Did you know that you get access to a dashboard of online legal templates included with your legal expenses insurance? Instead of paying for a lawyer to draft a letter for you, these professionally written documents are tailored to you and can save you money.
Legal documents for UK businesses
The majority of our customers are freelance web designers, developers, digital marketers, graphic designers, copywriters and photographers. We also have a number of small businesses like digital agencies and startups. Below are the most popular templates our customers use.
Debt collection letters for unpaid invoices
It’s estimated that 1 in 3 payments are late so it’s no surprise that the debt recovery letters are the most popular.
Debt collection letters for unpaid invoices
There is a formal process to follow if collecting outstanding debts. This involves sending 3 letters demanding payment, which calculate the total outstanding debt including any interest due on the overdue amounts.
The legal documents will walk you through when to use these letters, rights to claim interest, reasonable recovery costs and next steps so you’ll have guidance from start to finish.
If you receive no response after sending the first reminder, you’d send the second and third letters. The third letter is a final ‘letter of claim’ (also known as a ‘letter before action’). This letter is to inform the customer of what happens next including potential court proceedings.
The dashboard includes all three debt collection letters.
As a bonus there is also a small claims court factsheet. It walks you through the process of starting a claim, what fees are involved in the process and what to expect from the hearing itself should your claim go that far.
Letter offering payment and settling claims
If a business claims you owe them money in relation to the services you’ve provided and you dispute it, this letter can settle the matter by compromising on a figure.
If your offer is reasonable but rejected by your client, any ruling about who pays the legal costs have a better chance of going in your favour if it goes to court and you’ve sent this letter.
Protecting your ideas
Non-disclosure agreement
If you’re wanting to reveal information to another party which is confidential you might want to have them sign an NDA. There is both a non-disclosure agreement where confidential information can be evaluated, or a mutual non-disclosure agreement where both parties need to protect their confidentiality.
Terms and conditions
A lot of our customers are concerned with staying on the right side of GDPR.
Terms of use for a website
Your website terms and conditions should cover issues such as access, intellectual property and liability, with optional clauses regarding registration and posting reviews. It doesn’t cover the sale of any goods or services via the website (i.e. through taking payments online).
Employment contracts
Consultancy agreement
A lot of our customers engage the services of other freelancers and consultants so you’ll need to draw up the terms of the consultancy including payment, obligations and intellectual property. Whilst it isn’t a contract of employment, failure of either party to honour the terms of the agreement could lead to claims of breach of contract or negligence.
Agreements like this are more important than ever due to IR35. Where the consultant is an individual, this document provides that they will be an independent contractor and not an employee, and responsible for their own tax and National Insurance. An employment tribunal or court will look at the terms of this document.
Employment contracts
Sometimes your freelancing business can grow and you’ll need a fixed term employment contract to make your first hire. Not only does the dashboard include a written record of an agreement between an employer and employee, but it includes an induction checklist and staff handbook.
If you’re not quite ready to hire and are instead looking to engage with a restricted rights worker you’ll find a statement of engagement. This outlines the clauses for zero and restricted hours workers.
Bespoke is always best
Whilst these templates are useful, the best option will always be to engage the services of a lawyer to create bespoke terms and agreements for your unique situation. However, where budget is limited then these templates can be a great starting point.
If any of this sounds useful to your business, you can add legal expenses insurance to your policy when getting a quote. Existing customers can also add legal expenses to their current policy by getting in touch to request a quote.
