We put the interests of our clients first. What follows defines our relationship with our clients, for mutual benefit.

1. Authorisation.

Bennetts Solicitors are authorised by the Law Society of Scotland to practise as solicitors and by the Financial Services Authority to conduct investment business.

2. Standards of professional conduct.

We will act independently, honestly and in accordance with the Code of Conduct for solicitors holding Practising Certificates and rules and other codes issued by the Law Society of Scotland, the Securities and Investment Institute or the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

3. Office hours.

We are open for business Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. except at Christmas and New Year and (except during the winter) on Saturdays from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m. We will try to see you at any time when you visit us, but it is better to make a prior appointment, for which you should not normally be kept waiting for more than two minutes beyond the time of the appointment.

4. Your instructions to us

4.1 By law, we need to be satisfied about the identity of our clients and the sources of funds. For this and other reasons we may not always be willing to accept instructions.

4.2 Normally, you can instruct us by letter, telephone, fax, e-mail, or in person, unless we ask you to put your instructions in writing.

4.3 All staff at Bennetts are authorised to receive instructions.

4.4 Instructions on behalf of a company must in the first instance come from a director or the company secretary. In the case of a partnership, authorisation must come from a majority of the partners. Where a husband and wife wish to give joint instructions, we must have spoken to, or have received written instructions from, each of them. Instructions from a society or club must come from the secretary or two of the other office bearers.

4.5 We cannot act for two or more parties whose interests conflict. Even where there is no conflict, we cannot act for more than one party unless all are established clients of the firm. We will write to you before acting on instructions in such a situation.

4.6 We will not accept new instructions if you have still to pay a note of fees or outlays rendered more than a month previously.

5. Your point of contact

5.1 After our initial actings for you in connection with a new matter, you will be given the name of the solicitor who is to be responsible for day-to-day conduct of the matter concerned.

5.2 This solicitor will remain in charge until the matter is completed unless we advise you to the contrary and you have no objections to a change. We will not sub-contract our work without your approval. We will always remain responsible for it, except when services are provided by Counsel.

5.3 Robin Bennett will be responsible for supervision in any event.

5.4 Only our solicitors have authority to make a binding commitment or to make representations on which you may rely.

6. Good communications.

We will keep you, and anyone else with whom we are communicating on your behalf, informed regarding the progress of your work and of all significant developments. If you are uncertain about what is happening at any time, please ask. You will likewise ensure we are kept informed. We will tell you what the consequences are of any decision which you have or may have to take, and if and when the matter should be reviewed.

7. Funds held for you.

Apart from a float of up to £500, funds which are likely to be held by us for more than two months will be placed in a Clydesdale Bank designated account with instant access during banking hours. Clients who wish their funds to be kept with a different deposit taker need to give us specific instructions to that effect and an administration charge may arise. A statement will be provided once a year.

8. Outlays

8.1 We may pay any reasonable outlays on your behalf.

8.2 We make a mileage charge for necessary travelling from Cupar of 40p per mile.

8.3 Where a partner's mileage is charged, VAT falls to be added to this figure.

9. Payment of fees and outlays

9.1 We may ask for fees and outlays to be paid in advance.

9.2 We may render a note of our fees and outlays at monthly intervals or from time to time.

9.3 Where there are funds under our control, we may draw fees from them. We will notify you immediately we have done so.

9.4 Unless other arrangements have been agreed, fees and outlays are payable on presentation of the fee note or request for reimbursement.

9.5 We may deduct all proper outlays, fees and expenses from funds which we hold for you or which pass through our hands.

9.6 In the event that there is a debit balance on your Client Account (including our fees) and there is an unreasonable delay in settling this balance, we reserve the right to charge interest at 1% per month compound (APR 12.68%). We also reserve the right to withdraw from acting in the current matter.

9.7 If you are granted legal aid, you are liable to pay us any contribution under the Advice & Assistance Scheme. If legal aid is no longer available, you will be informed before charging fees or outlays.

10. Time estimate.

If requested, we will give you an estimate of the time any particular piece of work will take. This will be subject to any changes in the expected complexity or amount of work involved.

11. Confidentiality & Data Protection

11.1 We will not disclose to any party not employed by the firm information concerning your business which we may acquire unless we think it is in your interests or we have your instructions to make the disclosure, or unless we are complying with money laundering legislation.

11.2 To enable us to comply with money laundering regulations, we cannot guarantee to keep confidences when we know or suspect that criminal property is involved, including tax evasion or benefit fraud. If you ask about disclosure, this will be neither confirmed nor denied.

c. To do our work we may obtain information which the Data Protection Act regards as sensitive data from you or from others with your consent.

d. We will store details about you on a data base which we may, unless you instruct us to the contrary, use to inform you about the services we provide. You have a right to obtain a copy of your information, for which we may charge a small fee, and to have any inaccuracies corrected.

12. Complaints

Apart from any monetary claim against us for fault, you can complain if you are dissatisfied with the service we supply. To help ensure objectivity, we have arranged for complaints to be handled by a solicitor who is not connected to this firm. You should therefore contact Mr John W Gilbertson LLB NP, Solicitor, 3 Hanover Court, Glenrothes KY7 5SD, who will acknowledge the complaint on the day of receipt or as soon thereafter as he returns to business, and respond in writing within 14 days. The response will indicate any immediate action to remedy the complaint and, if he considers that corrective action is required, the adjustments to our written procedures which are being taken to prevent a recurrence. If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Law Society of Scotland.

13. Liability of the firm.

13.1 We carry insurance of £2 million for any one claim of professional negligence - neglect, error or omission

b. The Law Society of Scotland, of which we are members, guarantees clients against any loss incurred due to dishonesty by solicitors.

c. We will not be liable for losses because of matters outwith our control, or because of any misleading, incomplete, or erroneous instructions which you give us.

14. Ownership and retention of documents and other property

14.1 Bennetts treat Law Society guidelines on the ownership and destruction of files as a minimum standard. Files relating to clients belong to them and we can remove from them only internal communications or preparatory notes, or certain sensitive items in criminal cases. We can remove letters from clients but will replace them with a copy.

14.2 Certain items are kept in their original paper form for as long as required. Documents which constitute or are evidence of rights, including Certificates and Wills are kept in a safe or fire-proof cabinet. We also retain for as long as necessary (i) papers relating to tax affairs and (ii) items relevant to a claim.

14.3 From 1st July 2007 we have, with some exceptions, scanned into a native PDF format (100% compatible with the Acrobat standard) all documents and communications relating to clients which pass through our hands. The exceptions include (i) items likely to be available from other sources, such as blank forms or circulars to shareholders, (ii) statements of account from third parties, (iii) tax vouchers, (iv) bundles of pre-registration title deeds and (v) large plans or other items which are difficulty to copy. A full list of the documents we handle and how they are treated is available on request.

14.4 It is our present intention to retain documentation in electronic form indefinitely. A copy of our electronic files can be supplied on request. A paper version can also be supplied, but there may be a charge for the time of the staff concerned if this involves a large quantity of documents.

14.5 Paper letters or documents dating from before mid 2007 are held for 20 years but may be at a remote location. from which they can be retrieved within two working days.

14.6 Subject to the foregoing, or if we have given you one month's notice to remove them, paper materials or documents may be destroyed.

15. Termination

15.1 Either side may terminate the appointment at any time by notice in writing, without giving reasons.

15.2 You will pay a reasonable fee for work done and will reimburse us for outlays incurred up to that point.

15.3 Upon payment of all outstanding fees and outlays, we will send to you on request all your papers and other items, subject to our right to retain copies. We can retain everything of yours we hold pending payment of any sums due to us.

16. Jurisdiction.

Our contract with you will be construed according to the law of Scotland . You agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Tayside, Central and Fife at Cupar in the event of any dispute.

17. Change to terms of business.

Apart from the annual review of our unit of charge (see Fees below) any material change to our terms of business will only take effect one month after we have given notice of it to you, unless a shorter period has been agreed.

Fees

General Business. Our unit of charge (U), reviewed annually, is fixed at £13.50 from 01.01.09. 1 U is charged for 6 minutes of a solicitor's time, or 100 words of a letter. That means a charge of £135.00 per hour (10U) for a solicitor. The time of an unqualified member of staff will be charged at half this rate. Deeds, court pleadings, accounts, inventories and memorials for opinion cost 5U per 250 words. Other legal documents cost 3U per 250 words. To these figures fall to be added 5% for posts and incidents, and VAT. A short letter will therefore cost £16.29 and an hour of a solicitor' s time will tend to cost £163.01

Court work. Our fees will normally be according to the official court scales. Our charges to you for the conduct of a court case may be higher than those which can be recovered, on success, from your opponent in any civil litigation. We may offer to conduct a civil court case on a speculative basis.
Where Legal Aid is available you will not have to pay our fees but may have to make a contribution to Legal Aid. Where expenses are recovered from your opponent in a civil case, we will accept them in lieu of what we would receive from Legal Aid, if greater. We may ask the court to allow an enhancement of our fees in certain circumstances. The above rates apply for any period during which you have been advised that Legal Aid is unavailable.

Executries. To the fees for General Business indicated above, we add ½% of the value of the estate for the responsibilities involved.

Financial services. We charge no fee for certain investment management services. Commission from financial institutions or brokers will be retained by us and may be used to offset our fees.

Funds. Commission is charged as follows: dividend and interest received: 5%. Capital received: 1%, reducing to 2% for items over £100,000 and 0.25% over £1 million. No commission is charged for funds handled in property transactions, factoring by this firm, or litigation.
No commission is taken from banks and other financial institutions on funds held in an interest-bearing account in name of Bennetts for a client. There is an administration charge for setting up such an account, other than with the Clydesdale Bank, of 5U plus posts and VAT. There may be a charge for administering such an account, depending on circumstances.

Leases and factoring. Ask for our separate list of charges.

Property purchase and sale transactions Fees vary according to the value of the transaction and the complexity of the work. We will provide you with a quotation, based on a given price.

Wills, Living Wills and Powers of Attorney. Ask for our separate list.

Calculating the fee. Where we act as Attorneys, or carry out work for Executries and Trusts, and in certain other cases we send our files to the Auditor of Court to fix our fees on the foregoing bases. The Auditor of Court's fee for this is payable by the client. We may calculate our fee without reference to the Auditor for an unexpected or unavoidable work carried out after our fee has been fixed.

Checking our fees. You can challenge our charges by having any invoice for fees taxed. This means that our work is audited, i.e. the file examined in detail, and you have the opportunity to object to specific charges. In such a case the Auditor of Court will determine, depending on the outcome of this examination, whether the audit fee should be paid by the client or this firm, or both.

For certain work we charge at higher or different rates from those detailed above, but will give advance notice.
We do not charge for holding deeds, documents and securities. Where more than one party has given instructions for the same matter, our fees are payable by those instructing us jointly and severally. In other words, we can ask one client to pay all the fees