General
HQ Solicitors head office and main practising address is at 153 Dickenson Road, Manchester, M14 5HZ.
Terms of Website Use
These terms and conditions, together with our Privacy Policy (which sets out the terms on which we process any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide us), tells you the terms on which you may make use of our Website www.hqsolicitors.co.uk (our ‘Website’), whether as a guest or a registered user. Use of out website includes accessing, browsing, or registering to use our Website.
Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use our Website. By using our Website, you indicate that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these therms of use, please refrain from using our Website.
References on our Website to HQ Solicitors, ‘HQ’, ‘we’ or ‘our’ mean the Firm. The term ‘Partner’ in relation to the Firm refers to a member of the Firm or to an employee or consultant with equivalent standing and qualification. Our members’ names may be inspected at our registered office.
Our Website is owned and operated by the Firm. For the purpose of these terms, the Firm includes any and all of the Firm’s subsidiary undertakings, co-branded businesses and joint ventures which my exist from time to time.
We take feedback very seriously and are constantly looking for ways to improve our Website. If you have any comments or concerns regarding the information or our Website content generally, or would like to report any misuse of our Website, please contact us.
Accessing our Website
Access to our website is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our Website without notice (see below). We will not be liable if for any reason our Website is unavailable at any time or for any period.
From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of our Website, or the entirety of the Website, to users who have registered with us.
If you are provided with a password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.
When using our Website, you must comply with the provisions of our acceptable use policy.
You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our Website. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our Website through your internet connection are aware of these terms, and that they comply with them.
Intellectual property rights
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our Website, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You must not print off, copy, or in any way download extracts, of any page(s) from our Website.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of material on our Website must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of materials on our Website for commercial purposes without obtaining a license to so so from our licensors.
If you print off, copy or download any part of our website in breach of these terms of use, our right to use any of our Website will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.
Reliance on information posted
Commentary and other materials posted on our Website are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to our Website, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.
Our Website changes regularly
We aim to update our Website regularly, and may change the content at any time. If the need arises, we may suspend access to our Website, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on our Website may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material.
Our liability
The material displayed on our Website is provided without any guarantees, conditions or warranties as to its accuracy. To the extent permitted by law, we and theirs parties connected to us hereby expressly exclude:
- All conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity.
- Any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our Website or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of out Website, any Website linked to it and any materials posted on it, including, without limitation any liability for:
- loss of income or revenue;
- loss of business;
- loss of profits or contracts;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss of data;
- loss of goodwill;
- wasted management or office time; and
- for any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.
This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor out liability for deceit or fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded to limited under applicable law.
The Firm will not be responsible for any breach of these terms caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control.
Our professional indemnity cover
We currently have worldwide professional indemnity cover with a participating insurer. Details of our cover can be provided on request.
Security
The Firm has policies and technical measures in place to safeguard and protect your personal information against unauthorised access, accidental loss, improper use and disclosure. However, neither e-mail not the internet generally are not completely secure and though we will do our best to protect your personal information, the transmission of your data to us is done so at your own risk.
Information about you and your visits to our Websites
We process information about you in accordance with our privacy policy. By using our Website, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.
Uploading material to our Website
Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload material to our Website, or to make contact with other users of our Website, you must comply with the content standards set out in our acceptable use policy. You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you indemnify us for any breach of that warranty.
We have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our Website constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
We will not be responsible, or reliable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any materials posted by you or any other user of our Website. We have the right to remove any material or posting you make on our Website if, in our opinion, such material does not comply with the content standards set out in our acceptable use policy.
Viruses, hacking and other offences
You must not misuse our Website by knowingly introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our Website, the server on which our Website is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our Website. You must not attack our Website via a denial-of-service attack or a distribution denial-of-service attack.
By breaching this provision, you may commit a criminal offence. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, you right to use out Website will cease immediately.
We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our Website or to your downloading of any material posted on them, or on any Website linked to them.
Linking to our Website
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
You must not establish a link from any website that is not owned by you.
Our Website must not be framed on any other website, nor may you create a link to any part of our Website other than the home page. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. The website from which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our acceptable use policy.
If you which to make any use of material on our Website other than that set out above, please contact us.
Links from our Website
Where our Website contain links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources, and accept no responsibilities for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.
Email policy
The views and opinions expressed in any email from the Firm are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Firm.
All information contained in any message or attachments is intended solely for the addressee. It is confidential and may also be legally privileged. If you have received any messages in error, please send them back to us, and immediately and permanently delete all copies. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message and/or any attachment is strictly prohibited.
It is our responsibility to scan for viruses or otherwise check any email and any attachments. All email messages and any attachments are scanned for viruses prior to leaving our network. However, the Firm does not guarantee the security of any message or any attachments and will not be responsible for any damages arising as a result of any virus being passed on or arising from any alteration of any message by a third party.
We may monitor emails sent to and from our network.
If you require verification of the content any any email message and/or attachment, or if you have any questions about this policy or our usage of email, please contact us.
Jurisdiction and applicable law
The English courts will have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from, or related to, a visit to our Website although we retain the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of these conditions in your country of residence or any other relevant country. These terms of use are governed by English Law.
Variations
We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our Website.
If the terms or any part of them should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable under the laws of any other state or country in which the terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent that they are also illegal, invalid or unenforceable, they shall in that state or country be treated as severed and deleted from the terms and the remaining provisions contained within the terms shall survive and remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable in that state or country.
Financial services
We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something does wrong, regulated by Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at www.fca.org.uk/register.
The provision of our legal services may also involve other regulated activities in relation to investments within the meaning of the Financial Services and Markets Acts 2000. Although we are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Act for those regulated activities, we may undertake activities such as arranging and advising which are incidental to our legal services or which may reasonably be regarded as a necessary part of our legal services. In doing so we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We cannot provide advice on the merits of financial products but can assist you to execute decisions which you may have made in relation to financial products.
Your concerns
If there is any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concerns in the first place with the person responsible for your matter. If you still have quires or concerns, we have an internal complaints procedure. In circumstances where you are not satisfied with the outcome of our internal complaints procedure, you may be eligible to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Further details on eligibility and time limits can be found in our complaints handling procedure or on the Legal Ombudsman’s website.
Alternative complaints bodies exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services in circumstances where both you and the Firm agree to use such a scheme. Details of these bodies can be found at the European Commissioner’s online dispute resolution website: http://ec.europa.eu/odr However, in our experience the Legal Ombudsman’s scheme is the most suitable body to deal with any concerns of yours which we are unable to resolve.
We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority under number 637056 and subject to compliance with the SRA Code of Conduct, details of which can be found at www.sra.org.uk.
Thank you for visiting our Website.