Terms & Conditions

1. Principles Governing our Services to You

 

Zabulis Legal is a trading name of Vincentas Zabulis, an SRA regulated freelance solicitor (England & Wales), authorised by the Solicitor Regulation Authority; and “Attorney at law Vincentas Zabulis”, a law firm in Lithuania (EU), registered with the Local Bar Association (further ‘Law practice’ or ‘We’). In Lithuania (EU), we provide legal services under the association agreement with attorney-at-law Giedrius Abromavicius ALAW.

 

Solicitors or attorneys of the jurisdiction where the Law practice is registered provide legal services under the Engagement Letter or Debt Collection Agreement. Any reserved legal services are provided by the law firm The list of solicitors, attorneys and associates can be found on our website at www.zabulislegal.com.

 

We provide legal advice and UK & International debt collection services. We want to give you the very best legal advice, M&A legal advice, business debt recovery, Financial services law, Company and Commercial law and other legal  services.

 

When we advise on English law, it gives you assurance and confidence because of the 7 Principles which the SRA’s Standards and Regulations imposes on us. They are:

1. Act in a way that upholds the constitutional principle of the rule of law, and the proper administration of justice.

2. Act in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the solicitor’ profession and in legal services provided by authorised persons.

3. Act with independence.

4. Act with honesty.

5. Act with integrity.

6. Act in a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion.

7. Act in the best interests of each client.

 

When we advise on Lithuanian or European law, we adhere to the rules and regulations of the Local Bar Association.

 

We aim for the very highest standards and give clients an excellent personal service. We treat everyone fairly with respect and courtesy. This includes clients, service suppliers, debtors and their representatives, court staff and anyone else we deal with.

2. What We Do

Our job is:

• to identify your objectives;

• to advise you clearly on the issues involved;

• to advise you on ways of achieving those objectives and on appropriate courses of action;

• to carry out the job as quickly as possible;

• to ensure you are aware of what is happening at all times;

• to do our best to ensure the outcome is in line with your objectives.
For the time being we are only allowed to provide certain legal services. We will tell you before we accept your formal instructions, whether we can proceed with legal advice to you on a case by case basis.

​

3. What are Your responsibilities

 

Successful provision of legal services is a partnership between a client and lawyer. We ask every Client to provide instructions, information or documents promptly and without the need for us to ‘chase’ a Client. Our costs estimates will be based on Clients doing this. If Client does not comply, costs will go up and Client‘s chances of getting a good result will go down.

We recommend that before Client takes legal action they make credit and status checks on the debtor. We also recommend that Clients make these checks at regular intervals during  debt recovery proceedings and before incurring any steps which will incur significant costs.

4. Our Services

 

We commence providing legal services only once we receive formal instructions from you and a signed Engagement Letter/Debt Collection Agreement. Engagement Letter or Debt Collection Agreement sets the detailed terms and conditions for an assignment and how it is to be carried out.

 

As a trust or company service provider (TCSP) we may provide such services as:

1.     forming companies or other bodies corporate.

2.     acting as a Director or Secretary of a company under an arrangement with a person other than the company.

3.     arranging for another person to act as a Director or Secretary of a company.

4.     acting, or arranging for a person to act as a partner of a partnership.

5.     providing a registered office, business address, correspondence or administrative address or other related services for a body corporate or partnership.

6.     acting, or arranging for another person to act, as a trustee of a trust.

7.     acting, or arranging for another person to act, as a nominee shareholder for a person other than a company whose securities are listed on a regulated market.

 

As TCSP, we will require that you provide applicable KYC/AML forms, and a photocopy ID of a Client and (or) their representative. The forms may also include normal check of ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the Client if you engage us for TCSP services.

 

We are only allowed to provide certain legal services as an SRA regulated freelance. We will tell you before we accept your instructions, whether we can provide legal advice to you. You hereby authorize us to appoint on your behalf third parties: e.g. lawyers ('Third Party') to provide parts of the services to you, We will not start any legal action, initiate any insolvency procedure, approve any final settlement without prior approval from you.

 

We will normally reply to letters, emails and messages within one-two days of your communication. When we are unavailable to take your telephone call, we will ring you back when we are available. It may take longer to reply to letter than email. We do not accept or send fax.

​

5. Recovering Costs/Paying Others’ Costs

 

You are responsible for paying our invoices, regardless of any costs orders made against someone else. If you win, the court will normally award you costs. It is very rare for the costs order to cover more than two-thirds of your actual costs.

If the case, or an application, is not successful, you may be ordered to pay your opponent’s costs in addition to our charges and expenses.

6. Complaints

 

We take every complaint about our services seriously. We promise to listen to you carefully and sympathetically if you have a complaint. We treat all client feedback seriously and it is considered as an opportunity to improve our client care. Person responsible for handling complaints is Vincentas Zabulis. We will investigate the complaint depending on our availability, and aim to provide you with a decision within 30 days.

 

You have the right to challenge our invoices. You have 1 month in which to challenge an invoice and, if necessary, ask the court to assess it. The court will only order assessment of the costs in special circumstances once the invoice has been paid if more than 12 months have passed since it was delivered or we have obtained a judgment. The court will not order assessment more than 12 months after the invoice has been paid.

If at the end of my procedures you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint on 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or write to PO BOX 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.

​

7. Our Prices

 

We charge on a time basis and will give you appropriate estimates of costs for our legal services. Our prices will be set in an Engagement Letter/Debt Collection Agreement depending on the complexity of the case or assignment, expected time volume and other factors. We record time as the work is being done. Routine letters, emails and telephone or conference calls may be charged as 6-minute units. We are always happy to provide copies of detailed time records if requested.

 

You may wish to set a limit on the charges and expenses to be incurred. If you do, we may do work up to the limit without referring to you. If more work is needed, we will let you know.

 

We re entitled to change agreed hourly fee rates unilaterally upon at least 30 calendar day prior notice. If you do not accept the new hourly fee rates, you may elect to terminate the Engagement Letter/Debt Collection Agreement. If you do not inform us of termination within 30 calendar days, the new rates shall apply.

 

Our debt collection service is charged on a „No collection – No Commission“ basis. Our commission charge is 10% on any sum paid towards the debt, and 14% for debts that are older than 6 months (calculated from the first invoice issued), subject to a minimum charge of £50.  If we do not collect anything, you do not pay anything. Where litigation has previously commenced through a third party other than us please contact us for a quote on commission rates as these will vary.

 

You can find detailed fees for UK and International debt recovery services on our website.

​

8. Invoices and Payment Terms

 

We will invoice you at the end of each month for work done in that month. We may invoice you at more frequent intervals. Each invoice will be a final bill in respect of the items included in it. We may ask for a retainer or payment of disbursements in advance or reasonable payments on account of future costs.

All invoices must be paid within 15 days of the date of invoice. If for any reason an invoice is unpaid at the expiry of the credit period of 15 days we may:

• exercise our statutory right to claim interest and compensation under the Late Payment legislation.

• invoice you for work done or disbursements paid on your behalf but not yet billed.

• immediately claim payment of all invoices despatched including those within the credit period.

• suspend the supply of services to you. If suspension occurs, no further work will be carried out for you until all invoices have been paid and we have sufficient funds from you on account to cover the likely costs of future work.

• be paid our legal costs on an indemnity basis i.e. the full costs of legal action against you. If we do any of the work ourselves, we are entitled to be paid on an indemnity basis for the time spent at my normal hourly rates.

• exercise a lien i.e. a legitimate ‘hold’ over any money, property or goods held by us now or in the future and nett off our invoices when raised.

• exercise our rights to collect any debts you owe us, including by using services of third parties, and transfer your personal data, to which you consent by engaging us to provide our services to you;

 

We only accept payments by bank transfer to our account which we will notify you upon signing of an Engagement Letter/Debt Collection Agreement. We do not generally accept cash.

Please note that a £25 correspondence fee may be charged if the debtor makes a contact with us.

​

9. Ending Our Relationship

 

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time.

We may decide to stop acting for you but only with good reason. Examples of this would be non-payment of one of our invoices within the credit period, failure to comply with our request for a payment on account or failure to give acceptable, temperate or viable instructions. In the situation where a client uses unacceptable language or threatens violence towards us or any of our members of staff, we reserve the right to terminate the business relationship.

You will be responsible for payment of all costs and liabilities we incur.

​

10. Other Legal Matters

Handling Money

Law practice operates a client account in Lithuania (EU) and can hold clients funds in Euros. We do not currently operate a client account in the UK and cannot hold clients funds unless those funds are on account of our own fees or they are a disbursement payable by us on our client‘s behalf (eg. costs and expenses). In the event that we hold your funds in these limited circumstances they will be held at our business account separately from our practice funds and will be always accounted for.

In other circumstances and when it is necessary to fulfill your assignment we may instruct and use a third party managed account (TPMA) in accordance with the SRA rules. In such an event, we will notify you separately in an Engagement Letter/Debt Collection Agreement or written correspondence between us.

Money Laundering

 

We are a trust or company service provider (TCSP) and Vincentas Zabulis is nominated as compliance officer and reporting officer of our business by the SRA and Local Bar Association. We adhere to anti Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR) and/or Local Bar Association regulations. We will do standard AML/KYC checks on Client and their ultimate beneficial owners before we commence our business relationship, including ID checks. During provision of TCSP legal services, we are obliged to monitor clients for AML compliance purposes.

Credit Check

From time to time we may make a search of a credit reference agency for the purpose of assessing your credit standing. The agency will keep a record of that search. We will monitor and record in a secure IT cloud information we receive about you, or your payment performance with us.

Data Protection & Privacy

We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal or debt collection services to you and for related purposes. Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018 General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as auditors, expert witnesses and other professional advisers. We may from time to time send you information that we think might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive that information please unsubscribe or notify us in writing. Law practice Data Protection Officer is Vincentas Zabulis. For further information please read our Privacy Policy, which is found here. 

Documents

All routine emails and letters are scanned and stored electronically by us for a minimum of 6 years. The originals are securely destroyed after one year. If you require documents to be held by us or returned to you, please ensure you request this in writing when sending them to us. We use secure data cloud and appropriate IT systems to store your data and our files.

Auditing and Vetting of Files

External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice from time to time. They may wish to audit/quality check your file and related papers for this purpose. It is a specific requirement imposed by us that these external firms or organisations fully maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited/quality checked by them. Your files may also be revealed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business, the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new business. If you do not wish your file to be used in this way, please let us know as soon as possible.

Jurisdiction, Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

 

These terms and conditions and any act or contract to which they apply shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction where the Law practice is registered.

 

In the event of the Engagement letter/Debt Collection Agreement with Vincentas Zabulis t/a as ‘Zabulis Legal’, an SRA regulated freelance: any dispute arising out of any act or contract to which these conditions apply shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales.

 

In the event of the Engagement letter/Debt Collection Agreement with Advokatas Vincentas Zabulis – Zabulis Legal (Lithuania): dispute arising out of any act or contract to which these conditions apply where principal monetary claim is less than EUR 50,000.00 shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent court in Vilnius, Lithuania. Disputes where principal monetary claim is over EUR 50,000 shall be settled by Vilnius Court of Commercial Arbitration in accordance with its Rules. The number of arbitrators shall be one.  The venue of arbitration shall be Vilnius, Lithuania. The language of the arbitration shall be English.

 

Law practice may amend these Terms and Conditions at any time, publishing the amended version on its website www.zabulislegal.com without prior notice to clients.

​

Revised: 02/08/2022