Legal Profession Act 1966 · 2020 Revised Edition · Part 9 · Recovery and Assessment of Costs
129. Interest on client’s money
Feedback & supportRules made under section 72 are to make provision for requiring a solicitor, in such cases as may be prescribed by those rules, either —
solicitor
“advocate and solicitor”, “advocate” and “solicitor” mean an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court;
to keep, on deposit in a separate account at a bank for the benefit of the client, money received for or on account of a client; or
to make good to the client out of the solicitor’s own money a sum equivalent to the interest which would have accrued if the money so received had been so kept on deposit.
The cases in which a solicitor may be required to act in accordance with any rules made under this section may be defined, among other things, by reference to the amount of any sum received or the period for which it is or is likely to be retained or both.
Those rules may include provision for enabling a client (without prejudice to any other remedy) to require that any question arising under those rules in relation to the client’s money be referred to and determined by the Society.
client
“client” includes —(a)in relation to contentious business — any person who, as a principal or on behalf of another person, retains or employs, or is about to retain or employ, a solicitor, and any person who is or may be liable to pay the costs of a solicitor, law corporation or limited liability law partnership; and(b)in relation to non-contentious business —(i)any person who, as a principal or on behalf of another, or as a trustee, an executor or an administrator, or in any other capacity, has power (express or implied) to retain or employ, and retains or employs or is about to retain or employ, a solicitor, law corporation or limited liability law partnership; and(ii)any person for the time being liable to pay a solicitor, law corporation or limited liability law partnership for his, her or its services any costs;
Subject to any rules made under this section, a solicitor is not liable by virtue of the relation between solicitor and client to account to any client for interest received by the solicitor on moneys deposited at a bank being moneys received or held for or on account of his or her clients generally.
Nothing in this section, or in any rules made thereunder —
affects any arrangement in writing, whenever made, between a solicitor and his or her client as to the application of the client’s money or interest thereon; or
applies to money received by a solicitor being money subject to a trust of which the solicitor is a trustee.