Complaints Procedure
COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE
TINKLER SOLICITORS
Our complaints policy
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all of our clients. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to maintain and improve our standards.
Our complaints procedure
If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details.
What will happen next?
- We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details. We will also let you know who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive a letter within five days of receiving your complaint.
- We will record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will do this within a day of receiving your complaint.
- We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to another member of staff at Tinkler Solicitors who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
- You will then be invited to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. This invitation will be sent within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- Within 5 days of the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions that have been agreed with you.
- If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including our suggestions for resolving the matter, within 28 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can let us know. We will then arrange to review the file.
- We will let you know the result of the review within 21 days. At this time we will write to you confirming my final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
- What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint?
The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case. Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman – within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint, and no more than six years from the date of act/omission; or no more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.
www.legalombudsman.org.uk
0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help 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. Visit their website www.sra.org.uk to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
If we have to change any of the time scales above, we will let you know and explain why.