Invoicing & Trust Monies
Invoicing – Notification of Client’s Rights
Section 192 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (WA) provides that every invoice must be accompanied by a written statement setting out a client’s avenue to dispute an invoice and the time limits that apply to that dispute.
A copy of Visa Sidekick’s Notification of Client’s Rights may be found below.
This applies to legal costs only. Certain services and products offered by Visa Sidekick are not legal services, such as eBooks and our Document Cleaning Service. Non legal offerings are specified as such on their product/info pages on our website.
Notice of Withdrawal of trust money
If money has been paid to Visa Sidekick’s trust account for you, we hereby notify you that we will withdraw money from the trust and apply it towards payment of our legal costs that are owed, in accordance with the relevant legal profession regulations and any cost agreement entered into for your matter.
Notification of client’s rights
You may request an itemized bill from us after receiving a bill that is not itemized or is partially itemized within 60 days after that bill was given to you.
In the event of a dispute in relation to legal costs you may:
seek assistance of the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia (LPBWA);
have the costs assessed.
A complaint to the LPBWA, in relation to this bill, must be made within the required period of 60 days after the legal costs become payable or if an itemized bill was requested, 30 days after that request was complied with. The LPBWA may waive the time requirement if satisfied that the complaint is made within 4 months after the required period and it is just and fair to deal with the complaint, having regard to delay and reasons for delay.
An application for costs assessment must be made within 12 months after:
(a) the bill was given to you, or the request for payment was made to you, the third party payer or other law practice; or
(b) the legal costs were paid if neither a bill nor request was made.
We may give you an interim bill covering only part of the legal services we were retained to provide. Legal costs that are the subject of an interim bill may be assessed either at the time of the interim bill or at the time of the final bill, whether or not the interim bill has previously been assessed or paid.
If this is a lump sum bill and you request an itemised bill, which exceeds the amount specified in this lump sum bill, the additional costs may be recovered from you only if the costs are determined to be payable after a costs assessment or after a binding determination by the LPBWA.
Interest
Interest will be charged on unpaid legal costs in accordance with the terms of our costs agreement. Should the costs agreement not deal with the charging of interest, we will charge interest on legal costs which remain unpaid 30 days after giving you this bill, in accordance with the Legal Profession Uniform Law (WA). The rate of interest is the Cash Rate Target stipulated by the Reserve Bank of Australia as at the date of this bill plus 2%.
Trust funds
If money is held in trust on your behalf, it is intended that we will withdraw the above amount from money held in your trust ledger either at the expiration of 7 business days from the date of this invoice, unless an objection is received; or sooner should a cost agreement for your matter allow it.
Third Party Payers
The Uniform Law defines third party payers and differentiates between associated and non-associated third party payers.
A third party payer is not a client and is someone who has a legal obligation to pay legal fees. An associated third party payer is obliged to the law firm to pay legal fees. This can be a party named in the costs agreement
A non-associated third party payer is a party whose obligation to pay legal costs is to the client and not the law firm. This could be an employer where they are not the client but they have an obligation to pay legal fees.
Both associated and non-associated third party payers may make a consumer matter complaint and a costs dispute.
Chloe White
Director
hello@visasidekick.com.au
As from 1 July 2022