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Complaints Policy

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within seven days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.

2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our complaints director, Christopher Taylor, who will review your matter file and speak to the person who acted for you.

Please note that we try to deal with complaints promptly and fairly, and our handling of complaints is free of charge.

3. The complaints director may invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. If such a meeting takes place, he will write to you within fourteen days after the meeting to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.

4. If the complaints director does not think it necessary or helpful to offer a meeting, or if you do not wish to attend a meeting, he will send you a detailed written response to your complaint, including any suggestions for resolving the matter. The complaints director will endeavour to do this within 21 days after of sending you the acknowledgement letter, but a more complex matter may take longer. If more time is needed, the complaints director will write to you within 21 days to keep you informed and to advise you when she expects to provide the response.

5. The response from our complaints director will be our final decision on your complaint unless you request a review of that decision. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the complaints director you should contact us again to ask for a review. We will then arrange for another director unconnected with the matter at the firm, alternatively for another suitably qualified person (either within the firm or external to the firm) to review both your complaint and the response by our complaints director.

6. We will write to you within seven days of receiving your request for a review, to explain who will be carrying out the review.

7. The person carrying out the review of your complaint will endeavour to complete his or her review within 21 days after the acknowledgement letter is sent to you, but a more complex matter may take longer. If more time is needed, the person carrying out the review will write to you within 21 days to keep you informed and to advise you when he or she expects to complete his or her review.

8. The person carrying out the review will set out his findings in writing, explaining his decision on the complaint and the steps we must take in response. This will represent our final written response to your complaint.

9. If a complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of it being made, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint. The question of which complaints are covered by the Legal Ombudsman is governed by the Scheme Rules published by the Ombudsman. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must normally be made within six months of receiving a final written response 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.

The address and contact details for the Legal Ombudsman are set out below:

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6167

Slough

SL1 0EH

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Telephone: 0300 555 0333

Email enquiries: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Alternative complaints bodies such as ProMediate exist which are ADR certified and competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.

We do not agree to use ProMediate as the Legal Ombudsman already works in a similar way even though not currently ADR certified.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.