Terms of engagement

Who you’re dealing with

Landlord Services NW is a compliance consultancy for private landlords and leaseholders, based in Liverpool and run by Damion Robinson. Landlord Services NW Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17472734, registered office 50 Picton Road, Wavertree, Liverpool L15 4LH. Your contract is with that company. You can reach us at info@landlordservicesnw.co.uk. In these terms “we” and “us” mean Landlord Services NW Ltd and “you” means the person or business engaging us.

What we are and aren’t

We’re not a firm of solicitors and we don’t give legal advice. We prepare documents, deal with councils, freeholders, tribunals and other bodies on your behalf, and act as a lay representative where a tribunal permits it. We don’t conduct court proceedings or appear for clients in the magistrates’ court or the county court. For those we prepare documents for you to use yourself, or we refer you to a solicitor. Where a matter needs a solicitor we’ll say so and refer you to one. Nothing we say or write is a guarantee of any outcome.

Act Now Energy Ltd, which carries out surveys and building works, is owned by the same person as Landlord Services NW. Where works are needed we may suggest Act Now Energy and we’ll always say so. You’re free to use anyone else and our fee is the same either way.

How an engagement starts

The first review of the documents you send is free and doesn’t commit either of us. An engagement starts when we’ve sent you a written confirmation of the service, the fixed price and any expected disbursements, you’ve confirmed in writing that you want to go ahead, and payment has arrived. Until all three have happened we haven’t been engaged and aren’t responsible for any deadline.

Fees and payment

Our fees are fixed for the service described in the confirmation and are set out on the fees page. We’re not VAT registered, so no VAT is added. Payment is by bank transfer only, in full, when you confirm the engagement. We don’t accept card payments and we don’t send payment links. Work starts when the transfer has arrived.

Disbursements are fees charged by other bodies, mainly First-tier Tribunal fees and Land Registry fees. They’re charged at cost with no mark-up. We’ll tell you the figure before you have to pay it and pass on the receipt. Where you lodge something yourself, such as a magistrates’ court appeal, you pay that court’s fee direct and we tell you the figure in advance. If a job needs more than the confirmed service covers we’ll tell you and quote a further fixed price before doing more.

You pay a disbursement to us by bank transfer before it falls due, and we pay it on when we submit the application or filing it relates to. Until we’ve paid it on it’s your money, and we return it in full if you cancel. Once we’ve paid it on, we can’t refund it. That applies whether you cancel, you withdraw the application or appeal, or the council, tribunal or court refuses it. Whether that body refunds any of it is decided by its own rules, and if it sends a refund to us we pass it to you in full. None of this affects your rights if a fee is lost because of a mistake we made.

Council licence fees aren't paid through us. For a licence application we set up an account on the council's portal in your name, with your agreement, and prepare the application in it. We then give you the login. You change the password, check the application, make the council's declarations, submit it and pay the council's fee direct by card. The account and the application are yours, and the statements in it are yours to make.

Council licence fees aren’t paid through us. For a licence application we set up an account on the council’s portal in your name, with your agreement, and prepare the application in it. We then give you the login. You change the password, check the application, make the council’s declarations, submit it and pay the council’s fee direct by card. The account and the application are yours, and the statements in it are yours to make.

Cancelling

If you’re a consumer, which broadly means you’re engaging us for reasons outside a trade, business or profession, you have the right under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 to cancel within 14 days after the day the contract is made, without giving a reason. To cancel, email us saying clearly that you want to cancel. You can use this wording if you like. To Landlord Services NW Ltd, 50 Picton Road, Wavertree, Liverpool L15 4LH, info@landlordservicesnw.co.uk. I give notice that I cancel my contract for the supply of the following service. Then give the service, the date you ordered it, your name and address, and the date. If you cancel and we haven’t started, we refund the fee in full within 14 days.

Because most notices carry deadlines inside that 14-day window, we’ll usually ask you to confirm in writing that you want us to start straight away and that you understand you’ll lose the right to cancel once the service has been fully performed. If you do and then cancel, you pay for the proportion of the service supplied up to the point you told us, and we refund the rest. Once the service has been fully performed after that confirmation, the right to cancel has ended and no refund is due.

Business clients don’t have a statutory cancellation right. If a business client withdraws before the service is delivered we’ll refund whatever part of the fee relates to work not yet done, at our reasonable assessment.

What we need from you

Accurate information and documents, given promptly. Deadlines on council notices, tribunal directions and consultation periods are yours, and we can only meet them if we have what we need in time. If you hold information back or give us something inaccurate, we’re not responsible for consequences that flow from that.

Documents we prepare from your information

Where we prepare a document for you, such as a written statement of terms or a tenancy agreement, we prepare it from the information and documents you give us. We don’t check that information against any other source, and you’re responsible for it being complete and correct. We’ll tell you if anything looks wrong on its face. Read every document before you use it and tell us straight away if anything in it is wrong.

A certificate check is a check of the dates and details shown on the copies you send us. It isn’t an inspection of the property and it doesn’t confirm that a certificate is genuine. You give the documents to your tenant and get them signed. We don’t serve documents on tenants for you. Right to rent checks on your tenants are yours to carry out. We don’t carry them out, we don’t accept responsibility for them as your agent, and we don’t hold copies of your tenants’ identity documents.

Liability

We carry out the work with reasonable skill and care. Our total liability to you for any engagement is limited to the fee you paid for it, except for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, or anything else the law doesn’t let us limit. If you’re a consumer, nothing in these terms takes away your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including a repeat of the service or a price reduction where it wasn’t carried out with reasonable care and skill. We’re not liable for the decisions of councils, tribunals, courts, ombudsmen or freeholders, or for losses that arise from a deadline that passed before we were engaged.

Complaints

If something’s gone wrong, email us and say so. We acknowledge complaints within five working days and give a written response within 20 working days. Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights.

General

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. We may update these terms for new engagements. The terms in force when your engagement was confirmed are the ones that apply to it.