Portal Terms of Use

Welcome to the City Legal portal terms of use. These terms govern your use of our client portal – please read these carefully as they explain the legal relationship which you enter into with us when you set up your account and use the client portal.

1. Access to the Portal
   1. These terms of use (the Terms) are the basis upon which City Legal Services Limited (CRN: 09179580) whose registered office address is 352 Station Road, Harrow HA1 2DE (we, us, our) permit you to access and use our client portal (the Portal) and the documents and information contained on, or uploaded to, the Portal (the Materials).
   2. These Terms are in addition to the following terms, which will also apply to your use of the Portal:
      1. our Privacy Policy, which sets out details of how we collect, use and look after your personal data when you use our Portal;
      2. our Terms and Conditions for the provision of legal services (Services Terms and Conditions); and
      3. where you have a referral arrangement with us, our Referral Terms.
      4. The Privacy Policy and our Services Terms and Conditions can be found on our website at www.citylegalsolicitors.co.uk (our Website).
   3. You are permitted to access, view, download and use the Materials and the Portal, for the purpose of our engagement to provide you with legal services and advice and with compliance retainer services (if applicable), as part of a referral arrangement, or as part of your employment or engagement by us (or our clients) to provide a service to us (or our clients), or in connection with another arrangement between you and us (or our clients), for which you require access to the Portal (the Engagement) only (the Permitted Purpose).
   4. You only have the right to access the Portal during the period that your Engagement is in place with us, and you may only use the Portal for the Permitted Purpose.
2. Updates
   1. We may update and change the Portal from time to time – for example, to reflect changes to the services available.
   2. We may amend or update the Terms from time to time to reflect changes in relevant laws, regulatory requirements, best practice or to deal with additional features which we may introduce to our Portal. We will normally notify you by email that our terms have been updated and will aim to give you reasonable notice of any changes. You are responsible for reviewing these Terms and ensuring that you understand the basis on which we provide our services, so please check our terms regularly.
   3. By continuing to access the Portal following our notice of any update to these Terms, you agree to comply with these Terms as updated or amended. If you do not agree to such update then please do not continue to access our Portal, and take the steps set out in clause 11 to deactivate your account.
3. Availability

   Our Portal is hosted by a third party provider, therefore we do not guarantee that the Portal or the Materials will be always available, uninterrupted or error-free. We recommend that you download copies of Materials regularly and store these securely. We may suspend, withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of the Portal for business or operational reasons at any time. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any such suspension or withdrawal.

4. Setting up your account
   1. You must for a register for an account in order to use the services available via our Portal. Please complete all required fields on the online account set-up form and ensure that all information is correct.
   2. Once you have completed the registration process, we will send you an email to confirm activation of your account.
   3. By setting up an account you confirm to us that:
      1. you are at least 18 years old; and
      2. you are legally capable of entering into a contract with us.
5. Your personal data
   1. You acknowledge that in order to gain access to the Portal, we require certain personal information (such as your name and email address) which will have been provided to us either directly by you or a third party on your behalf. We will process such personal data in accordance with our Privacy Notice, which is available on our Website for the sole purpose of facilitating your access to the Portal for the Permitted Purpose.
   2. If you choose or are provided with a password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any other individual or third party.
   3. We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time.
   4. If you know or suspect that anyone other than you or members of your organisation know your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us by email at support@citylegalsolicitors.co.uk or through the Portal.
   5. Please be aware that internet transmissions are never completely private or secure and that any information you send using our Portal may be read or intercepted by others, even if there is a special notice that a particular transmission is encrypted. 
   6. By logging into and using our Portal, you agree to us collecting and using technical information about your devices and your use of our Portal in order to improve our Portal and provide the services to you.
6. How you may use the Portal
   1. You must:
      1. keep your password and login credentials for your account secure and confidential; and
      2. do all you can to prevent any unauthorised access to, or use of, the Portal, and if you become aware of any such unauthorised access or use, promptly notify us by email at support@citylegalsolicitors.co.uk or through the Portal.
   2. You may use the Portal only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms.  You may not use the Portal:
      1. in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation;
      2. in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
      3. for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm any person in any way;
      4. to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is defamatory, obscene, offensive, hateful, inflammatory, promotes violence of discrimination on any grounds, infringes any intellectual property rights, promotes illegal activity or is likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person or is otherwise illegal;
      5. to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam); or
      6. to knowingly transmit any data or send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware;
      7. attempt to reverse compile, disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise reduce to human-perceivable form all or any part of the Portal; 
      8. in order to build a product or service which competes with the Portal.
   3. You also agree not to:
      1. access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt any part of the Portal, any equipment or network on which the Portal is stored, any software used in the provision of the Portal and/or any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party; or 
      2. license, sell, rent, lease, transfer, assign, distribute, display, disclose or otherwise commercially exploit, or otherwise make the Portal available to any third party.
   4. When you use our ‘Sponsor Assist’ AI bot, you acknowledge that, while advice provided by the bot is based on published UK government guidance, like all artificial intelligence tools, the output of the service may not in all cases be accurate, and should always be subject to human review to assess its suitability for your specific purposes.  Sponsor Assist is not a substitute for professional advice, and it is always recommended to consult with City Legal or refer to specific immigration rules for further clarification.  Sponsor Assist is made available subject to the preceding acknowledgments, and we do not take responsibility for any inaccuracies or omissions in the information provided.
7. We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them
   1. We do not guarantee that the Portal will be secure or free from bugs or viruses. You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access the Portal. You should use your own virus protection software.
   2. You must not misuse the Portal by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Portal, the server on which the Portal is stored or any server, computer or database connected to the Portal. You must not attack the Portal via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use the Portal will cease immediately.
8. What to do if you require assistance or things go wrong
   1. If you wish to seek help after encountering problems with your use of the Portal, please contact us by email at support@citylegalsolicitors.co.uk or through the Portal.
   2. If you wish to complain about the Portal or the services you have received, please follow the complaints procedure set out at clause 19 of our terms of business in our Services Terms and Conditions.
9. Intellectual Property

   We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in the Portal, and in the Material published on it.  Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

10. Limitation of liability
    1. Whether you are a consumer or a business user:
       1. we do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; and 
       2. different limitations and exclusions of liability will apply to liability arising as a result of the supply of any services to you, which are set out in our Services Terms and Conditions.
    2. If you are a business user:
       1. We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our Portal or any content on it to the extent permitted by law.
       2. We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
          1. use of, or inability to use, our Portal; or
          2. use of or reliance on any content displayed on our Portal.
          3. In particular, we will not be liable for:
          4. loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
          5. business interruption;
          6. loss of anticipated savings;
          7. loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
          8. any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
    3. Please note that we only provide our Portal for domestic and private use.  You agree not to use our Portal for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
11. Closing your account
    1. If you no longer wish to use the Portal and wish to close your account at any time, please contact us by email at support@citylegalsolicitors.co.uk or through the Portal and we will close your account on your behalf.
    2. Upon the deactivation or closure of your account, all licences and rights granted to you under these terms immediately cease and you will no longer be able to access or use the Portal. 
    3. The deactivation or closure of your account shall not affect any rights, remedies, obligations or liabilities that have accrued up to the date the account was closed, or your access to the Portal was deactivated, including our right to claim damages in respect of any breach of these terms which existed at or before the date of termination, and any provision expressly or by implication intended to come into or continue in force on or after closure of an account or deactivation of access to our Portal shall remain in full force and effect.
    4. We may terminate your access to the Portal where we have reason to believe that you, your use of the Portal or any content you have uploaded to the Portal violate our Terms. In the event your account is deactivated, you will cease to have any right to use the Portal.
12. Governing law and jurisdiction
    1. If you are a consumer, please note that these Terms, their subject matter and their formation are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.
    2. If you are a business, these Terms, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

These Terms were most recently updated in January 2024.