As part of carrying out your instructions to us, we may need to hold your money in our client account. In holding client’s money, we have an obligation to pay interest on that money at a fair and reasonable rate and are required to put in place an interest policy; this policy sets out the guidelines for when interest will be paid and is summarised below.
We aim to account to you for interest at a reasonable rate of interest however as the holding of your funds is incidental to the carrying out of your legal instructions, the rate is unlikely to be as high as the rate you may be able to obtain when depositing the money we hold on your behalf yourself. We must ensure that money held on client account is immediately available and so the need for instant access is taken into account when setting the rate of interest payable by us.
We align our interest rates paid on monies held on general client account with Lloyds General Client Account. This rate is likely to change from time to time.
Where amounts are held outside of a general client account or separate designated deposit account, the rate of interest and date that interest is credited will depend on the relevant institution where the funds are held, and as such fall outside the requirements of the policy. The relevant interest information can be obtained at your request.
Where your money is held on our general client account, any interest paid to you is paid gross (without any deduction for income tax). As such it is your responsibility to inform HMRC of amounts of interest received from us and the implications of this will depend upon your own financial circumstances. Where interest is held on a separate designated deposit account interest is usually paid net of tax (unless you have signed a declaration confirming your entitlement to receive bank interest gross).
Interest will be calculated from the time the funds become cleared for interest purposes, on cheques or bankers drafts this will be 3 days after the cheque or draft has been deposited with our bank. For amounts received by debit or credit card, interest will start to accrue from the date of the actual receipt, usually 3 days after the transaction has been authorised. For direct transfers or same day payments the funds become cleared on the day after receipt. Interest will be calculated on a daily basis and calculated on amounts held overnight from the day the funds become cleared for interest purposes.
Interest will not be paid if the sum of money held is not exceeding the amount shown in the left column below for a time not exceeding the period indicated in the right column:
- Amount
- £1,000
- £2,000
- £10,000
- £20,000
- Period
- 8 weeks
- 4 weeks
- 2 weeks
- 1 weeks
Interest will not be paid if the total amount calculated for the period that cleared funds are held is less than £100.00
Interest will be calculated at the end of every six months (at the Half Year and Year End), or at any point in the matter when the fee earner requests it.