Credit Application Termswith expert lawyers

Credit Application Terms set out the terms on which you provide credit to your customers. They usually cover the details of the credit arrangement, including when payments are due, interest on overdue amounts, and your rights if you need to take further action to recover payment for goods.

When preparing Credit Application Terms, it’s important to engage a lawyer to help make sure you are appropriately protected.

Sprintlaw operates in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. In Australia, Sprintlaw is a regulated law firm and is an incorporated legal practice with number 32845, regulated by the Law Society of New South Wales.

In New Zealand and the UK, Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy rather than a traditionally regulated law firm. We chose this model in New Zealand because it made our expansion into the New Zealand market faster and easier, reduced our compliance burden, and allowed us to lower our overhead costs when performing legal work. We are then able to pass these cost savings on to our clients, allowing us to provide high quality legal services at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.

So what’s the difference between Sprintlaw NZ’s consultancy model and a traditional NZ law firm? In many respects, we are similar. Like a law firm, we offer legal services to small business clients covering most of their regular legal needs, including drafting and reviewing contracts and providing legal and regulatory advice.

However, there are some important differences and limitations to be aware of. In our view, the benefits of engaging a legal consultancy outweigh these limitations, which is why we’ve chosen to operate this way in New Zealand. If you have any questions, our team would be happy to discuss them.

Our lawyers: The legal services we provide in New Zealand are not provided by New Zealand-qualified lawyers. Our lawyers are Australian-qualified or UK-qualified lawyers who are familiar with New Zealand laws and requirements, and are able to provide high quality legal services to New Zealand businesses. Given the strong similarities between Australian, English and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practise, being small business and startup law, we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to providing high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Reserved areas: We are not permitted to provide services in reserved areas of law under section 6 and section 35 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (see here). These include appearing in court or conducting litigation proceedings, managing conveyancing matters, or giving advice under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976. As such, Sprintlaw does not operate in these areas. We find these areas are rarely relevant to our small business clients seeking commercial legal advisory services.

Privilege: When working with traditional law firms, advice provided is considered “privileged”. This means that correspondence between a client and solicitor can, if made confidentially and for the purposes of legal advice, be withheld from a court or third party in connection with litigation proceedings. As Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy, certain advice we provide may not be “privileged” and may instead be treated in the same way as advice from your accountant or anyone else who is not a regulated adviser such as a solicitor or barrister. This does not affect our confidentiality obligations to you, and our engagement letter confirms that any advice or discussions we have will be kept confidential. Given that Sprintlaw does not operate in court-related or litigious matters, we find that privilege is rarely an issue relevant to our kind of legal work.

Insurance: Sprintlaw is not required to have professional indemnity insurance that meets the New Zealand Law Society’s minimum requirements. Regardless, Sprintlaw has chosen to maintain professional indemnity cover so our clients still benefit from insurance protection.

Submit an enquiry through this page or click the ‘get started’ button on our website. After you submit your enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review it within 1 business day and get in touch to better understand what you’re looking for.

Your legal consultant will then send you an email with more information about the services you need, along with a fixed-fee quote setting out the cost, scope of the service, and timing. If you’re happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online.

Once you’ve formally accepted, we’ll connect you with a specialist lawyer who will work with you to complete your project. They’ll contact you by email or phone if needed.

Our legal team is made up of experienced commercial lawyers with strong backgrounds in contracts, privacy, employment, intellectual property, corporate law and general business law. For Sprintlaw NZ, legal services are provided by Australian- and UK-qualified lawyers who are familiar with the New Zealand legal requirements relevant to the business matters we support.