About our client portal

Communication

The majority of our communications will be sent to you via the portal, and you will receive an email (or sometimes a text) each time a message or document is issued that requires your attention.

If we are instructed by more than one of you in relation to a joint transaction, the portal account will be registered to a single email address, and we will trust and assume the following:

• that you have the authority of all joint clients to send or receive communications on behalf of all of you; and
• that you will share with all joint clients the content of those communications.

Paperless working

Please note that, because you are instructing us in this way, we will be operating a paperless file for your transaction.

This means that:

• we will keep an electronic copy of any documents relating to your transaction, rather than keeping a physical copy of everything on a paper file
• we will not normally keep paper copies of any letters, emails or documents that we generate
• we will encourage the use of paperless communication where possible
• incoming mail will generally be converted into digital format.
• we will send you electronic letters and documents in most cases, rather than sending you documents through the post
• we will normally only need originals of certain legal documents
• we prefer to receive electronic communications and copies of documents from you (in most cases) and where possible we will provide an upload function in the portal.

Legally, there are still a few documents that will need to be physically signed by you. This currently includes your contract, a transfer deed and a mortgage deed, where applicable. These documents will still be sent to you via the portal, but you will need to print them and sign them in the usual way. Specific instructions will be provided at the relevant time. If you do not have printing facilities, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can make alternative arrangements.

We are keen to move towards a fully paperless transaction, and will be making the necessary changes to allow legal documents to be electronically signed, as soon as this becomes a possibility.

You should also be aware that, whilst we can accept copies of many documents from you, in some cases we will still need you to send originals in the post e.g. original title deeds.

We do not intend to keep any paper once it is no longer necessary.

Our agreement with you permits us to destroy all paper letters and documents we receive as long as we have digital copies. If you send us any paper document, but require it to be returned, you must inform us in writing at the same time as you send it to us.

General requests that are inconsistent with our paperless working may result in us terminating the retainer or agreeing an additional charge, but we will first discuss the situation with you.

After the work is completed, we will not normally retain any paper file. Please see our Terms of Business for detailed information about the availability of copies of documents.