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Mon - Fri 8:30am - 7pm | Sat - Sun 9am - 5pm

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 in the first instance with the solicitor representing you.

Initial concerns

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.

Complaints process

If your lawyer or their manager is unable to resolve your complaint, and you remain unhappy, you can escalate your complaint 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 you would like us to put things right

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.

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, 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]

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour, or 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.

Online Dispute Resolution (ODR)

If you are a client and we have made a contract with you by electronic means (website, email, etc.) you may be entitled to use an EU online dispute resolution service to assist with contractual disputes should any arise. Details of this service may be found at ec.europa.eu/odr.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Alternative complaints bodies, such as Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation exist which deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.

It is not our policy to make any charges for assisting in resolving client care issues.

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