Our Complaints: Resolution Protocol & Procedures

Our complaints procedure

The firm is committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please contact the firm’s Complaints Director, Camilla Rents, with the details.

Our complaints procedure

• We will send you a letter or email acknowledging your complaint, where necessary asking you to confirm or explain the details. We will tell you who will be dealing with your complaint and also provide you with the contact details for the Legal Ombudsman. You can expect to receive our letter within 2 working days of receiving your complaint.
• We will open a file for your complaint and record it in our central register.  We will do this within 2 working days of receiving your complaint.
• Camilla Rents will then investigate your complaint, which will normally involve examining your file and (if she did not act for you personally) speaking with the person in the firm who acted for you. She will endeavour to do this within 10 working days. If Camilla Rents was acting for you, the investigation will be carried out by one of her co-Directors.
• If you would like to have a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint, we will arrange this within 3 working days of your request.  Within 2 working days of the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.
• If you do not want a meeting, or if it is not possible for any reason, we will send you a detailed response to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter.
• At this stage, if you remain dissatisfied, you can let us know.  We will then arrange to review the decision.  The Directors will review the decision within 5 working days.
• We will let you know the result of this review within 3 working days of its conclusion. At this stage the Investigating Director will write to you confirming the firm’s final position on your complaint (taking into account the views of the second investigator).
• 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. 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. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you. 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 6167, Slough SL1 0EH

There is a time limit for referring the matter to the Legal Ombudsman. The time limit is 1 year from the date of the act or omission, 1 year from the date when you should have known about the complaint or 6 months from the date of the letter confirming our final decision.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.