Terms of Engagement

These Standard Terms of Engagement (‘Terms’) apply in respect of all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent that we otherwise agree with you in writing.

1. Services

1.1. The services which we are to provide for you are outlined in our engagement letter.

2. Financial

• 2.1. Fees:
  2.1.1. The fees which we will charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at, are set out in our engagement letter.
  2.1.2. If the engagement letter specifies a fixed fee, we will charge this for the agreed scope of our services. Work which falls outside that scope will be charged on an hourly rate basis. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it becomes necessary for us to provide services outside the agreed scope and if requested, give you an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.
  2.1.3. Where our fees are calculated on an hourly basis, the hourly rates are set out in our engagement letter. The differences in those rates reflect the experience and specialisation of our professional staff. Time spent is recorded in 5 minute units, with
  time rounded up to the next unit of 5 minutes.
  2.1.4. All fees related to consents processing are liable for payment regardless of whether your application is approved or declined.
• 2.2. Disbursements and expenses In providing services, we may incur disbursements or have to make payments to third parties on your behalf. These will be included in our invoice to you when the expense is incurred. We may require an advance payment for the disbursements or expenses which we will be incurring on your behalf.
• 2.3. GST (if any): Is payable by you on our fees and charges.
• 2.4. Invoices:
  2.4.1. For services other than consent applications, we will send interim invoices to you, usually monthly and on completion of the matter, or termination of our engagement. We may also send you an invoice when we incur a significant expense.
• 2.5. For consent applications, we will usually send you an invoice on completion of the job, or termination of our engagement. We may also send you a progress invoice if we incur a significant expense or where a job continues longer than three months’ duration.
• 2.6. Payment:
  2.6.1. Our fees and other charges are payable within 14 days of the date of the invoice, unless alternative arrangements have been made with us.
  2.6.2. We may require interest to be paid on any amount which is overdue. Interest may be calculated at the rate 2.0 percent per month from the date payment become due until the overdue amount is actually paid.
  2.6.3. If we consider that debt recovery is required to recover our fee through a debt collector or through proceedings with the Court initiated by us, then you agree that you will be responsible for all of the reasonable costs and disbursements incurred in recovering our costs, on an indemnity basis. Our reasonable costs include, without limitation, legal costs, costs of a debt collection agency, any process servers’ fee and expenses associated with locating you.
• 2.7. Security: We may ask you to pre-pay amounts to us, or to provide security for our fees and expenses. You authorise us to debit against amounts pre-paid by you any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice, regardless of whether the permitted timeframe for payment has passed.
• 2.8. Third Parties: Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request or with your approval be directed to a third party, nevertheless you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.

3. Privacy of Information

• 3.1. Information concerning you will be used by us to provide consultancy services, and may also be used to obtain credit or other references, and to undertake credit management. You authorise us to obtain from any person, or release to any person, any information necessary for those purposes and you authorise any person to release information to us that we require for those purposes.
• 3.2. Subject to the above, we will treat all information we hold about you as private and confidential, and will not disclose any information we hold on your behalf or about you unless necessary to provide the service as set out in the engagement letter.

4. Communications

• 4.1. We do not accept any liability for loss arising from non-receipt of any communication, including computer email communications.
• 4.2. We will communicate with you and others by electronic means. These methods may be subject to interference, interception, viruses or other defects in the communication. Although we will take reasonable care that all electronic communications to you are safe and secure, we do not accept any responsibility for any loss or damage suffered by you in connection with an electronic communication.

5. Termination

• 5.1. You may terminate our services at any time by giving us written notice.
• 5.2. We may terminate our services at any time, by giving you written notice.
• 5.3. If our engagement is terminated, you must pay us all monies owing to us up to the date of termination.

6. Complaints Procedure

• 6.1. We pride ourselves on providing high quality services on behalf of manawhenua. Please let us know if you are not satisfied with our services as soon as possible.
• 6.2. If you have a complaint about our services, please refer your complaint to either our Office Manager or the Divisional Manager in the first instance.

7. General

• 7.1. These terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of them.
• 7.2. We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in which case we will send you amended Terms.
• 7.3. Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

8. Agreement

• 8.1. If we do not hear to the contrary, we will assume that you agree with all of the above terms and will proceed accordingly.
• 8.2. If you do not agree with all of the above terms, please notify us in writing as soon as possible after the date the terms were provided to you. Services will be put on hold until an agreed set of terms are recorded in writing and signed by both parties.