Important Service Information and Website Disclaimer

This is the full footer-linked disclosure page for the Palmer & Fern website. A short disclaimer may appear in the site footer, with a link to this complete version.

Important

The website's service headings, marketing language and actual service delivery must remain consistent with this disclosure. The disclaimer cannot correct a misleading overall impression.

1. Important service information

Palmer & Fern provides professional preparation, document organisation, factual information collation, administrative process support, process coordination, contract administration and professional-readiness services.

Our role is to help clients bring order and structure to information, documents, records and practical tasks before, or alongside, engagement with lawyers, accountants, registered tax practitioners and other appropriately qualified professionals.

Palmer & Fern prepares the groundwork. It does not replace the advice, judgment, representation, certification or sign-off of a regulated professional.

2. Palmer & Fern is not a law practice

Palmer & Fern is not a law firm or incorporated legal practice and does not provide legal advice, legal representation or legal advocacy.

Palmer & Fern does not:

• advise clients about their legal rights, obligations, prospects or likely outcomes;
• determine which legal claim, defence, jurisdiction, remedy or order should be pursued;
• advise what a client should say, file, sign, accept, reject or seek;
• provide legal strategy;
• interpret legislation, court or tribunal orders, or contractual clauses for a client's circumstances;
• draft or settle pleadings, legal submissions, affidavits, settlement agreements or other legal instruments;
• negotiate legal settlements or act as a client's legal representative;
• represent clients before a court, tribunal or other legal decision-maker; or
• represent or advertise that Palmer & Fern or its personnel are entitled to practise law.

Where a matter requires legal advice or legal professional judgment, the client must obtain that advice from an Australian legal practitioner.

3. Palmer & Fern is not an accounting or tax practice

Palmer & Fern is not a registered tax agent, BAS agent or public accounting practice and does not provide tax or accounting advice.

Palmer & Fern does not:

• determine the tax, GST, BAS, payroll, superannuation or accounting treatment of a transaction;
• recommend a business, company, trust or taxation structure;
• prepare or lodge income tax returns, business activity statements or other regulated tax documents;
• instruct a client which figures to include in a tax return or activity statement;
• conduct tax or BAS compliance reviews;
• provide financial statements, audit opinions or accounting certifications; or
• provide or advertise a tax agent service or BAS service unless the service is lawfully provided through an appropriately registered practitioner arrangement.

Accountant-ready services are limited to source-document collection, file organisation, non-interpretive data entry, missing-record lists, administrative query schedules and other work that does not constitute a tax agent service or BAS service. Any coding, reconciliation, calculation, payroll, GST or activity-statement work that may involve the interpretation or application of tax or BAS provisions must be performed by, or under a lawful arrangement approved by, an appropriately registered practitioner.

4. Other regulated and specialist services

Palmer & Fern is not a financial adviser, credit adviser, migration agent, counsellor, psychologist, medical provider, safety-planning service, emergency service or crisis service.

Palmer & Fern does not provide financial-product, investment, credit, migration, medical, psychological, therapeutic, crisis, safety-planning or other regulated professional advice unless that service is separately and lawfully provided by an appropriately qualified and engaged professional.

5. What Palmer & Fern may provide

Depending on the agreed written scope, Palmer & Fern may provide administrative and preparation services including:

• creating an organised electronic or physical file structure;
• indexing, naming, sorting and paginating documents;
• preparing factual chronologies from information and documents supplied by the client;
• preparing document, evidence, correspondence, payment, issue, action, decision or obligation registers;
• recording the client's own instructions and answers in administrative templates;
• preparing factual summaries that do not contain legal or other professional opinions;
• extracting dates, names, amounts, stated obligations and other express information from documents without interpreting their legal, tax or professional effect;
• preparing meeting agendas, client question lists, action plans and decision packs;
• preparing missing-information, inconsistency and follow-up lists;
• coordinating appointments and authorised information exchanges with qualified professionals; and
• assembling lawyer-ready, accountant-ready, meeting-ready, board-ready or tribunal-ready administrative packs.

The precise inclusions, exclusions, limits and deliverables are stated in the client's written Scope and Fee Schedule.

6. No engagement through the website

Accessing this website, submitting an enquiry, booking an introductory call, downloading material or communicating with Palmer & Fern does not, by itself:

• create a client relationship;
• mean that Palmer & Fern has accepted instructions;
• create a duty to act;
• vary an existing scope of services; or
• transfer responsibility for any deadline.

An engagement begins only when Palmer & Fern has completed its acceptance process and expressly confirmed the engagement in writing under its approved client documents.

7. Client responsibility

The client remains responsible for:

• checking that information supplied to Palmer & Fern is accurate, complete and lawful to provide;
• supplying all relevant documents, instructions and known deadlines;
• reviewing and correcting factual summaries, chronologies, schedules, registers and working documents;
• making all final decisions;
• obtaining legal, accounting, tax, financial or other professional advice when required;
• reviewing and approving documents before they are signed, filed, submitted, circulated or relied upon;
• complying with court, tribunal, contractual, statutory, regulatory and professional deadlines; and
• deciding whether information should be disclosed to another person or organisation.

Unless Palmer & Fern has expressly accepted a specifically identified administrative deadline in writing, Palmer & Fern does not monitor or assume responsibility for filing, limitation, response, hearing, compliance or other deadlines.

8. Accuracy and source information

Palmer & Fern relies on information and documents supplied by clients and authorised third parties.

Unless verification is expressly included in the written scope, Palmer & Fern does not independently verify every statement, record, document, calculation or representation. Factual summaries and professional-ready packs are preparation tools and remain subject to client confirmation and professional review where required.

Information may be identified as client-reported, document-sourced, unconfirmed, inconsistent, incomplete or requiring professional advice. Palmer & Fern may pause work where information is missing, unreliable, unlawful to use or outside the agreed scope.

9. External professionals and referrals

Lawyers, accountants, registered tax practitioners, experts and other professionals are separately engaged unless expressly confirmed otherwise in writing.

External professionals are responsible for their own advice, services, availability, fees, professional obligations and decisions. Palmer & Fern does not control or guarantee the advice, availability, suitability, acceptance or outcome of an external professional.

Palmer & Fern will provide documents or information to an external professional only with the client's authority or where otherwise permitted or required by law.

A referral does not constitute a guarantee of suitability, acceptance, availability or outcome. Any financial or other benefit associated with a referral will be disclosed before the referral is made.

10. Confidentiality, privacy and legal professional privilege

Palmer & Fern handles personal and confidential information in accordance with its Privacy Policy, client authorities and engagement terms.

Communications between a client and Palmer & Fern are not automatically protected by legal professional privilege. Marking a document or communication confidential or privileged does not, by itself, create privilege.

Where legal professional privilege may be important, the client should obtain advice from their lawyer before providing documents and should consider whether Palmer & Fern's work should be requested, directed or managed through the lawyer.

Where legal professional privilege lawfully applies to particular material, no waiver is intended merely because the material is accidentally transmitted to an unintended recipient.

11. Website information and no reliance

Information on this website is general information about Palmer & Fern and its services. It is not legal, tax, accounting, financial, counselling, therapeutic or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for advice tailored to a person's circumstances.

Laws, procedures, forms, fees, professional requirements and administrative processes may change. Palmer & Fern does not warrant that every item of website content is complete, current or suitable for a particular purpose.

A person should not make, delay or avoid a decision solely in reliance on general website information. Any limitation of liability applying to an accepted engagement must be contained in the solicitor-reviewed Client Services Agreement and does not arise solely from this website notice.

12. Website and email security

Website forms and ordinary email may not be secure methods for transmitting highly sensitive information.

Do not send identification documents, account credentials, confidential legal advice, children's records, medical records, financial account information or other highly sensitive material through a general website form or ordinary email unless Palmer & Fern has confirmed an approved secure-transfer method.

Palmer & Fern may require identity, authority, conflict and security checks before accepting documents or beginning work. Suspected fraudulent requests, including requests to change bank account or payment details, should be independently verified using previously confirmed contact details.

13. Third-party websites and resources

Links to external websites, forms, professionals or resources may be provided for convenience or general information.

Unless expressly stated, a link or referral is not an endorsement or guarantee. Palmer & Fern does not control third-party content, availability, security, privacy practices, professional services or outcomes. The user should review the third party's own terms, privacy arrangements and professional status.

14. No guaranteed result

Palmer & Fern does not guarantee that a court, tribunal, government agency, lawyer, accountant, registered practitioner, business counterparty, board, professional or other decision-maker will accept a document, adopt a position, agree with a factual summary or produce a particular result.

Preparation can improve organisation and readiness, but it cannot guarantee advice, acceptance, settlement, approval, success, timing or outcome.

15. Marketing and overall impression

The description of Palmer & Fern's services in website headings, advertisements, emails, proposals, staff communications and client documents must remain consistent with the service boundaries in this notice.

A disclaimer cannot correct an overall impression that a business provides legal, tax, accounting or other regulated professional services when its names, claims or conduct suggest otherwise. Palmer & Fern therefore uses service descriptions intended to distinguish administrative preparation and professional-readiness support from regulated advice and representation.

16. Consumer rights

Nothing in this website notice or in Palmer & Fern's engagement documents excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law.

Any exclusion, limitation, cancellation, suspension, indemnity or refund term must be contained in the applicable solicitor-reviewed agreement and operate only to the extent permitted by law.

17. Safety and emergencies

Palmer & Fern is not an emergency, counselling, crisis or safety-planning service.

If there is an immediate threat to life or safety in Australia, call 000. Do not use a website form, general email account or ordinary business communication channel if doing so may place a person at risk.

18. Changes to this notice

Palmer & Fern may update this notice when its services, systems, professional arrangements or legal obligations change.

The version published on the website at the relevant time applies to website use. Accepted client engagements remain governed by the signed engagement documents applicable to that engagement, subject to any lawful written variation.

Current Palmer & Fern website service information. The signed client engagement documents applicable to an accepted engagement govern that engagement.