Complaints Procedure

Our Complaints Policy 

We are committed to providing a high-quality service to our clients and we pride ourselves on our thorough and professional approach to our work.

While we rarely receive complaints, we believe that it is important to have procedures in place to help you in the unlikely event of your wishing to make a complaint. The following procedure is intended to inform you of the way in which we handle complaints, and help you to decide the best approach to take. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it.

Our complaints procedure

The person with overall responsibility for managing complaints is Kumer Ali, a Director at Catteralls, 15 King Street, Wakefield, WF1 2SL.

We ask that you communicate your complaint to us in writing setting out your particular concerns. This helps us to understand your complaint and respond to it.

If you want to raise a complaint under this procedure please email Kumer at Kumer.ali@catteralls.co.uk.

Alternatively you can write to the lawyer with conduct of your matter or the supervising partner and request your complaint be forwarded to Kumer Ali.

What will happen next?

1. We will send to you an acknowledgement of your complaint within three working days of receipt and enclose a copy of this procedure. We will at that stage decide who is best placed to respond to your complaint. This may be the head of department. We will also record your complaint in our central register.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This may involve inviting you to a meeting to discuss your concerns.
3. We will send you a reply to your complaint within 15 working days of receipt. If we are unable to respond to you within that time, we will inform you. The majority of matters are resolved at this stage. However, if you remain unhappy you are free to write to us again to set out your concerns. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of it having been made to us, you have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO). If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with firms of Solicitors.

If we are unable to resolve the complaint with you then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service from lawyers.

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:

• No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
• No more than one year from the date when you should have realised that there was cause for complaint;

        and

• Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman please contact them:

Contact details:

Visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call 0300 555 0333 between 10am to 4pm.

Relay UK: 18001 0300 555 0333

Email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman PO BOX 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

If you are concerned about your solicitor’s behaviour the SRA can help you, or take action when solicitors:

• Tell Lies
• Steal from you
• Close down without letting you know
• breaks any of the SRA rules

When reporting you must set out your concerns clearly, identify individuals you consider responsible and submit any evidence to support your complaint.

Complaints can be sent to the SRA at:

The Cube
199 Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN
DX 720293 BIRMINGHAM 47

or by email to report@sra.org.uk

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.