HOW DO WE CHARGE?

Our fees are charged in accordance with guidelines laid down by the Rules of Professional Conduct of the New Zealand Law Society. In fixing the fee, we take into account matters such as:

• The time spent.
• The skill and knowledge and responsibility required.
• The value of property involved.
• The complexity, novelty, importance and urgency of the matter.
• The reasonable costs of running a practice.
• The result.

The hourly charge out rates of each of our legal team are:

• Allison Adams $350.00 plus GST
• Tony Walker $350.00 plus GST
• George Ireland $350.00 plus GST
• Anna Fitzgibbon $350.00 plus GST
• Sarah Edmondson $300.00 plus GST
• Kathryn Buchanan $300.00 plus GST
• Michelle Dean $250.00 plus GST
• Helen Hargraves $100.00 plus GST
• Margaret Dick $175.00 plus GST

We charge $350 plus GST per hour for mediation services.

We charge for payments that we have to make on your behalf eg. registration fees or court filing fees.

There is a standard charge for office expenses of $50 to cover the costs of toll, mobile and photocopying charges. If these costs exceed $50 then you will be charged the additional cost

ESTIMATE OF FEES

• Where possible we will give you an estimate. The estimate will be our “best guess” as to what the fee is likely to be. If the work does not proceed as we expected due to unexpected complications, or if the work proves more complex than originally anticipated, we will charge for all additional work done.

• If it appears that the estimate will be exceeded we will advise you of the reasons and obtain further instructions from you.

WHEN WILL YOU BE BILLED?

• Generally property transaction matters will be billed at the time of settlement. We may require you to make a payment or payments for disbursements referred to in paragraph 4 before final billing.
• For other matters we will bill you on a monthly basis. This will help you by spreading the payments over time. It will also help you to keep track of how much the work is costing.

PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNT

• We ask you to make a payment on account of anticipated fees. As a general rule, we require $500 to be paid on account at the time of instructing us. If we are instructed to issue or defend court proceedings on your behalf, we require an up front payment of $2500 before preparing the proceedings. Payments on account are applied to the next invoice.
• Payments may have to be made to other people for work to be done, for example search fees, or court filing fees (referred to as disbursements). We cannot pay these amounts for you unless we receive payment from you first. We reserve the right to ask for these specific amounts or for an approximate amount to cover them to ensure that we are not out of pocket.
• If we have to instruct any other person (including a barrister or valuer) we reserve the right to require payment of that person’s estimated fees into our trust account beforehand. By instructing that person, we undertake an obligation to pay that person’s fees and accordingly we require to be protected for the fees. We may require you to enter a payment arrangement directly with that person.

WHEN DO YOU HAVE TO PAY?

• All accounts are due for payment within 7 days of date of invoice. If we are holding money for you (for example from the sale of your house) we may deduct the account from that money and give you a full statement.
• We may stop doing work (and instruct others to stop doing work) on your file if our account is not paid within the 7 day period.
• Interest is payable on any account more than 7 days overdue. Interest is calculated at 5% per annum above the ASB Bank overdraft rate applying at the date payment became due. We will charge for the costs of recovery of any amount overdue.

HOW CAN YOU PAY?

• By direct credit to our Trust account 12 3110 0070433 02. Please include your name and matter number on your payment to us so that we can identify your payment.
• By cheque or cash
• By Visa or Mastercard
• By EFTPOS

CLIENT FUNDS HELD ON INTEREST BEARING DEPOSIT

• LawWorks operates an interest bearing deposit account and ensures any substantial sums of money not required for payment immediately are held in this account so our clients receive the benefit of interest earned on the funds.
• This service involves administrative and accounting procedures over and above those of a typical trust account deposit. To recover a portion of the costs involved, we charge a commission of 5% of the gross interest earned on the deposit. This charge is common to the majority of law firms in New Zealand.