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Legal and Regulatory Information

For any enquiries or concerns regarding this site, please contact us at info@barrco.org.uk

Company Information

BarrCo Limited is a solicitors’ practice in the United Kingdom operated by Margaret-Anne Trench, director and registered solicitor.

 

BarrCo Solicitors is the trading name of BarrCo Limited.

 

BarrCo Limited is a registered Company in England and Wales, Company number 7346373.

 

VAT registration number 941172441.

 

Registered address: 20 Green Lane, Lower Kingswood, Surrey, KT20 6TB.

Terms of Business

The Law Society is the representative body for solicitors and has professional rules which require all solicitors to inform their clients of certain terms of business.

 

The Terms of Business document sets out the terms and conditions upon which BarrCo Limited (trading as BarrCo Solicitors) carries out professional services on behalf of its clients. Unless you inform us otherwise, you will be deemed to accept these terms and conditions through providing us with instructions and information to act on your behalf. If, for whatever reason, you do not accept or understand these terms, please tell us immediately.

Download our current Terms of Business (PDF 407kb)

Legal Disclaimer

The information on this website is for information and guidance only. No liability is taken for relying upon it without first seeking our professional legal advice.

Copyright and Reproduction Notice

Unless otherwise stated, the contents of this website are the property of BarrCo Limited and copyright © BarrCo Limited. Reproduction of part or all of the contents of the website pages in any form is prohibited except in accordance with the following exceptions:

 

Licence to copy for personal use – you may download or print extracts from the website pages (“the material”)

for your personal use only.

 

Licence to Recopy for Limited Purposes – you may forward or recopy the material to individual third parties for their personal use only provided always that you acknowledge the BarrCo Limited website as the source of the material.

 

You must include the acknowledgement and the BarrCo Limited website address (www.barrco.org.uk) in the forwarded or the copy of the material; and you must expressly inform the third parties that these Disclaimer, Copyright and Reproduction Notices apply to them and that they must comply with them.

 

This licence to forward or recopy does not permit incorporation of the material or any part of it in any other work or publication, whether in hard copy, electronic or any other form. In particular (but without limitation) no part of the BarrCo Limited website may be distributed or copied for any commercial purpose. No part of the BarrCo Limited website may be reproduced on or transmitted to or stored in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system. The terms of this Copyright and Reproduction Notice are governed by the laws of England & Wales and any dispute arising out of or in connection with the use of any information or materials from this website shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice in London.

Regulation

 

We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Our SRA reference is 551420.

 

A copy of the Code of Conduct 2011 ( which sets out the conduct rules applying to solicitors) is available from the SRA (www.sra.org.uk/code-of-conduct.page).

 

They can be contacted at www.sra.org.uk or by telephone 0870 606 2555.

Our professional indemnity insurance is provided under policy number UC SOL 3889243 with Travellers Insurance Company Limited, Exchequer Court, 33 St Mary Axe, London, EC3A 8AG.

Image Credits
 

All images purchased and used under license from istockphoto.com, wix.com or unsplash.com. Images remain the property of their respective owners and subject to Copyright.

Cookies

Like many websites, our website uses cookies.

 

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

 

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

 

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

 

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Privacy Notice
 

Our Commitment to your privacy is important to us. This privacy statement discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this web site.

Introduction

 ​

BarrCo Limited respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1. Important information and who we are

 

Purpose of this privacy notice

 

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how BarrCo Limited collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Controller

BarrCo Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "BarrCo Limited", "we", "us", or "our" in this privacy notice.

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPR) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.

Contact details

 

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: BarrCo Limited

Name and title of DPO: Margaret-Anne Trench, solicitor/director

Email address: 

Telephone number: 01737 833850

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on 25 May 2018.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed.

Through your use of this website, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.

Usage Data includes information about how you use our website.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

 

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

 

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal data collected?

 

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

 

Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details

Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive Technical Data from analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU.

Usage Data includes information about how you use our website.

4. How we use your personal data

 

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your data (a) where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests, and (b) where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

 

The types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data are set out below.

 

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by emailing info@barrco.org.uk.

 

Purposes for which we may use your personal data

At BarrCo Limited, we are committed to protecting your privacy. Set out below is an explanation of how we use information about visitors to this site.

 

a. We may use your Technical Data to administer and protect our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data. Such use would be necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation exercise), and to comply with a legal obligation.

 

b. We may use your Usage Data and Technical Data to deliver relevant website content to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the content. Such use would be necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform market strategy).

 

c. We may use your Usage Data and Technical Data to use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences. Such use would be necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy).

 

Third party marketing

 

We will never sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties.

 

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third-party company for marketing purposes. If you give us your express opt-in consent, you can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by emailing info@barrco.org.uk.

 

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about cookies we use, please see our cookie policy below.

 

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please email info@barrco.org.uk.

 

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

 

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

 

We will never sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties.

 

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out at paragraph 4 above:

 

a. External Third Parties as set out in the glossary.

 

b. Third Parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

 

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

 

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

7. Data security

 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business and need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

 

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

 

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

 

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

9. Your legal rights

 

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under the data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Your rights are listed below, and more detail can be found in the glossary below:

  • Request access to your personal data.

  • Request correction of your personal data.

  • Request erasure of your personal data.

  • Object to processing of your personal data.

  • Request restriction of processing your personal data.

  • Request transfer of your personal data.

  • Right to withdraw consent.

 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email: 

 

Fee usually required

A fee of £10 is usually required.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

10. Glossary

 

Lawful basis

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any particular impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

 

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

 

External third parties

  • Service providers acting as processors based in the UK who provide IT and system administration services.

  • Professional advisers acting as processors including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.

  • HM Revenue and Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors based in the UK who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

 

Your legal rights

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

 

Request correction of the data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

 

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

 

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

 

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

 

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used information to perform a contract with you.

 

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Complaints

 

1. While we trust that you will never have any cause for dissatisfaction or complaint, it is accepted that occasionally there may be misunderstandings or even that something goes wrong. If you do have cause for dissatisfaction, please let us know as soon as possible. Only then can we resolve any problem as soon as it arises.

2. Our in-house complaints procedure is administered in accordance with the rules and principles of the SRA Code of Conduct, which can be found on their website www.sra.org.uk/handbook

3. It is our policy to investigate complaints or any expressed dissatisfaction in relation to our conduct fully and promptly. If you have a complaint relating to the work being carried out for you, you should raise this in the first instance with Margaret-Anne Trench. If you are not satisfied with her response, she will arrange for a colleague to review and provide their opinion. If you remain unsatisfied, you can appeal in writing to Simon Robinson at Baldwin and Robinson Solicitors, 4 Oxted Chambers, 185-187 Station Road East, Oxted, Surrey, RH8 0QE, who will then look into the matter within 28 days of receipt of your complaint.

 

4. If you remain unsatisfied, you may be entitled to raise the matter with the Legal Ombudsman who can be contacted at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ or by email to enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by telephone on 0300 555 0333.

Such complaints should normally be made within six months after receiving a final written response from us about your complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman will usually expect you to allow us at least eight weeks to resolve any complaint.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve it with us first.

If you have, then you must make your complaint to them within six months of receiving a final response from us to your complaint and within six years of the date of the act or omission, or no more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

More information on eligibility and timeframes can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

5. The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our 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. Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. www.sra.org.uk

Price Transparency 

Introduction

Before issuing a claim in the employment tribunal, you must first go through the ACAS Early Conciliation process.  This is a free service offering you access to a conciliator with a view to trying to settle the claim without starting the formal proceedings.  Our view is that it is always better to try and settle a claim without the need to involve an employment tribunal.  Unlike other courses of action (such as personal injury or debt recovery), costs are very rarely awarded in an employment tribunal even if you win.  There is also the stress and time to consider, with thousands of cases waiting to be heard due to delays caused by the pandemic.

Legal Expense Insurance

As soon as you think you might have a claim to make, you should first check whether you have legal expense insurance to cover your costs.  This is normally attached to house contents insurance or an ultimate bank account/credit card facility.

How you will be charged

The charge for our fee-earners is currently £275 per hour plus VAT.  This is reviewed every April, in accordance with our Terms of Business.

Our time is charged in units of six minutes which means that if you are on the telephone for 2 minutes you will be charged 1 unit, 10 minutes you will be charged 2 units.  Obviously if you, or your opponent, contact us more frequently, then the higher our charges will be.

We do not charge for travelling time but if we work whilst travelling, then this is charged at our normal hourly rate.

We do not charge for administrative work carried out by our Office Manager.

 

Hourly rates and time spent on a matter are only a starting point.

 

Our pricing for bringing and defending claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal

 

Simple case: (one day, one claim, one witness for each side) £5,000 - £10,000 (excluding VAT, charged at 20%)

Medium complexity case: (two to three days, two claims, three to four witnesses) £10,000 - £20,000 (excluding VAT, charged at 20%)

High complexity case: (four to five days, three plus claims, four plus witnesses) £20,000 - £30,000 (excluding VAT, charged at 20%)

 

Factors which can make a case more complex

The more time consuming and complex a case is the more the costs will be. 

There are a number of factors which could make a case more complex:

  • If it is necessary to make or defend applications to amend claims or to provide further information about an existing claim

  • Defending claims that are brought by litigants in person

  • Making or defending a costs application

  • Complex preliminary issues such as whether the claimant is disabled (if this is not agreed by the parties)

  • The number of witnesses and documents

  • If it is an automatic unfair dismissal claim e.g. if you are dismissed after blowing the whistle on your employer

  • Allegations of discrimination which are linked to the dismissal

 

What is not included:  Our work

Work leading up to being able to issuing or defending proceedings, including taking your initial instructions, reviewing documents, raising a grievance, helping with disciplinary or redundancy procedures, entering into without prejudice conversations to try and settle the matter (including the ACAS Early Conciliation process).

 

What is not included:  Disbursements

Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties.

In an Employment tribunal there are no court fees.  It is also rare that you will ordered to pay your opponent’s costs if you lose, but it is a factor to be considered and we can discuss this further.

In the High Court, there are fees depending on the value of your claim.  There is also the risk of you incurring your opponent’s costs if you lose. We can discuss this further with you as necessary.

There may be expert fees to pay, depending on your claim, such as medical reports.  We can discuss with further with you as necessary.

The biggest disbursement is normally barrister’s fees.  Their fees vary depending on their level of experience and the complexity of the case but their initial; “brief” fee could be:

Simple case:  £1,000 - £3,000, plus VAT.

Medium complexity case:  £2,000 to £5,000 plus VAT

Complex case:  £7,500 to £20,000 plus VAT

The brief fee covers preparing the case and attending the first day of the hearing.  If the case lasts for more than one day, there will be an additional daily fee, which will vary depending on the experience of the barrister.

 

Key stages

The fees set out above cover all of the work in relation to the following key stages of a claim:

  • Preparing claim or response

  • Reviewing and advising on claim or response from other party

  • Exploring settlement and negotiating settlement throughout the process

  • Preparing or considering a schedule of loss

  • Preparing for (and attending) a Preliminary Hearing

  • Exchanging documents with the other party and agreeing a bundle of documents

  • Taking witness statements, drafting statements and agreeing their content with witnesses

  • Preparing bundle of documents

  • Reviewing and advising on the other party's witness statements

  • Agreeing a list of issues, a chronology and/or cast list

  • Preparation and attendance at Final Hearing, including instructions to Counsel

 

The stages set out above are an indication and if some of stages above are not required, the fee will be reduced. You may wish to handle the claim yourself and only have our advice in relation to some of the stages. This can also be arranged on your individual needs.

How long will the matter take?

The time that it takes from taking your initial instructions to the final resolution of your matter depends largely on the stage at which your case is resolved. If a settlement is reached during pre-claim conciliation, your case is likely to take between four and six weeks.

If your claim proceeds to a Final Hearing, the time your case takes will depend on its complexity, how many days it is listed for and how busy the tribunal dealing with the matter is (there are currently lengthy delays due to the pandemic). A straightforward case may be heard within six to nine months of being issued, but other cases may take well over a year to be listed from date of issue.

This is just an estimate and we will of course be able to give you a more accurate timescale once we have more information and as the matter progresses.

Further information

If you would like to discuss anything further please contact us at info@barrco.org.uk

Last updated 26 August 2023

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