Complaints Procedure

Complaints about our services

We will always attempt to resolve any problems that may arise with our service, and we wish to ensure that any concerns are dealt with promptly and to your satisfaction. It is therefore important that you immediately raise any queries or concerns about our work with us. We do not charge for investigating or responding to complaints.

Raising a concern

If you are not happy with the service provided to you, you should contact the lawyer dealing with your case, or their manager, who will try and resolve your concerns for you. They may suggest a telephone call or meeting to discuss matters.

How to make a complaint

If your lawyer or their manager is unable to resolve your complaint, and you remain unhappy, you can escalate your complaint to our formal complaints process in the following ways:-

By email to [email protected],

By telephone to 01423 532600 asking to speak to the Compliance & Operations Administrator.

By post to our Harrogate office.

To deal with your complaint correctly, it would be helpful when contacting us if you could provide the following information:

• Your name, contact details and preferred method of contact
• File reference number(s)
• Details of your concerns
• How this has impacted you
• What outcome you are seeking

Upon receipt of your complaint, a written copy of our complaint procedure will be sent to you confirming who will be carrying out the investigation. The Legal Ombudsman allows us a period of eight weeks from receipt of your complaint to try and resolve matters with you before you can refer your concerns to them.

Our complaints process

There are two stages to our complaints process.

At the first stage a designated responder will review your complaint, your legal matter files and, if necessary, seek further comments or information from you and/or your lawyer. They will provide a full written response addressing the concerns you have raised and propose a resolution, if appropriate.

If you remain unhappy you can ask to have the complaint escalated to the second stage, where a different designated responder will review the complaint and your reasons for why you remain unhappy. They will also provide a full written response, setting out their own conclusions. This will be our final response.

Complaints about how we have handled your data

If you wish to complain about how we have handled your personal data, or feel we have infringed data protection legislation, you can raise your concerns with our Data Protection Officer in the following ways:

By email to [email protected]

By telephone to 01423 532600

By post to our Harrogate office

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it, take reasonable steps to verify the identity of the person making the complaint and ensure it is investigated without undue delay.

Complaints about your bill

In the case of a complaint about a bill, there might also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. However, we would point out that if all or part of a bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest – any such entitlement being set out in the Billing Arrangements section of our client care letter.

Referrals to the Legal Ombudsman

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint about our service, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Their website is at: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

This organisation is the statutory body to whom you may refer your complaint once we have concluded our professional obligation to try and resolve it.

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 can be contacted at:

Legal Ombudsman: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Telephone number: 0300 555 0333

Email: [email protected]

Referrals to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your data protection complaint, you can complain to the ICO, or you can seek to take action in the courts.

The ICO’s contact details are:

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Telephone number: 0303 123 1113

More details on how to complain to the ICO are available on the Complaints page of the ICO’s website. You should usually submit your complaint to the ICO within three months of our final response to your complaint.

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you have a complaint about our behaviour, or if you are concerned that we have not adhered to the SRA rules and regulations. 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.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.