Do your engagement letters cover everything?

Originally posted on 11 Dec 2013

Engagement Letter Requirements
Do your engagement letters cover all of the following topics? Contact Bizezia today to make sure you have the most comprehensive engagement for yourselves and your clients.

•    The requirements of the Provision of Services Regulations 2009
•    Your firm’s name
•    Your postal address
•    Your telephone number
•    Your website address
•    Your VAT Number
•    The status of your firm (limited liability partnership, company name, partnership name, sole-trader name)
•    Your trading style
•    Your company or LLP registered number
•    The name and address of your professional body
•    The registered number of your firm with that professional body
•    Professional Rules, Practice Guidance and Statutory Obligations
•    Exclusion of your liability from your compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations
•    Location where the client can view your professional rules etc
•    Your Responsibilities if you resign as Accountants
•    Client agreement on disclosure that they are a client
•    No guarantee or certainty of outcome in any matter for which you provide services
•    Whether or not the client wished to rely on oral or draft advice
•    Definition of who you act for
•    Your aims in acting for the client
•    Exclusion of any suggestion that you act as shadow director
•    Complaints procedures
•    Your code of conduct
•    Agreement on your use of Subcontractors
•    Provision of references and supply of information to third parties
•    Arrangements on recommendation of third party service providers
•    Disclosure of advice to others
•    Applicable Law
•    Agreement of Terms
•    Limitation of Aggregate Liability
•    Liability of to pay damages
•    Exclusion of liability relating to the discovery of fraud etc
•    Disclosure of professional indemnity insurance details
(The Provision of Services Regulations 2009)
•    Client’s duty to mitigate
•    Indemnity against Third Party Claims
•    No Liability to Third Parties
•    Right to assessment of the client’s creditworthiness
•    The firm’s right to withdraw and terminate
•    Client’s right to terminate
•    Payment of fees not in dispute in the event of any dispute on other matters
•    Your rights to suspend further services when fees are unpaid
•    How you deal with conflicts of interest
•    The impact of Force Majeure
•    How the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 affect your dealings with clients
•    Barring client from engagement of any of your staff or partners
•    When fee collection escalates to debts recovery procedures
•    Basis of how you charge fees and disbursements
•    Communications by email
•    Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the name of the Data Controller in your firm
•    Document Storage and Retention of Papers
•    Retrieval from archive storage
•    Providing Information in Proceedings
•    Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999
•    Confidentiality in relation to third party inspection of client records for compliance purposes
•    The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Money Laundering Regulations 2007
•    Disability Discrimination Act
•    Duty of Disclosure
•    Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA”)
•    How commissions received are disclosed
•    Client Money arrangements
•    Legal clause on Severability
•    Agreement on work to be undertaken for the client
•    Legal clause on Acceptance

Are any of these items missing from your engagement letters? Let us help you now with Contract Engine, a fully-editable suite of engagement letters. Contact us on 01444 884220 or email at mpollins@bizezia.com to find out how we can help.

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Martin Pollins

Managing Director at One Smart Place

Martin Pollins is a Chartered Accountant and MBA with wide experience in corporate finance and business management. He has served on the boards of several companies, including those listed on the London Stock Exchange, AIM and OFEX. He is Chairman and Founder of OneSmartPlace and was a Council member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 1988 to 1996. He was managing partner of PRB Martin Pollins, based in Sussex, the first Accountancy firm to advertise on British television.He went on to create and launch the CharterGroup Partnership (the UK’s first Accountancy network) and then LawGroup UK (at the time, one of the largest networks of lawyers in the UK). In recent years, he helped to raise several £millions to fund British films such as The Da Vinci Code, Bridge of San Luis Rey, Head in the Clouds and Merchant of Venice with actors such as Charlize Theron, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, F. Murray Abraham. Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Audrey Tautou, Penélope Cruz, Steven Berkoff, Lynn Collins, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and many more.

He has written over 700 business publications (see Glossaries at https://onesmartplace.com/resources/glossaries/) and is editor of Better Business Focus (see https://onesmartplace.com/resources/better-business-focus-magazine). His Blog, on a wide range of subjects can be found at: https://onesmartplace.com/blog/

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