Enquirer Authorisation and Terms

1. Who this agreement is with

WeDoProbate.com is the introduction and matching service operated by Sarah Hougie (we, us or our). The Enquirer is the person seeking help through the service, including after instructing a Firm. A Firm is an SRA-regulated law firm on our participating probate panel. For service, cancellation, complaints or privacy queries, contact sarahhougie.legal@gmail.com, quoting your reference if available.

This agreement concerns the introduction and matching service. It is separate from our panel agreement with a Firm and from any retainer between a Firm and the Enquirer. Neither of those agreements is incorporated here. The Enquirer is not a party to the panel agreement and owes no fee or other obligation under it.

2. What happens when you submit

The estate assistant collects information, organises it into notes and lets the Enquirer check and change those notes. Name and contact details are requested after the estate answers have been confirmed. By ticking the required boxes and sending the notes, the Enquirer requests our initial review on these terms. The on-screen receipt confirms that request and records the permissions selected. Download a copy to keep.

We can currently receive estate summaries for review. Practitioner matching is still being prepared. Submission does not promise an immediate response, start legal work or itself authorise an introduction. Before starting any authorised matching we will confirm acceptance and provide the applicable agreement and disclosures in a form the Enquirer can keep. Until then no information is sent to Firms through this chatbot.

3. The matching service and the Firm’s role

When matching is available, we will use reasonable care and skill to seek a suitable Firm within a reasonable time, considering the work, jurisdiction, experience, capacity, funding and the Enquirer’s needs. We match within our participating panel, not the whole market. Introduction fees do not determine ranking. We check a Firm’s SRA status and declared ability to undertake the work before an introduction. We will say if we cannot identify a suitable available Firm. Acceptance, funding, a particular price or a result cannot be guaranteed.

The Firm decides whether it can act, carries out its own checks, provides legal advice, agrees its work and fees with the Enquirer and is responsible for that work. We do not give legal advice, decide legal merits, act as an executor, conduct litigation, accept legal instructions for a Firm or hold estate or client money through this service. The Enquirer remains free to choose another adviser.

Tell us about deadlines, hearings and urgent risks. This assistant does not calculate or protect deadlines. Until a Firm expressly accepts responsibility for an urgent step, obtain help directly from a practising solicitor. An automated receipt is not acceptance of legal instructions.

4. Free matching and introduction fees

The matching service is free to the Enquirer. There is no introduction fee, cancellation charge or share of the estate or recovery payable by the Enquirer to us. Participating Firms pay the introduction fee as their own business expense. Standard fees are Category A, grant application work: £350; Category B, full estate administration: £600; Category C, substantive contentious probate or inheritance dispute representation: £750, plus VAT where applicable. A limited assessment or exceptional scope may have a separately agreed fee.

Before each proposed introduction, we explain the actual fee, any assessment fee or later balance, and relevant ownership or financial connections. An assessment alone does not attract the full administration or contentious fee. The Firm’s introduction fee becomes payable only under the separate panel agreement after qualifying instructions and receipt of earned professional fees, subject to applicable cancellation rights.

We require a participating Firm to offer and charge the Enquirer no more than a direct client for equivalent work on equivalent terms, including discounts or offers for which the Enquirer would qualify. The Firm must include that promise in its engagement terms and correct any excess. It must not separately charge our introduction fee to the Enquirer, estate or damages. Its legal fees, VAT, expenses, scope and funding are agreed separately with the Enquirer before work starts. Tell us if the pricing promise is not honoured.

5. Authorisation for preliminary checks

If the separate preliminary-checks box is ticked, the Enquirer asks us to seek a suitable Firm and permits necessary names of the Enquirer, deceased, executors, beneficiaries and other relevant people, with brief case information, to go to selected participating Firms for conflict checks and initial suitability assessment. This may require more than one Firm. Share only what is needed for that stage. Do not circulate the full intake across the panel.

At this stage Firms must report to us, must not contact the Enquirer or act for them, and must not pass the information onwards. We record the actual recipients and information disclosed. The Enquirer may exclude Firms, restrict the information shared and stop further disclosures by contacting us. Without necessary checks we may be unable to arrange an introduction. Leaving the box unticked still permits submission for our initial review, but does not authorise these checks.

Firms need not normally be named in advance under this service authorisation. We will make any earlier identity disclosure required by law or necessary for the financial explanation. This permission is not blanket data-protection consent: a lawful basis and the required privacy disclosures must be established before sharing. Where consent is relied on for sharing with a Firm, that Firm must be named before the separate consent is obtained. Permission from an Enquirer does not provide consent on behalf of another person.

6. A separate agreement before an introduction

Preliminary-checks permission does not authorise release of detailed intake or contact details for a Firm to contact the Enquirer. Before each introduction we obtain a separate affirmative agreement identifying the work and information to be shared with one selected Firm and explaining the actual introduction fee and relevant financial connections. The Firm must identify itself and provide its SRA number no later than first contact, and earlier where legally required. A replacement introduction needs fresh agreement.

Any authority for a Firm to give us limited updates on contact, instructions, decline, closure and whether an introduction fee is payable or refundable is recorded separately at that stage. It does not permit access to advice, privileged communications or the full legal file. Refusing or withdrawing reporting authority does not prevent an introduction or transfer a fee to the Enquirer. We and the Firm must use a lawful alternative for fee verification where needed.

7. Information, storage and privacy

The Enquirer authorises us to store the submitted answers, structured notes, contact details, contact preferences, restrictions and this authorisation record, and to use necessary information to review and respond to the requested service. The record includes the date, time, reference, terms version, wording presented and choices made. We do not sell enquiry information or use it for unrelated marketing. The full Privacy & your information notice is available on this website.

We process necessary core information to take steps at the Enquirer’s request or perform the agreed service. Necessary use of information about other people, service administration or legal claims requires its own documented lawful basis, such as legitimate interests after assessing necessity and impact, or an applicable legal obligation. Extra legal conditions must be established before requesting or sharing sensitive information or criminal allegations about living people. These tick boxes do not waive confidentiality or legal professional privilege.

Give information honestly and as accurately as you can, flag uncertainty and material changes, and explain any authority to act for someone else. Use relationships or initials where names are unnecessary. Do not include passwords, bank account numbers, identification documents, children’s full dates of birth or unnecessary medical details. You do not guarantee another person’s statements or the legal merits of the matter.

Unsubmitted answers are not saved to our enquiry database. Optional browser speech and optional AI question selection, where offered, have separate notices because they can involve processing before submission. Enabling them is not required to submit an enquiry. Hosting and necessary contracted service providers process information to deliver the service; Firms are independent controllers and must provide their own privacy information. We do not authorise use of enquiry information to train general-purpose AI models.

The initial website record, including its acceptance evidence, is available for 90 days from submission and removed on the next submission or management access after expiry. We may delete it sooner on request. If an enquiry proceeds, necessary referral, permission, fee, complaint or legal-claim records may be retained separately for a documented purpose, ordinarily up to six years after the final relevant event with annual review; explain any different retention before relying on it. An instructed Firm applies its separately notified retention policy.

Ask us about access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability or objection rights where applicable. Where we rely on consent, it can be withdrawn without undoing earlier lawful processing. Contact sarahhougie.legal@gmail.com. You may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. These rights and any lawful limits are explained in the privacy notice.

8. Feedback and stopping

If the optional feedback box is ticked, we may ask about satisfaction after an introduction and invite scores for promptness, communication, empathy, fee clarity and overall service. Participation is voluntary and invitations can be stopped without affecting the introduction or legal work. Identifiable comments are not shared with a Firm or published without a separate agreement, unless disclosure is legally required or otherwise lawfully justified. Any later feedback collection will explain retention; ordinarily identifiable feedback is deleted or anonymised within 24 months unless a documented need justifies longer.

The Enquirer may stop or cancel the matching request at any time, including in the first 14 days, without a reason or charge. Email ‘Please stop my matching request’ with the name or reference; no special form is required. We stop further matching disclosures promptly and notify an introduced Firm of withdrawn contact or reporting authority. Information already received may be retained where lawfully necessary. While the receipt page remains open, Delete my submitted notes removes the website copy. Copies already lawfully retained elsewhere are dealt with separately.

Ending this service does not end a retainer with a Firm. Its own terms and applicable cancellation rights govern that relationship. We may close a request if no suitable Firm is available or we cannot proceed lawfully, explaining the reason where practicable. The Enquirer can ask for human review; software does not finally decide legal merits or refuse access to a practitioner without review.

9. Responsibility, complaints and general terms

We remain responsible for our own failure to exercise reasonable care and skill or comply with this agreement. A Firm’s responsibility for its work does not excuse our own failures. Nothing excludes liability for fraud, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any liability or consumer right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Send complaints about the matching service to sarahhougie.legal@gmail.com. We aim to acknowledge within five working days and respond substantively within 20 working days, or explain the delay. A complaint about legal work should also go to the Firm under its procedure. No term restricts access to a court, regulator or ombudsman where available.

Changes to these contractual permissions require agreement. An invalid term does not invalidate the workable remainder. England and Wales law applies without removing mandatory consumer protections or rights to bring proceedings in the courts where the Enquirer lives. A privacy-notice update cannot itself expand permission to share information.