1.
Terms of Business
1.1
This document gives details of our Terms of Business and these terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England and you hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
1.2
In keeping with industry convention, we do not require you to sign or countersign or otherwise indicate agreement to the Terms of Business. However, you are deemed to agree to them, and to be bound by them, if you engage Oakmead Finance Ltd to act as a credit broker for your business.
2.
Our Services
2.1
Oakmead Finance Ltd is a credit broker only and not a lender. Our service to you is chargeable as laid out in our fee agreement.
2.2
We support our clients in seeking to obtain the appropriate funding solution to meet their specific requirements. You will be allocated a dedicated consultant who will work with you to find the most appropriate solution for your business from our panel of independent finance providers.
3.
Our services include:
3.1
An assessment of your specific funding and business requirements;
3.2
A recommended shortlist of typically 2 – 3 lenders from our panel whom we consider best fit your needs;
3.3
Continued guidance through the process of negotiation of your funding with the lender or lenders you choose from the shortlist;
3.4
Feedback in respect of the pros and cons of the lenders’ facility offers; and
3.5
After care service once you become a live client.
3.6
We recognise it is important for you to be able to shop around for credit and alternative sources of credit and we would be happy to assist you if required.
3.7
Please note the following, however;
3.8
We do not provide legal advice. If you are presented with loan documentation for agreement with a lender whom we have introduced to you, it is your responsibility to seek legal advice from an appropriately experienced solicitor.
3.9
We are not responsible for advising you on the solvency of your business or on whether it may be insolvent. The law imposes obligations on the directors or owners of a business that is or may be technically insolvent, and if the reason you are seeking loan finance is connected with the solvency of your business, you should take advice on your obligations from a qualified insolvency practitioner.
3.10
We do not provide taxation, fiscal or investment advice.
3.11
We are here to offer a credit broking service as described, and will give you what we consider to be the most appropriate service in this respect, based on the information that you provide to us. This does not amount to advice by us to you on the full commercial operation of your business, which is likely to depend on information that we do not have and are not entitled to see or receive. Accordingly, the decision to proceed with one of our recommended lenders (if any) is ultimately yours.
4.
Treating you Fairly
4.1
We always aim to treat you fairly. This means that we will always endeavour to:
4.1.1
Conduct our business with due skill, care and integrity;
4.1.2
Never put ourselves in a position where our primary duty to you is compromised;
4.1.3
Deal with any complaint sympathetically and independently of the colleague concerning whom the complaint is directed;
4.1.4
Be transparent in the matter of our remuneration; and
4.1.5
Respect your confidentiality.
5.
Our Remuneration
5.1
Our Fee structure is detailed under the ‘Our Fee’ section on engagement letter.
5.2
In addition we may receive commission payments from lenders that we introduce to you and from whom you then borrow. Our Consultants are not made aware of the commission rates and therefore will not be influenced by this as a factor when making introductions to any of our panel lenders. We expect our panel lenders to disclose to you that Oakmead Finance will be paid a fee for a successful introduction, and to make full details of commission actually paid on request.
5.3
Please note that where you return to a lender whom we have introduced in order to negotiate a further facility at some point in the future, we may be entitled to a further commission payment in relation to that facility as well.
6.
Complaints
6.1
If you wish to register a complaint with respect to our services under these Terms of Business, please contact Richard Selvey-Clinton, Director, in writing at Oakmead House, 26 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, Maidstone, Kent, ME19 4AE, by telephone on 01732 497345 during normal business hours.
6.2
If your turnover is less than £1,000,000, you may be entitled to refer any complaint against us to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can find further details concerning the jurisdiction and scope of the Financial Ombudsman Service at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
7.
Limitation of our liability to you
7.1
Our responsibility under these Terms of Business is to assist you to find a company willing to lend money to your business in accordance with the needs and profile of that business that you have disclosed to us. We are not responsible for the manner in which you use the loans advanced to you or the consequences of these financial transactions for your business.
7.2
Any discussion that you have with a panel lender that is outside the scope or purpose of these Terms of Business, and the consequences for you or your business of any such discussion and any transaction or investment that arises from such discussion, are not our responsibility for any purposes whatsoever.
7.3
Oakmead Finance selects lenders for its panel based on our due diligence into the circumstances, business methods and track records of each such lender. We may rely on third party information as part of this due diligence process, which we are not in a position to verify and which we will act upon in good faith. We review our panel lenders from time to time, applying the same degree of due diligence. We therefore present any lender on our panel to you on the basis that we have used reasonable care to ensure that such lender is an honest, responsible and (where necessary) appropriately regulated business. We accept responsibility to you accordingly. However, we do not accept responsibility to you for any loss you may sustain or any costs or expenses you may incur which arise due to a failure or demerit in a lender of a nature that it would not have been reasonable for us to have detected by our normal due diligence procedures referred to in this paragraph.
7.4
Nothing in these Terms of Business excludes or limits our responsibility to you for:
7.4.1
fraud;
7.4.2
death or personal injury as a result of our negligence; or
7.4.3
anything that the rules of the FCA prohibits us from excluding or limiting.
8.
Your Responsibilities
8.1
In order for us to fulfil our responsibilities to you, you are expected to read any documentation we give you and let us know if there is anything that is unclear or does not represent your requirements, and pose any other question that affect your use of our services. We will not be responsible to you if as a result of deficient information or lack of information from you, we make arrangements that are not wholly appropriate for your business.
8.2
If, in the course of our relationship with you, you or your business suffer material changes (specifically though not exclusively referring to material adverse financial changes), you must inform us accordingly, unless you are under a formal legal obligation not to do so.
8.3
Should we incur material cost or expense or sustain material loss as a result of your failure to comply with paragraphs 9.1 or 9.2, we are entitled to an indemnity from you to the extent of such cost, expense or loss.
9.
Data Protection, Privacy Notice and Confidentiality
9.1
Oakmead Finance is registered under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 and abide by the requirements of the relevant regulations made there under.
9.2
All information we receive from you is held by us in strict confidence and is used exclusively in order to provide quotations and arrange finance with a funder. We will not supply your confidential information to any person other than a potential lender from our panel without your prior consent (unless we are required to do so by the law, by a court order or in compliance with the Rules of the FCA).
9.3
You have the right to require us to cease to use the information that you have provided to us (either generally or with respect to any specific piece of such information). If this makes it practically speaking impossible for us to provide our services to you under these Terms of Business, we will notify you of this and bring this relationship to an end.
9.4
Before or after you enter into any agreement with a lender from our panel, to help make credit decisions, the lender will make a credit search with a credit reference agency. If you are a company or partnership the lender will also make enquiries about the principal director(s) or partner(s) with that credit reference agency. Full details of the use and disclosure of your information by the lender must by law be set out in the terms of the offer of any loan which the lender proposes to make, and you should read all of this carefully before signing.
9.5
All our customers’ records are treated as private and confidential and we reserve the right to give you copies of your particular records rather than allow access to files containing records concerning other clients. If you want sight of your records please send a request in writing to: Richard Selvey-Clinton, Director, in writing at 26 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, Maidstone, Kent, ME19 4AE
9.6
A Privacy Notice has been issued separately from the Terms of Business.
9.7
Being open and transparent and providing accessible information to you about how we will use Your personal data is a key element of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) This Privacy Notice details; The lawful bases for processing data, who we are, how we use the information about You, marketing consent, what information is collected, why the personal data is required, our data retention periods and individuals’ rights to personal data. More detailed information can be obtained on request. You must be confident You understand how your data will be processed
10.
Other Miscellaneous Matters
10.1
These Terms of Business will apply as between Oakmead Finance on the one hand and, on the other hand:
10.1.1
you yourself, if a sole trader; or
10.1.2
your company or partnership, if you are applying for our services as a company or a partnership. Accordingly only you (as explained above) and we are parties to these Terms of Business and for the purposes of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, no other person has a right to enforce any provision of these Terms of Business.
10.2
We will ask you to provide us with an address at which we will send you any formal communications and notices. Any formal communication or notice you need to send to us should be sent to the address in paragraph 10.5.
10.3
Either party may terminate the relationship under these Terms of Business on written notice to the other with immediate effect.
10.4
These Terms of Business are subject to English law and the English courts have exclusive jurisdiction relating to any matters arising from them.