Engagement letters

Engagement letters

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Hi all, ACCA member with recenty issued Practicising Certificate here.

I fully agree that Engagement Letters should be issued to all clients to avoid misunderstandings, give protection etc. However is this a matter of best practice as opposed to an actual legal requirement ?

Is it also a requirement of ACCA ?

A Solicitor mentioned to me that if a client owed me money and there was no Letter of Engagement in place, then the client would not have to pay me. Is this correct ?? Doesnt seem right to me.

The Solicitor said to me that in the legal profession no client can owe money to a solicitor if a Letter of Engagement is not in place.

Is it the same in the Accountancy profession ?

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By thomas34
27th Apr 2010 07:29

Letters of Engagement

I think you ought to change your solicitor who clearly didn't study contract law before he passed his exams. I doubt whether your plumber gives you a letter of engagement before he replaces a tap washer and I expect you happily pay him upon completion.

"Best practice" is a term coined by those who think they run the profession and in a perfect world all appointments would be covered by a letter of engagement to cover the less than 1% of potential disputes. I've managed successfully for over 20 years without these documents but do have the advantage of not having anybody overseeing my working practices. This enables me to pass the resulting cost savings on to my clients.

I suspect you'll be stuck with them by virtue of your Association's guidelines and to demonstrate "best practice".

 

 

 

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By User deleted
27th Apr 2010 10:12

Change your solicitor

You need to find a new solicitor pronto! Did you not study Contract Law as part of your ACCA????

Letters of Engagement are only mandatory for Audit Assignments ... by virtue of the Audit Regulations! Letters of Engagement for all other assignments are a matter of best practice. They have never been a legal requirement!

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By cymraeg_draig
27th Apr 2010 10:49

Freebies ?????

Who is your solicitor? I don't have an "engagement letter" with the garage when they service my car - free servicing?

The Institute can't even force you to issue engagement letters, it might be considered "best practice", but it certainly is not a legal requirement (excepting audits).

 

"he Solicitor said to me that in the legal profession no client can owe money to a solicitor if a Letter of Engagement is not in place."   Utter rubbish - again it is considered "best practice" but it is not a legal requirement except where payment is made by legal aid.  

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By User deleted
27th Apr 2010 15:18

Solicitor is correct for the legal profession

Married to a solicitor I know that the solicitor is correct. Maybe not in contract law but the Law Society will not let a solicitor charge without a "client care letter" obviously this only comes to light if someone complains.

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By cymraeg_draig
27th Apr 2010 19:01

Not quite correct

Obviously he isnt working in the criminal courts. Certainly I am not required to provide a letter of engagement, and I'm not aware of any instructing solicitors who do either.

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
27th Apr 2010 19:35

back to commonsense

Given the sort of work you might or might not do for the client and the risk that at sometime in the future there may be a query over what you've done (or not done) and the fee you've charged or are trying to charge, it's daft not to have something in writing to back up what you are prepared to do &, more importantly, what you expect of the client.

My own system for these was pretty weak until my ACCA visit early last year when I was left in no doubt that they view this as essential.  Two things I hadn't thought of was where you deal with husband & wife or personal partners and making sure you get their permission to deal with one on the other's affairs, also to get permission to use email on all correspondence.

So I just devised a few pages with some legal stuff (there are ACCA and other standard letters to crib from) but also with stuff particular to how I operate (ie at the start of the pages) then just emailed it around to every client with my quotes last year.  All I needed was their OK via email reply.

To be honest, it was so easy I wondered why I hadn't done it before.

This year I just concentrated on any new services & changes to circumstances on each client and said all the other stuff was as set out in the previous year.

It might be seen as yet more red-tape but it's only a few pages and I have to say for just the few clients where there's a risk of misunderstanding, it's removed the worry.

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