1 Introduction
2 About Carr & Co Solicitors
3 Service standards
4 Hours of business
5 People responsible for your work
6 Charges and expenses
7 Payment arrangements
8 Settlement terms
9 Orders for costs
10 Payment by a third party
11 Client accounts
12 Interest on client account balances
13 Monies due to you/from you
14 Storage of papers and documents
15 Financial services and insurance contracts
16 Acting for your lender
17 Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT)
18 Termination
19 Abortive Residential Property Transactions
20 Data Protection/UK GDPR
21 Equality and diversity
22 Communications
23 Identity, disclosure and confidentiality
24 Joint instructions
25 Liability
26 Client care and complaints
27 Cybercrime
28 Fraud prevention
29 Applicable law
This Service Plan and Terms of Business along with the accompanying engagement letter set out our service standards and the terms of business on which we agree to act for you. If you have any questions about any of the information contained herein, please contact the person dealing with your matter. By continuing to instruct this firm we shall be entitled to assume you have agreed to the terms and conditions set out here.
For the purpose of these terms, “we” “our” “us” or “the firm” refers to Carr & Co Solicitors (N.E.) Limited. Your contract is with Carr & Co Solicitors (N.E.) Limited; there is no contract between you and any Director, employee or consultant of the firm. Any advice given to you (or other work done for you) by a Director, employee or consultant of the firm is given (or done) by that person on behalf of the firm and not in his or her individual capacity and no such person assumes any personal responsibility to you for the advice or other work.
Any alteration or variation of the terms set out in this document and the first letter will be made in writing by the person having day to day conduct of your matter, or the Director responsible.
Carr & Co Solicitors (N.E.) Limited, trading as ‘Carr & Co Solicitors’, is a legal practice authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under SRA number 618293. The SRA Standards and Regulations set out the regulatory framework imposed on service providers such as ours. Further information is available on the SRA website at www.sra.org.uk. Our registered office is Arms Evertyne House, Quay Road, Dun Cow Quay, Blyth, Northumberland, NE24 2AS. A list of Directors is available for inspection on request.
We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice with a personal service at a fair cost. As a start, we hope it is helpful to you to set out in this statement the basis on which we will provide our professional services. The firm sets the following standards:
In return, we request that our clients assume the following responsibilities:
The normal hours of opening at our offices are between 9.00am and 5.00pm on weekdays. Appointments can be arranged at other times when this is essential. Please note that there are peak times at this office where it may be difficult to contact the person responsible for your matter. This is generally on a Friday. However, please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as reasonably practical.
The person responsible for dealing with your work and the person responsible for the overall supervision of the matter will be set out in the engagement letter. We will try to avoid changing the people who handle your work but if this cannot be avoided, we will tell you promptly of any change and why it may be necessary.
If you have questions about the up-to-date position or what will happen next in your matter, please contact us and we will let you have an answer either immediately or within a reasonable time. The one point that we ask you to bear in mind is that our time is your money. Therefore, in your own financial interest, unnecessary or lengthy phone calls should be avoided.
You will be issued with a Personal Reference Number. Please quote this number whenever contacting us. This number is personal to you as a client of this firm. It also links other matters that we may have ongoing with you at the same time.
The fee structure applied to our work is dependent on the nature of the matter and will be calculated on either an hourly rate basis or a fixed fee arrangement. Our charging rates are reviewed annually in April and if the matter has not been concluded before the next review, the rates applicable may increase. We will let you know our new rates as soon as they have been set.
Any charging rates shown, unless stated otherwise, do not include VAT which will be added to the bill at the rate applicable when the bill is rendered.
If we have agreed a fixed fee for work on your matter, the arrangements will be set out in the engagement letter. Provided we are not requested to do any more work than when that fixed fee was agreed, we will not make any additional charge.
However, we reserve the right to make an additional charge in the event that the matter becomes more complex or lengthier than originally estimated. This would entail either increasing our fee estimate or charging at an hourly rate for the additional work involved. In the latter case we would try and give you our best estimate of the likely additional cost or, where this is not possible, we would obtain your authority to carry out work to an agreed fee limit.
On hourly rates matters, our charges will be calculated by reference to the time spent by legal and executive staff dealing with your matter.
We will charge you the amount specified in the engagement letter per hour for each hour engaged on your matter from now until the annual review date. Routine letters that we write, and routine telephone calls that we make and receive will be charged as units of 1/12th of an hour. Routine letters received and other letters and calls and time spent on the file will be charged on a time basis either as preparation/consideration or attendance. Travel times will also be chargeable unless otherwise stated.
If your instructions mean that we have to work outside normal office hours we reserve the right to increase the level of the hourly rate. You will however be notified in writing of any increased rate. In addition, to this time spent, we may take into account the number of factors which include the complexity of the issues, the speed at which action must be taken, the expertise or specialist knowledge that the case requires and, if appropriate, the value of the property or subject matter involved.
On the basis of the information currently available we expect these factors to be adequately covered by the hourly rates stipulated in our client care letter to you. The rates may be higher if, for example, the matter becomes more complex than expected: – we will notify you of this. If you do have any queries about the level of any revised rates notified to you, then please contact us straight away.
In a matter where the charges for the work instructed are variable, an estimate or series of estimates of the anticipated total charges will need to be given. You can at any time set a limit to the costs to be incurred. We would then need to discuss with you the up-to-date position, review the further work required and obtain your authorisation to an extension of the costs limit before we could incur charges beyond the limit set. An initial estimate of the hours to be spent on your matter including letters and telephone calls will be provided in the engagement letter.
Please bear in mind that any time and charge estimates can be affected in numerous ways beyond our knowledge and control. We will inform you if any unseen additional work becomes necessary (for example, due to unexpected difficulties or if your requirements or the circumstances significantly change during the course of the latter). We will also inform you of its estimated cost in writing before any extra charges and expenses are incurred.
Disbursements are payments that are made to third parties and are in addition to the costs plus VAT. The disbursements which we anticipate incurring in your matter are listed in the “Disbursements” section of the first letter. If it becomes apparent that additional disbursements will be involved, we will let you know. Examples of disbursements are Court fees, fees for Medical Reports and Barrister’s fees, Search fees and Registration fees which you will have to pay. Unless otherwise stated we will require payment of the disbursement sum from you as and when they arise. Please note we cannot accept payment of disbursements by credit card.
We require costs to be paid in one of the following ways:
Please note this facility ends on submission of final account when any balance will be due within seven days.
If we have agreed to act under a Conditional Fee Agreement, payment is due upon successful completion of your matter.
The method of payment agreed with yourself will be set out in the engagement letter. We accept payment by:
In property transactions we will normally send you a bill following the exchange of contracts and payment is required on a purchase prior to completion, and at completion on a sale. If sufficient funds are available on completion, and we have sent you a bill, we will deduct our charges and expenses from the funds.
On administration of estates matters, we will normally submit an interim bill at regular stages during the administration, usually starting with the obtaining of a Grant. The final account will be prepared when the Estate Accounts are ready for approval.
It is the practice of the firm to deliver interim statute bills. This is a bill which covers a defined period of work or instructions. A final bill for work done to date, or at the conclusion of the matter, or whether either ourselves or yourselves terminate the retainer or in any event on a quarterly or lesser basis agreed between us.
Please note that any interim bill will be the only and final bill for charges and expenses incurred during that period and for the work specified in that bill. We expressly reserve the right to cease acting if payment is requested and not made in respect of interim accounts. If you have any issue with the bill raised, please refer to the ‘Client care and complaints’ section.
Bills are to be settled within 7 days unless otherwise directly agreed and in writing with the partner in charge of the department.
Interest is charged on bills that are not paid within 28 days at a rate of 15% per annum (accruing on a daily basis) from the date of the invoice. If no payment is received after 30 days of issue of account we shall institute recovery action and reserve the right to cease to further act on your behalf.
You are personally responsible for payment of our bill of costs regardless of any Order for costs made against the opponent. It is important for you to understand this point, particularly in the situation where the opponent is financially unable to pay the Order for costs or can pay over a period of time.
It is never possible to predict precisely the outcome of a case in relation to costs. This is because the award of costs is in the discretion of the Court. The award of costs and even if you win your case is subject to three qualifications:
In any civil litigation matter careful consideration needs to be given both at the outset and throughout as to whether the likely outcome will justify the expense and /or risk involved.
You may be covered by legal costs insurance, so that our charges may not be paid from this source whether you are successful or not. Your opponent may have insurance cover, so that in the event of an agreed settlement or a court judgement in your favour, the insurance company will pay our charges.
In the first situation, any terms and conditions of the legal costs insurance need to be considered and observed to ensure that our charges are covered. In the second situation, the payment by the insurance company may not cover all our charges and disbursements. For example, the insurance company may not be prepared to pay for any work carried out in connection with an application for legal aid and/or certificate or for any disbursement paid for a report or other document which is not used.
Any money received on your behalf will be held in our client account. Please note that if we do hold any of your money at any point we will take good care of it and we only bank with UK banks. We are unlikely however to be liable to repay money lost through a banking failure.
Monies held in our bank’s client account will have the same protection (up to £85,000) under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) as if you held the money in that bank personally. If you hold other personal monies in that same bank you should note that the limit of £85,000 remains the same in total. You also need to be aware that some deposit taking institutions/banks have several brands, i.e. where the same institution is trading under different names. You should check either with your bank, the Financial Conduct Authority or a financial adviser for more information. If we do have to make a claim under the FSCS in respect of your money we will, subject to your consent, need to give certain information to the FSCS about you to help them identify you and any amount to which you would be entitled within our client account. Further details are available at www.fscs.org.uk.
Where a client obtains borrowing from a lender in a property transaction, we will ask the lender to arrange that the loan is telegraphed, the day before completion. This will enable us to ensure that the necessary funds are available in time for completion. Such clients need to be aware that the lender may charge interest from the date of the telegraphing of the payment.
Our Policy is that whilst monies are held by us on your behalf, interest will be paid to you at a reasonable and fair rate where interest is payable by the Bank to ourselves, this being at a rate of 0.5% less than the rate that we receive and also as follows:
We would remind you the rate of interest payable on client or Trust account is likely to be significantly less than that if you or the Trust held the funds themselves and invested it themselves.
Please note that all cheques received require six working days to clear though our bank. When making payment to you during or at the conclusion of the matter payment will be by bank transfer (please note admin charges of £25.00 plus VAT at 20% of £5.00 = £30.00 will be deducted from any balance due to you). Please ensure that the person responsible for your matter has in writing from you your bank details namely, name and address of your bank, sort code, our account name/number. We do not accept details by email or over the phone.
Should we issue a cheque in settlement, please note if it is not presented within 6 months of the date of issue then the cheque will be cancelled and an administrative charge of £40.00 incl. VAT will be levied from the balance of the funds held.
At the end of a transaction there may be a small residual balance due to you. We will make reasonable efforts to contact you to return the money to you. If you fail to respond to our correspondence, and where permitted by our regulatory authority, we reserve the right to pay such sums to a charity of our choice. . If a balance is held for more than 12 months and is in excess of £500.00, we then have the right to request the Solicitors Regulation Authority to allow us to send the balance to an authorised charity recognised by them.
After completing the work, we are entitled to keep all of your papers and documents whilst there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. Upon payment of your account your file of papers will be closed and after 21 days destroyed. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody.
A digital copy of your file will be retained by us for a period of ten years. If we retrieve your digital file in relation to new instructions to act on your behalf we will not normally charge for such retrieval.
However, we may make a charge based on the time spent producing copies of papers or documents to you or another at your request. Please note that your prior written request and authority is needed for release of your file of papers or production of stored papers or documents to you or another person.
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). However, we are included on the register maintained by the FCA so that we can carry on insurance distribution activity or financial matters closely connected to legal services. An insurance distribution activity is, broadly, the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The register can be accessed via the FCA website at www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.
In property matters, where we may arrange property-related indemnity policies, this will be done on a ‘Demands and Needs’ basis as this type of insurance often needs to be arranged quickly, is usually at fairly modest cost and we would not investigate the market by obtaining several different quotations for such insurance but proceed with our recommended brokers.
Please note that in some Conveyancing transactions, we will also be acting for your mortgage lender. As they will also be a client of this firm, we have a duty to make full disclosure to the lender of all relevant facts relating to you, your purchase and mortgage. This will include disclosure of any discrepancies between the mortgage and application and information provided to us during the transaction and any cashback payments or discount schemes which a seller is providing you. If a conflict arises between our duties to you and our duties to the lender client, we must cease to act for you.
On some property and business transactions, we will need to submit an online Stamp Duty Land Tax Return on your behalf. Your continued instructions to us is your consent to this.
The SDLT Return is a complex document and we must have all the information necessary to complete the Return and have it signed or approved by you in advance of exchange of contracts. It is your responsibility to provide the correct information to be inserted into the Return. If the information is incomplete or incorrect, you could be subject to penalties, delays in the processing of the Return and difficulties with the registration of the transfer at the Land Registry. In serious cases, you could be subject to prosecution.
When calculating SDLT we use the SDLT calculator on the Government’s website. This computes the SDLT for most transactions. Please see www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax. We will do our best to ensure that you do not overpay or underpay SDLT. We can do this for most of our clients if you have provided us with the correct information to input into the calculator. The rules in relation to SDLT are complex. Because we are not tax advisers, we may not be able to offer advice on transactions that are outside the scope of the calculator. This means, for example, property owned as part of a trust or reliefs that may be applicable, other than First Time Buyer relief.
You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time but we will still be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses. If at any stage you do not wish us to continue doing work and/or incurring charges and expenses on your behalf, you must tell us this clearly in writing. We may only decide to stop acting for you if we have good reason, for example, if you do not pay an interim bill, fail to provide us with instructions or if a conflict of interest arises. We will tell you the reason and give you notice in writing.
If, for any reason, this matter does not proceed to completion, we will be entitled to charge you for any work done and expenses incurred. If your case is chargeable under an hourly rates arrangement then these costs will be calculated based on the time spent plus expenses incurred up to the date of termination. On fixed fee arrangements, we will break the transaction down into stages and apportion the estimated fee for each stage. You will also be responsible for reimbursing any expenses incurred by us that were not included within the fixed price agreed. Please refer to the ‘Abortive Residential Property Transactions’ section below for the specific arrangements that apply on residential conveyancing matters.
Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. This only applies where contracts are agreed away from our premises or where we are not both physically present. To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or e-mail).
To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired. If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse to you any payments received from you.
If we reasonably consider that the matter is urgent and that to protect you we need to start our work immediately, and then you exercise your right to cancel, we are entitled to be paid for the work we have done.
Some residential property transactions do not reach a conclusion for numerous reasons. We reserve the right to charge an abortive fee which will represent a pro-rata payment of the quoted fixed fee or the hourly charges up to the point of cessation of work in accordance with the rate quoted. This shall be subject to a minimum charge of £50.00 plus VAT to cover the administrative costs of opening the file and subsequent storage commitments required. All disbursements and expenses incurred by us must be payable by you in any event.
As a general guide (as each case will be different) if the matter aborts before the receipt/preparation of draft contracts, then our fee is likely to be 30% of the total of the other fees quoted that would have been payable had the matter proceeded to completion; if the matter aborts once contracts are received/issued, then 65% of the total of the other fees quoted that would have been payable had the matter proceeded to completion; and if the matter aborts after a contract report letter is prepared to you with the papers for signature, then 90% of the total of the other fees quoted that would have been payable had the matter proceeded to completion.
We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including updating and enhancing client records, analysis to help us manage our practice, statutory returns and legal/regulatory compliance. Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, data protection law and our duty of confidentiality.
Please note that our work for you may require us to pass on such information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers who may in turn pass on information in accordance with their requirements and regulations, including sometimes advisers appointed by another party to your matter. We may also give such information to others who perform services for us, such as typing or photocopying. Our practice may be audited or checked by our accountants or our regulator, or by other organisations. We do not normally copy such information to anyone outside the European Economic Area, however we may do so when the particular circumstances of your matter so require. All such third parties are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.
You have a right of access under data protection law to the personal data that we hold about you. We seek to keep that personal data correct and up to date. You should let us know if you believe the information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated. The person in the firm with overall responsibility for data protection compliance is our Data Protection Manager, Denise Arnott, who is based at our Blyth office. The firm is registered with the Information Commissioner. Further information regarding data protection and privacy is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office www.ico.org.uk.
Under the UK GDPR regulations you, as a data subject, have a number of rights. These include the right to be informed, the right of access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restrict processing, the right to data portability and the right to object. Further information about these rights is set out on the ICO website referred to above and on our website at https://www.carrandcosolicitors.com/privacy-policy/.
We may receive personal data from you for the purposes of our money laundering checks, such as a copy of your passport. These will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, or as otherwise permitted by law or with your express consent. You consent to us retaining such data for longer than the five-year statutory period, unless you tell us otherwise.
If you send us personal data about anyone other than yourself, you must ensure you have any appropriate consents and notices in place to enable you to transfer that personal data to us and so that we may use it for the purposes for which you provide it to us.
It is our policy to record incoming and outgoing telephone calls to help improve the services that we provide and for the protection of our clients. Such call recording will be conducted strictly in accordance with data protection laws. All call data will be securely stored in encrypted form and delated after 30 days. For further details please see the Call Recording Policy on our website www.carrandcosolicitors.com.
We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our Equality and Diversity Policy.
We shall communicate with you in the most effective way, as agreed between us. You should be aware that the use of e-mail is not secure for confidential matters. We take every precaution to ensure that e-mail is virus free, but we cannot guarantee this. If you require correspondence to be addressed to a particular person or marked private and confidential then you must tell us.
The law requires solicitors to get satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their client can be used by criminals wanting to launder money. To comply with the law, we need to get evidence of your identity as soon as possible. If you cannot provide us with the specific identification requested, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss other ways to verify your identity.
We are entitled to refuse to act for you if you fail to supply appropriate proof of identity for yourself or for any principal whom you may represent. We may arrange to carry out an electronic verification of your identity if we consider that a saving of time and cost will be achieved by doing so. The cost of such verification will be charged to you.
Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of the client confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the National Crime Agency (NCA). Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the solicitor may be required to make a disclosure. If, while we are acting for you, it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure, we may not be able to inform you that it has been made, or of the reasons for it, because the law prohibits ‘tipping-off’. Where the law permits us, we will tell you about any potential money laundering problem and explain what action we may need to take.
External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files. We may need to disclose your information to third parties (such as barristers, accountants or government agencies) to enable us to handle your affairs. We may also need to permit third parties (such as our auditors and the Solicitors Regulation Authority) to have access to your information for administrative or regulatory purposes. We may also outsource work. This might be for example costings, research and preparation to assist with your matter.
Information from your file may therefore be made available in such circumstances. We will always aim to obtain a confidentiality agreement with the third party. We will not otherwise disclose your information to any third party unless permitted or required to do so by law. If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.
If we are instructed by more than one person or more than one representative of a company or other body, which is our client, we are entitled to act on the instructions of any one of such persons and to correspond with any of such persons unless otherwise agreed. In this situation there will be no rights of confidentiality between such persons or representatives so that all information and documents can be shared with any one of you. If there is a difference of opinion on your instructions you may need to be separately represented and if a conflict of interest arises between you or your representatives, we may have to cease acting for both or all such persons or companies.
Where our engagement letter is addressed to more than one person, or where we have agreed with the addressee of our engagement letter to act for another person as well, each of you shall be jointly and severally liable for our fees and disbursements and other costs, so that each of you is jointly responsible for ensuring that our bill is paid, and we can pursue all or any one of you for the whole amount that is due to us. This shall be the case regardless of any agreement you may have entered into with anyone else regarding the payment of our fees, disbursements, and other costs.
Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions shall be limited to £3,000,000.00 unless we expressly state a higher amount in the letter accompanying these terms of business. We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profits or opportunities. We can only limit our liability to the extent the law allows. In particular, we cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need our clients to tell us about it. This will help improve our standards. Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your case to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you.
If you wish to raise a formal complaint about the service you have received, or about the bill, please contact us by telephone on 01670 351 251, by post to our office at Arms Evertyne House, Quay Road, Blyth, Northumberland, NE24 2AS, or by email to hello@carrandcosolicitors.com.
Our Complaints handling policy can be found on our website www.carrandcosolicitors.com
If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider it at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH, telephone number 0300 555 0333. Normally you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months from our final response to the complaint and no more than one year from the date of the act or omission complained of, or no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you if you are concerned about a solicitor’s behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. See www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor for further information.
Cybercrime, particularly email-related fraud, is a major threat particularly in property transactions. You should be alert to the possibility that a fraudster might deliberately misrepresent himself or herself as a member of, or as someone acting on behalf of, or working with our firm for criminal purposes. Such scams normally originate by email. Often the email will suggest there has been a change in bank details or request personal or financial information in order that money can be paid to them.
Please note, our bank details will not change during the course of acting for you. We do not provide our bank details to clients by email. If you receive an email asking you to pay money into an account other than our client bank account, please contact the person dealing with your matter immediately and in no circumstances action the request. Prior to transferring funds to our account, we recommend you contact us to verify our account details. Please be aware that we will not accept responsibility if you transfer money to an incorrect bank account having failed to follow the above precautions.
We do not accept bank details by email. If we receive any communication from you informing us of a change to your account details or instructions for payment, we will not make any payment until such time as we have been able to confirm those instructions directly with you.
Please note we will not be liable for any losses incurred by you resulting from any fraudulent misrepresentation (especially relating to property ownership or identity) by a seller to the seller’s solicitors/conveyancer. We will rely upon the seller’s solicitor/conveyancers complying with their duty to identify the seller. If you have any concerns about the identity of the seller or any suspicions of fraud you must advise us immediately. Properties that are tenanted, empty are of higher value or are mortgage free and where the seller is not buying on are at higher risk of fraud.
These terms of business are governed and construed in accordance with English law and the English Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all or any dispute which arises out of or in connection with them and/or in respect of any matter on which the Company is engaged pursuant to them.
Please note: Our Gosforth office has now closed. This is not sad news as we have expanded our presence in our offices we have in the Northumberland area. Our office addresses and contact details for Blyth and Morpeth are on our contact us page. We look forward to seeing you at our Northumberland offices soon.
