STANDARD HOURLY RATE:
PRIVATE CLIENTS: £300.00 PER HOUR
PPH/ELANCE/FREELANCER CLIENTS: £150.00 PER HOUR
TERMS AND CONDITIONS: REVISED 08/05/2024
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS FIRM IS NOT SRA REGISTERED AND DOES NOT UNDERTAKE REGULATED WORK
We are committed to provide excellent client service and to this end, it is important that you know what we can and cannot do, hence these terms and conditions. They apply to all the work we do.
1. Who Will Do Your Work? All work we do is carried out by Small Business Advice Network Limited. Normally our CEO (Chris Hutchins) will actually do the work but when he is not able to do the work personally it is always carried out under his supervision.
2. What Guarantees Do You Give? We guarantee that the advice we provide is accurate and up to date at the time it is given. We guarantee that it is complete advice unless we tell you otherwise or unless there is something you haven’t told us which later turns out to be important.
3. What Do You Get for Your Money? You are entitled to get what you have paid for which is solid advice and assistance in relation to the work you have engaged us to do. So, if you ask us to draft a contract – you can expect a document which will work for the purposes you have specified. If you ask advice – you can expect a full analysis of your situation and advice which reflects that situation.
4. What if I Don’t Like What You Do? We agree to provide a service and if we provide that service, whether you like it or not, we expect to be paid. If what we provide is not good enough for your needs or is otherwise defective, tell us and we’ll improve it (within reason) or correct the defects. If you don’t tell us we can do nothing.
5. What is a Draft Document? Usually, it is the first copy of a document you have asked us to write for you. We rely on you to read the document through thoroughly and report back to us any errors you find. We will always check the final draft of a document but we expect you to do the same and will assume that you have read through any final draft and reported any errors to us unless you tell us otherwise.
6. Is My Bill a Fixed Amount? If we quote a fixed fee that’s the fee we will charge even if the job is much bigger than we expected UNLESS when telling us about the job you miss something out which causes the job to grow. If that happens or we agree to do any extra work, then we charge at our Standard Hourly Rate which is shown above. If we have not offered a fixed fee, we will charge at the hourly rate which applies to you – we will tell you that rate when we confirm that we will act for you.
7.How can I be sure your hourly bill is right? If we are working for you on an hourly basis, we will make this clear before we start. We will then keep a record of what we do and how long it takes. We will usually have given you an estimate beforehand and those estimates are usually pretty accurate but if we are going to exceed the estimate, we will try to let you know beforehand. Our fixed fees never change unless Point 6 above applies
8. How is the Hourly Bill Worked Out? We record time as units of an hour. Each hour has 10 units and so for every 6 minutes (or part of 6 minutes) we work on your job, we charge for one unit (1/10th of our hourly rate). So we bill you in units. That’s it. We don’t charge VAT and we don’t add any extras unless they have been agreed with you in advance.
9. How Do I Know if I am Private Client? If you came to us through PPH, Elance or Freelancer, we charge a much-reduced rate for our services as the work we obtain from those sites is different in nature from the work we do for Private Clients.
10. How Do I Complain? We have a simple policy. If you have a problem with anything, call Chris on 020 7096 0268, talk to him and he will do all he can to resolve the issue.
11. Do You Have Returns Policy? No – we are a service company and everything we do is created especially for you. We will always work with you to get what we provide right.
12. Payment. We expect to be paid what we are due. If you don’t pay us within 14 days of the date of our invoice we will charge you interest at the rate of 10% per annum from the date of the bill until you pay us. If you don’t pay us within 28 days a service charge of £50 will be added to your invoice for each month (or part of a month) we have to wait for payment and we reserve the right to sue for the money we are due.
If your job lasts for more than 1 month, we will invoice you, and expect to be paid, for the services which have been delivered up to the date of that invoice. If you do not pay us within 7 days, we have the right to suspend working on your job until we receive payment.
If you do not respond to us after we have started to provide our services and when we ask you to do so, then we have the right to charge the full fee we have quoted. We will only do this if we have written to you in advance warning you that we are about to invoice you.
13. Copyright Issues We retain all copyright and intellectual property rights in everything we produce for you unless we agree otherwise in writing. You will have an unconditional non-exclusive licence to use what we produce for you at no further cost.
14. Do You Provide After-Sales Service? Yes, within reasonable limits, we will give you support with whatever we have done for you for 90 days after we do it. So, if you have any questions, just call us on 020 7096 0268. We will charge additional but agreed fees for any additional work you ask us to do. After the 90-day period has ended call us anyway and we will always try to help, sometimes at no additional cost.
15. Extra Terms/Promises If you ask us to do anything else, please wait until we have confirmed what we have agreed in writing. If we do not confirm it in writing, you cannot rely on it.
16. Confusion With These Conditions? These terms and conditions apply to all work we undertake. If anything in them is not clear, please check with us beforehand and we will clarify any issue in writing. Unless a clarification or change in these conditions is in writing it will have no effect.
17. Confidentiality and Privacy When you talk to us all that you tell us will be kept confidential and Chris Hutchins, as a retired solicitor, is subject to serious sanctions if he breaks your confidence. Of course, when we have a statutory duty to release that information or you allow us to release it, we are relieved from the duty.
You can, at any time, ask Chris (as the person responsible for data security) to reveal all information we hold about you and, if we have made any errors or you wish us to remove any information, we will correct or remove that information on request.
18. English and Welsh Law. We work only under the laws of England and Wales and any agreement we have is ONLY enforceable in the Courts of England and Wales.
IF SOMETHING IS NOT CLEAR, PLEASE
CALL CHRIS ON 020 7096 0268