For law firms: referrals that match your practice

At a glance

• You accept or decline each referral within the time limit in your agreement, and can advise any client to go elsewhere
• You keep the client relationship, your own terms of engagement and, if you choose, your own prices
• Fees are agreed in writing before any referral is sent: once you apply, we send you our proposal. Every client is told what you pay us for them.
• Our standard agreement includes no completion, no fee: a client whose transaction does not complete pays you no legal fee, only the disbursements you have paid out for them, and on a sale whose buyer withdraws, you act on the same quote with the next buyer, and may charge for the work done only if that buyer withdraws too. You pay us no referral fee for such a transaction either, as our referral fee falls due only on completion.
• No client is found by cold calling or any other unsolicited approach

Referrals that fit your firm

You tell us what your firm does, and we use it to decide which referrals to offer you:

• the types of work you accept, such as residential purchases, sales, remortgages, transfers of equity and commercial transactions
• the nations you cover: England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• your lender panels, the lists of firms each lender allows to act for it, so you are matched with clients whose lenders you can act for
• your capacity, the number of open matters you can handle, and your availability, which you can set to available, limited or full

You keep these settings up to date yourself in the firm portal, so the referrals you are offered follow your workload.

Accept or decline within the time limit

We refer a client to you once they have asked to go ahead. Each new referral arrives in your portal with what you need to decide on it in one place: the client, the property, the quote they were given, the referral fee you pay for them and how long you have to decide. You accept or decline it within the time limit in your agreement; if you decline, you give a short reason and we offer the matter elsewhere. Halfway through the time you are reminded; if a referral is not answered in time, you and our team are told, and we may offer it to another firm.

When you accept, we introduce the client to you by name, with your regulator and contact details, and tell them the exact referral fee you pay Keyfolio. They are told that you will confirm your fees and send your terms of engagement before any work starts.

Your client, your terms

Once you accept, the client relationship is yours. You send your own terms of engagement (client care letter), carry out conflict, identity and anti-money laundering checks, and give all of the legal advice. Keyfolio does not do legal work, give advice or hold client money.

You can work from the Keyfolio fee schedule or set your own prices, either as a percentage of the schedule or as your own figures for particular items. Where you use your own prices, the client's quote can be reissued on them, so the figures they see match the fees you confirm in writing.

Our standard agreement asks you to work to each client's quote: to charge no more than the total of the quote on their page when they instruct you, unless the facts it was based on change, the client asks for more work or a fee set by law changes. Estimates are charged at the amount actually paid and items to be confirmed at the amount you confirm to the client in writing, and before charging anything more you explain the difference to the client in writing, leaving them free not to go ahead.

Working the matter in the portal

The firm portal keeps each matter organised:

• assign matters to fee earners (the lawyers who handle the files), who see only the matters allocated to them
• record the stages each matter reaches, such as exchange and completion
• post updates for our team
• see the client's quote history, notes and the lender they named

Once you accept a client, you deal with them directly: Keyfolio does not pass messages or documents between you. Their private page shows your details and a fraud warning, reminding them to check your bank details by phone before sending money.

Referral fees and invoicing

Fees are agreed with you in writing before any referrals are sent: once you apply, we send you our proposal with the terms. Your agreement sets each fee, when it falls due, your payment terms and how you are invoiced.

Fees are recorded automatically when a matter reaches the agreed point. Each invoice is numbered and comes by email, with its PDF, and in your portal. You can download a statement at any time and tell us from the portal when you have paid. You pay the referral fee out of your own fees, not as a separate charge on the client's bill. New referrals may pause while an invoice is significantly overdue.

Your professional responsibilities

An introduction is not an instruction. Your firm remains responsible for client care, conflicts, anti-money laundering checks, supervision, advice and complaints handling, and for meeting your regulator's rules.

Those rules cover referral arrangements:

• If you are regulated by the SRA, its Code of Conduct for Solicitors expects clients to be told about any financial or other interest an introducer has in referring them to you, fee-sharing agreements to be in writing, and no referral fees for clients who are the subject of criminal proceedings. The SRA Transparency Rules also apply to your own website, including your prices, complaints procedure and regulatory details.
• If you are regulated by the CLC, its Disclosure of Profits and Advantages Code requires a written referral agreement, written disclosure to the client of the arrangement and any payment no later than when you accept instructions, and the client's free choice of provider.
• CILEx Regulation has its own rules, which you remain responsible for meeting.
• In Northern Ireland, the Law Society of Northern Ireland's practice regulations restrict payments for introductions. We do not charge Northern Ireland firms for introductions unless we have confirmed that the rules allow it.

We record exactly what each client was told about fees, and when, and your portal shows it on the matter so you can use it in your client care letter. Under UK data protection law you are responsible for the personal information in your client file, and Keyfolio for the information it holds. Clients remain free to choose another conveyancer at any point.

Not on your client's lender's panel?

When you are not on the panel of your client's mortgage lender, the lender may need a firm on its panel to act for it on the mortgage: separate representation. Tell us the lender and the case, and the law firm on our panel that acts for lenders will let you know whether it can accept it. Its starting fee is £960.00 including VAT (£800.00 plus VAT), and it discloses any additional fees and disbursements, such as HM Land Registry fees, and discusses them with you before it is instructed.

See the fee and send a request

How to apply

Apply to join with your firm's name, regulator and registration number, the areas you cover and the work you do. Tell us about your lender panels, any specialist work and the volume you could take on.

We review every application, including your regulator's register entry, and talk to you about fit. Terms, including referral fees, the acceptance time limit and invoicing, are agreed in writing before access is set up. We then create your firm's portal, invite your team with their own logins and start offering referrals once your capacity, regions and lender panels are in place.