OUR COMPLAINTS POLICY

We are 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.

OUR COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

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

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT

The timescales shown are from the date of receiving your complaint.

We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out.   We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.   At the same time we will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint.   We will do this within 7 days of receipt of your complaint.

We will then start to investigate your complaint and the complaint will be sent to Martin Oliver, our client care partner, who will ask the member of staff who acted for you to send his or her reply to your complaint to the client care partner and the client care partner will examine the member of staff’s reply and respond within 21 days.

Having received the written response of our client care partner you are invited to contact us within 5 days of receipt of the client care partner’s written response and if you require a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint following your request we will endeavour to arrange a meeting within 2 weeks of your request.

Within 7 days of the meeting Martin Oliver will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.

At this stage if you are still not satisfied you can contact us again.   We will then arrange to review our decision.   This will happen in one of the following ways:-

Another partner in the firm will review Martin Oliver’s decision within a further 14 days.

We will provide you with the details for you to contact the Legal Ombudsman which must be done within 6 months of our final written response to the complaint.

The time limits for referring a complaint to the legal Ombudsman will be no later than:

One year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or

One year from the date when the complainant should have realised that there was cause for complaint.