TERMS OF BUSINESS

Emery Little Cresswell Cadenhead LLP (ELCC) is authorised to conduct investment business under the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000 and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Unless we notify you in writing to the contrary, we will be treating you as a “retail client”.   This means that you are afforded the highest level of protection under the regulatory system and should have the right to take any complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.   Details of our complaints procedure are available on request.

Emery Little Cresswell Cadenhead LLP (ELCC) is an independent adviser and will act on your behalf in advising you on life assurance, pensions and investments from different companies.

INVESTMENT SERVICES

ELCC is permitted to arrange (bring about) deals in investments and advice on investments. The particular investment types relate to life assurance, pensions, investments in authorised collective investment schemes, Unit Trust PEPs and ISAs. 

We will normally review lump sum investments that have been made on our advice. This is usually once per year, unless previously agreed otherwise. If appropriate, we will contact you to arrange a meeting to discuss your investments.

As discussed, we offer products from the whole of the market. This means that we source the recommended mortgage from the range of mortgages available to “Intermediary” Firms.   Certain lenders may offer products directly to the public, rather than via an Intermediary Firm, with more favourable terms. Accordingly our recommendation to you will be based on the most suitable mortgage product incorporated within the range available to Intermediary Firms. 

If there is a particular mortgage product that you are aware of which is available directly from a Lender that you wish for us to review and comment upon, we are happy to do so but we may charge you a fee for providing advice in relation to this but would agree this with you at the time.

Full details of the products we may recommend to you including, for example, the minimum duration of the product, information on the right to cancel or whether no right to cancel arises, and any other early termination rights and penalties, will be covered in the relevant product disclosure information you will receive before conclusion of any contract.

DISCLOSURE OF CHARGES/FEES

All charges/fees will be fully disclosed to you. These will be disclosed in summary form before we undertake any work for you.   The precise charges relating to any recommendations we make will be confirmed in your Suitability Report or relevant product disclosure information that is provided to you.

In respect of any regular premium policy which we have arranged for you, should you subsequently cease to pay premiums on the policy and in consequence we are obliged to refund the commission that has been paid to us, we reserve the right to charge you a fee representing the amount we have to repay, for a period of up to four years after commencement of the policy. We will not charge any such fee if you exercise your right to cancel in accordance with any cancellation notice sent to you by the life insurance company.

There is no additional cost to you for using a means of distance communication.

ELCC does not handle client’s money. We never accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is a cheque in settlement of charges or disbursements for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.

MATERIAL INTERESTS

We will endeavour always to act in the best interests of our clients. However, circumstances can arise where we or one of our other clients will have some form of interest in business being transacted for you. If this happens or we become aware that our interests or those of one of our other clients conflict with your interests, we will write to you and obtain your consent before we carry out your instructions, and detail the steps we will take to ensure fair treatment.

TERMINATION OF AUTHORITY

You or we, may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time, without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt. Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated which will be completed according to these terms of business unless otherwise agreed in writing. You will be liable to pay for any transactions made prior to termination and any fees which may be outstanding.

RIGHT TO WITHDRAW

In the case of a non packaged product ISA or PEP recommended we will inform you in writing of any right to withdraw or cancel you may have or, if it is the case, we will inform you in writing that no such rights will apply.

In most cases you can exercise a right to cancel, by withdrawing from the contract recommended to you. In general terms you will normally have a 30 day cancellation period for a life, pure protection, payment protection or pension policy and a 14 day cancellation period for all other policies. In most instances, you will not be able to exercise a right to cancel a mortgage contract, unless the contract is concluded at a distance (i.e. no face to face advice), at which point you may have a 14 day cancellation period. 

The start of the cancellation period will normally begin, for pure protection policies, when you are informed that the contract has been concluded or, if later, when you have received the contractual terms and conditions. In other cases, the cancellation period will begin on the day the contract is concluded or, if later, the day on which you receive the contractual terms and conditions. Instructions for exercising the right to cancel, if applicable, will be contained in the relevant product disclosure information which will be issued to you.

If you cancel a single premium contract, we may require you to pay for any loss you might reasonably incur in cancelling it which is caused by market movements. This means that, in certain circumstances, you might not get back the full amount you invested if you cancel the policy.

CLIENTS RISK

You are advised that because investments can fall as well as rise, you may not get back the full amount invested. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Specific warnings relevant to the investments, or investment strategies, we recommend will be confirmed to you in your Suitability Report. 

DISCLOSURE OF CLIENTS PERSONAL DATA

Your personal information is very important to us. We will endeavour to take all due care to protect this information. We would like to highlight below a few matters relating to your information that you should be aware of.

The information you have provided is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”).   Once you proceed by requesting advice from us you consent to us or any company associated with us processing, both manually and by electronic means, your personal data for the purposes of providing advice, administration and management.

“Processing” includes obtaining, recording or holding information or data, transferring it to other companies associated with us, product providers, the FSA or any other statutory governmental or regulatory body for legitimate purposes including, where relevant, to solicitors and/or other debt collection agencies for debt collection purposes and carrying out operations on the information or data.

Product Providers, Lenders and Investment Managers may administer your policy, any existing policies you may have with them and provide other services, from centres in countries outside Europe (such as India and the USA) that do not always have the same standard of data Protection laws as the UK. However, they are required to put a contract in place to ensure that your information is adequately protected, and they will remain bound by their obligations under the Data Protection Act even when your personal information is processed outside Europe.

The information provided may also contain sensitive personal data as detailed by the Act.

You may be assured that we and any company associated with us will treat all personal data and sensitive personal data as confidential and will not process it other than for a legitimate purpose. Steps will be taken to ensure that the information is accurate, kept up to date and not kept for longer than is necessary. Measures will also be taken to safeguard against unauthorised or unlawful processing and accidental loss or destruction or damage to the data. Subject to certain exceptions, you are entitled to have access to your personal and sensitive personal data held by us. ELCC does not sell data to any third party organisation, such as insurance companies and fund managers for the purpose of marketing our clients. 

If at any time you wish us to stop processing your data (or not to start) please write to us at the above address and we will cease immediately.

PAYMENT FOR SERVICES

We normally derive our income from commission paid to us by life assurance companies and the operators of collective investment schemes through which investments are made. We shall tell you the amount of commission payable to us on any such investment. 

If we receive a commission or other form of benefit from the issuer of a security or from another intermediary, we will inform you, but we will not tell you its amount unless you ask us to do so. Alternatively, if you or we propose to operate on a fee basis, we will agree its basis, frequency and method with you in writing before we carry out any chargeable work. Should we receive commission from any third party in relation to transactions arranged for you, we will offset the amount received against any fees due. 

ACCOUNTING TO YOU

Unless in exceptional circumstances, we will confirm to you in writing the basis or our reason for recommending the transaction executed on your behalf.

In executing or transmitting orders on your behalf to third parties, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we obtain the best possible result for you in terms of best execution. 

We will also make arrangements for all your investments to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing. We will forward to you all documents showing ownership of your investments as soon as practicable after we receive them; where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions is involved, we will normally hold each document until the series is complete and then forward them to you.

INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES & RESTRICTIONS

Following the issue of this letter any subsequent advice or recommendation offered to you will be based on your stated investment objectives, acceptable level of risk and any restrictions you wish to place on the type of investments or policies you are willing to consider. Details of your stated investment objectives will be included in the suitability letter we will issue to you to confirm our recommendation. Unless confirmed in writing, to the contrary, we will assume that you do not wish to place any restrictions on the advice we give you. 

1 September 2009 (V3)