Complaints Procedure
Addies are committed to providing high quality legal services and client care. However, if you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, please contact us in writing at our Fleetwood office marking it for the attention of the Practice Manager. Rest assured we will endeavor to resolve the matter swiftly and efficiently.
Below is a step by step guide as to how your complaint will be dealt with.
– Receipt of Complaint – Your complaint will be recorded on central register and a separate file will be opened.
A letter acknowledging your complaint with a copy of our Complaints Procedure will be sent to you within 2 working days of receipt of the same.
– Investigation of Complaint – Your complaint will be passed to our Client Care Partner, John Jorgenson, within 3 working days from receipt.
John will then investigate the matter which will include requesting the file handler to provide a report within the next 7 working days.
Once the report is received John will then consider the same together with the information in your complaint file and, if necessary, speak with the file handler before providing you with a formal reply. You should receive this by no later than 3 working days from receipt of the report.
– Meeting – You will then be given the opportunity to meet with John to discuss your compliant and the reply, should you wish to do so, and hopefully resolve the same.
– After Meeting – Within 2 days of your meeting, John will write to you confirming what took place, including details of any suggestions for resolving the matter he has agreed with you.
– No Meeting – If you are satisfied with the formal reply and do not wish for a meeting with John or any further action to be taken, please notify us within 7 days of receipt and we will close our file of papers. Should we not hear from you within 4 weeks of forwarding the reply we will close our file of papers in any event. We will notify you of this.
– Unresolved Complaints – If at this stage you are still dissatisfied you may write to us again. John will then arrange for our decision to be reviewed. This will happen in one of the following ways:
a. John will review the decision within 5 working days.
b. You may be invited to attend independent mediation within 5 working days. If this course of action is suggested we will let you know how long this process will take.
c. Someone not connected with the complaint will review the decision within 10 working days. If this is the case we will write to you advising of the same.
We will write to you within 5 working days of the end of the review. At this time, we will also confirm our final position on your compliant and explain our reasons.
IF ANY OF THESE TIMESCALES SHOULD CHANGE FOR ANY REASON, YOU WILL BE CONTACTED AND AN EXPLANATION WILL BE PROVIDED.
If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. You can contact the Legal Ombudsman by:
– Calling them on 0300 555 0333 · going to the Legal Ombudsman website: https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
– Emailing them at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response form us about your complaint. Alternatively, if your complaint is regarding a breach of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Code of Conduct and you are not satisfied with our response, you can make a report to the SRA via their website at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor
