What will happen next?
1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint. We may either at that point or subsequently ask you to clarify the details contained within your letter of complaint. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. This will usually be our Client Care Manager.
You can expect to receive our letter within five working days of us receiving your complaint.
2. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:
- The member of staff who acted for you will be asked for their comments on your complaint.
- Those comments and the information in your file will then be considered and if appropriate the matter will be discussed with the member of staff.
3. We will send you a reply to your complaint which will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. We aim to do this within six weeks of receipt of your initial letter, unless the matter is particularly complex, in which case we will advise you and where possible, provide a revised timetable for our reply.
4. If you are not satisfied with the determination that has been made, you can contact us again (though this must be in writing and no later than 8 weeks from the date you received the determination), and a senior member of the firm will review the determination that has been made within 20 working days of receipt of your letter.
5. You will hear in writing from us with the outcome of the review and we will confirm to you our final position regarding your complaint.
6. We hope that are able to resolve your complaint satisfactorily. However, if you remain unhappy with our response then you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from us.
7. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. Please note that where our complaints procedure has been implemented this timeframe changes and you must refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.
8. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Minicom: 0300 555 1777
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
9. Alternatively, the Solicitors Regulation Authority could assist you if you wish to raise an issue concerning the conduct of our staff, for example if you believe you have been treated unfairly because of your age, disability or other characteristics, or if you believe you have lost money that was being held by us. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority at https://sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page.
If the Member of staff and Supervisor are not able to resolve the problem and you have a complaint, please contact us with the details. We would normally expect this to be made in writing marked for the attention of the Client Care Manager.