If we are not able to obtain satisfactory evidence of your identity, we will not be able to proceed with the engagement.

Copies of such records created as part of the client due diligence process, including any non-engagement documents relating to the client relationship and ongoing monitoring of it, will be retained by us for a period of five years after we cease to act unless we are required to retain them under statutory obligation, or to retain them for legal proceedings, or you consented to the retention in which case the records will be retained for not more than 10 years.

Opening Hours

Our opening hours are between 09:00 and 17:00. We will endeavour to respond to contact made outside of those hours within two business days.

Period of Engagement and Termination

Unless otherwise agreed in the engagement letter, our work will begin when we receive your implicit or explicit acceptance of that letter. Except as stated in that letter, we will not be responsible for periods before that date.

Each of us may terminate the agreement by giving not less than 21 days’ notice in writing to the other party, except where you fail to cooperate with us or we have reason to believe that you have provided us or HMRC with misleading information, in which case we may terminate the agreement immediately. Termination will be without prejudice to any rights that may have accrued to either of us prior to termination.

In the event of termination of the contract, we will endeavour to agree with you the arrangements for the completion of work in progress at that time, unless we are required for legal or regulatory reasons to cease work immediately. In that event, we shall not be required to carry out further work and shall not be responsible or liable for any consequences arising from termination.

If you engage us for a one-off piece of work (for example, advice on a one-off transaction, preparation of a tax return for one year only, etc.) the engagement ceases as soon as that work is completed. The date of completion of the work is taken to be the termination date and we owe you no duties and we will not undertake further work beyond that date.

Where recurring work is provided (for example, ongoing compliance work such as the completion of annual tax returns, etc.) the engagement ceases on the relevant date in relation to the termination as set out above. Unless immediate termination applies, in practice this means that the relevant termination date is 21 days after the date of notice of termination or a later agreed date.

We owe you no duties beyond the date of termination and will not undertake any further work.

Professional Body Rules

We will observe and act in accordance with the bye-laws, regulations and ethical guidelines of the ACCA and the ICAEW (including Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation) and will accept instructions to act for you on this basis.

You are responsible for bringing to our attention any errors, omissions or inaccuracies in your returns that you become aware of after the returns have been submitted in order that we may assist you to make a voluntary disclosure.

In particular, you give us the authority to correct errors made by HMRC where we become aware of them. In addition, we will not undertake tax planning which breaches Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation. We will, therefore, comply with the general anti-abuse rule and the targeted anti-avoidance rule. We will not be liable for any loss, damage or cost arising from our compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations. You can see copies of these requirements at our offices. The requirements are also available online at www.accaglobal.com.

The implications of professional body membership as it relates to GDPR are set out in the privacy notice above, which should be read alongside our standard terms and conditions of business.

We confirm that we are accredited for the reserved legal activity of non-contentious probate. When conducting probate work, we are required to comply with the ICAEW’s Probate Regulations which can be accessed here.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

In accordance with our professional body rules, we are required to hold professional indemnity insurance to cover non-contentious probate and any related work carried out by Eke Probate Services Limited and Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited.

Eke Probate Services Limited and Eke Taxation and Accountancy Services Limited are covered by the same professional indemnity insurance held with QBE UK Limited. Details about the insurer and coverage can be found at our offices or by request from us.

Retention of Papers

You have a legal responsibility to retain documents and records relevant to your affairs. During the course of our work we may collect information from you and others relevant to your affairs. We will return any original documents to you if requested.

While certain documents may legally belong to you, we may destroy correspondence and other papers that we store, electronically or otherwise, which are more than seven years old. This includes your documents if they have not been reclaimed by you within the seven-year period. You must tell us if you require the return of any specific document or their retention for a longer period.

You should retain documents that are sent to you by us as set out in the privacy notice, which should be read alongside these terms and conditions.