The following terms of business apply to all engagements accepted by CHP Accountants Limited. All
work is carried out under these terms except where changes are expressly agreed in writing.
1.0 Applicable law
1.1 Our engagement letter, the schedules of services and our standard terms and conditions of business are
governed by, and should be construed in accordance with English law. Each party agrees that the courts of
England will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this engagement
letter and any matter arising from it on any basis. Each party irrevocably waives any right to object to any action
being brought in those Courts, to claim that the action has been brought in an inappropriate forum, or to claim
that those Courts do not have jurisdiction.
2.0 Client identification
2.1 As with other professional services firms, we are required to identify our clients for the purposes of the UK antimoney laundering legislation. We may request from you, and retain, such information and documentation as we
require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases. If we are not able to obtain
satisfactory evidence of your identity, we will not be able to proceed with the engagement.
3.0 Client money
3.1 We may, from time to time, hold money on your behalf. The money will be held in trust in a client bank account,
which is segregated from the firm's funds. The account will be operated, and all funds dealt with, in accordance
with the Clients' Money Regulations of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
3.2 To avoid excessive administration, interest will only be paid to you where the amount earned on the balances
held on your behalf in any calendar year exceeds £25.00. If the total sum of money held on your behalf is enough
to give rise to a significant amount of interest or is likely to do so, then we will put the money in a designated
Interest-bearing client bank account and pay the interest to you. Subject to any tax legislation, interest will be paid
gross.
3.3 We will return monies held on your behalf promptly as soon as there is no longer any reason to retain those
funds. If any funds remain in our client account that are unclaimed and the client to which they relate has
remained untraced for five years or we as a firm cease to practise then we may pay those monies to a registered
charity.
4.0 Commissions or other benefits
4.1 In some circumstances we may receive commissions or other benefits for introductions to other professionals or
in respect of transactions which we arrange for you. Where this happens we will notify you in writing of the
amount and terms of payment and receipt of any such commissions or benefits.
5.0 Confidentiality
5.1 Unless we are authorised by you to disclose information on your behalf, we confirm that where you give us
confidential information we shall at all times during and after this engagement keep it confidential, except as
required by law, by our insurers or as provided for in regulatory, ethical, or other professional pronouncements or
as part of an external peer review applicable to us or our engagement. If we use external or cloud based
systems, we will ensure that confidentiality of your information is maintained.
5.2 If we act for other clients whose interests are or may be adverse to yours, we will manage the conflict by
implementing additional safeguards to preserve confidentiality. Safeguards may include measures such as
separate teams, physical separation of teams, and separate arrangements for storage of and access to
information. You agree that the effective implementation of such steps or safeguards as described above will
provide adequate measures to avoid any real risk of confidentiality being impaired.
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5.3 We may, on occasions, subcontract work on your affairs to ottier tax or accounting professionals. Tfie
subcontractors will be bound by our ciient confidentiaiity terms.
5.4 We reserve the right, for the purpose of promotional activity, training or for other business purpose, to mention
that you are a client. As stated above we will not disclose any confidential Information.
6.0 Conflicts of interest
6.1 We will inform you if we become aware of any conflict of interest In our relationship with you or in our relationship
with you and another ciient unless we are unable to do so because of our confidentiality obligations. We have
safeguards that can be implemented to protect the Interests of different ciients if a conflict arises. Where conflicts
are identified which cannot be managed in a way that protects your Interests then we regret that we wili be
unable to provide further services.
6.2 If there is a conflict of interest that is capable of being addressed successfully by the adoption of suitable
safeguards to protect your interests then we wili adopt those safeguards. In resolving the conflict, we would be
guided by ICAEWs Code of Ethics, which can be viewed at icaew,com/en/membership/reauiations-standardsand-quidance/ethics. You agree that we reserve the right to act during and after our engagement for other clients
whose interests are or may be competing with or adverse to yours subject of course to our obligations of
confidentiality and the safeguards set out in the paragraph on confidentiaiity above.
7.0 Data protection
7.1 In this clause the following definitions shall apply;
"Client personal data" means any personal data provided to us by you, or on your behalf, in connection with an
agreement to provide business services pursuant with our engagement letter.
"Data Protection Legislation" means all applicable privacy and data protection legislation and regulations
including PECR, the GDPR and any applicable national laws, regulations and secondary legislation in the UK
relating to the processing of personal data and the privacy of electronic communications, as amended, replaced
or updated from time to time.
"Controller", "data subject", "personal data" and "process" shall have the meanings given to them in the data
protection legislation.
"GDPR" means the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) and
"PECR" means the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2426/2003).
7.2 We shall only process the client personal data:
(i) in order to provide our services to you and perform any other obligations in accordance with our engagement
with you:
(li) in order to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations
(iii) where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests and those interests are not overridden by the
data subjects' own privacy rights. Our privacy notice (available at www.chpaccountants.co.uk/privacv-Dolicv)
contains further details as to how we may collect and process client personal data.
7.3 For the purpose of providing services to you, we may disclose client personal data to regulatory bodies or other
third parties (for example, our professional advisors or service providers). We will only disclose client personal
data to a third party provided that the transfer is undertaken in compliance with the data protection legislation.
7.4 We shall maintain commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures, including administrative, physical
and technical safeguards, to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing of the client personal data and
against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to. the client personal data.
7.5 In respect of the client personal data, provided that we are legally permitted to do so, we shall promptly notify you
in the event that;
(i) we receive a request, complaint or any adverse correspondence from or on behalf of a relevant data subject, to
exercise their data subject rights under the data protection legislation or in respect of our processing of their
personal data;
(ii) we are served with an information, enforcement or assessment notice (or any similar notices), or receive any
other material communication in respect of our processing of the client personal data from a supervisory authority
as defined in the data protection legislation (for example in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Officer); or
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(iii) we reasonably believe that there has been any incident which resulted in the accidental or unauthorised
access to, or destruction, loss, unauthorised disclosure or alteration of, the client personal data.
7.6 Upon the reasonable request of the other, we shall each co-operate with the other and take such reasonable
commercial steps or provide such information as is necessary to enable each of us to comply with the data
protection legislation In respect of the services provided to you in accordance with our engagement letter with you
in relation to those services.
7.7 Should you require any further details regarding our treatment of personal data, please contact our head of
privacy, Mr Timothy Robinson.
7.8 The remaining paragraphs of Section 7 apply to clients who themselves are also data controllers;
7.9 We shall each be considered an independent data controller in relation to the client personal data. Each of us will
comply with all requirements and obligations applicable to us under the data protection legislation in respect of
the client personal data.
7.10 You shall only disclose client personal data to us where:
(i) you have provided the necessary information to the relevant data subjects regarding its use and you may use or
refer to our privacy notice for this purpose:
(ii) you have a lawful basis upon which to do so, which, in the absence of any other lawful basis, shall be with the
relevant data subject's consent; and
(iii) you have complied with the necessary requirements under the data protection legislation to enable you to do
so;and
(iv) you indemnify us against any action from relevant data subjects for personal data incorrectly disclosed to us.
8.0 Disengagement
8.1 Should we resign or be requested to resign we will normally issue a disengagement letter to ensure that our
respective responsibilities are clear. Should we have no contact with you for a period of 3 months or more we
may issue to your last known address a disengagement letter and hence cease to act.
9.0 Electronic and other communication
9.1 Unless you instruct us otherwise, we may, where appropriate, communicate with you and with third parties via
email or by other electronic means. The recipient is responsible for virus checking emails and any attachments.
Our Privacy Notice provides more information in respect of such communications.
9.2 With electronic communication there is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection or
interception by third parties. We use virus-scanning software to reduce the risk of viruses and similar damaging
items being transmitted through emails or electronic storage devices. However electronic communication is not
totally secure and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused by viruses nor for communications
which are corrupted or altered after despatch. Nor can we accept any liability for problems or accidental errors
relating to this means of communication especially in relation to commercially sensitive material. These are risks
you must bear In return for greater efficiency and lower costs. If you do not wish to accept these risks please let
us know and we will communicate by paper mail, other than where electronic submission is mandatory.
9.3 Any communication by us with you sent through the postal system is deemed to arrive at your postal address two
working days after the day that the document was sent.
10.0 Fees and payment terms
10.1 Our fees depend not only upon the time spent on your affairs but also on the level of skill and responsibility and
the importance and value of the advice that we provide, as well as the level of risk.
10.2 If we provide you with an estimate of our fees for any specific work, then the estimate will not be contractually
binding unless we explicitly state that that will be the case. Otherwise our fees will generally be calculated on the
basis of the hours worked by each member of staff necessarily engaged on your affairs multiplied by their cha
