Terms of engagement

These terms apply when you instruct Registry Canvas Grid to read a register, review an application, unpack a search, or prepare papers for a contested entry. Instructing us, paying an estimate, or sending papers after we have sent these terms is acceptance. If you instruct through a solicitor, that solicitor accepts on the client’s behalf unless we agree otherwise in writing.

The work

We provide readings and written papers about Australian registers. We are not a law firm, we do not operate a solicitor’s trust account, and nothing on these pages is a guarantee that a registrar will register, inspect, or reverse a decision. Where a matter needs a legal practitioner or counsel, we will say so; that referral is not a partnership.

Papers and standing

You warrant that the papers you send are yours to send, and that any standing you claim (owner, applicant, executor, legal representative) is true. We may refuse or stop work if standing is unclear, if a sealed file cannot lawfully be opened, or if another practitioner already acts and has not consented to our writing to the registrar.

Fees and disbursements

Estimates are based on the bundle we have seen. Additional volumes, interstate inspection, and printed hearing dates may revise the estimate before the next stage starts. Professional fees are exclusive of GST. Registry fees, certified copies, courier, and search agents are disbursements at cost. Work of a stage does not start until the invoice for that stage is paid, unless we agree a different order for a printed date.

Intellectual property

The briefing, marked-up draft, chronology, and submissions we write remain our copyright. You may use them for the file they were written for, including giving a copy to your solicitor, a registrar, a board, or counsel. You may not republish them as a precedent, sell them, or put them on a public website. Extracts issued by a registrar remain the registrar’s to control; we pass through whatever copying conditions came with the extract.

Liability

We read the papers produced and the public inspection we can lawfully obtain. We are not liable for a memorial that sat in a volume the registrar would not produce, for a change to a roll after the date of our extract, or for a lodging decision made by a registrar or board. Our aggregate liability for a file is limited to the professional fees paid for that file, except where Australian law does not allow that limit (including death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud). We are not liable for indirect loss, delayed settlement, or a lost transaction where we named a risk in the briefing and you chose to proceed.

Confidentiality

File contents are kept for the purpose of the reading. We do not discuss a named folio in our field notes. We may use anonymised facts in teaching inside the rooms. See also the privacy notice.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Australia as applied in Queensland. The courts of Queensland have jurisdiction, without limiting any right you have as a consumer under the Australian Consumer Law.

Changes

If a particular file needs a written variation (for example, a joint briefing for two registers, or an agreement that counsel will be copied on every draft), that variation sits on the estimate and prevails to that extent.