Complaints Handling Policy and Procedure

We are confident of providing a high quality legal service to our clients. However, if you have any concerns as your matter is progressing or about work undertaken for you or about an invoice, please raise them in the first instance with CRCS Legal, an independent Complaints company, whose contact details are as follows:

Tel: 0330 2210511
E-mail: [email protected]
Address: 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX

A Complaint and Compliance Manager from CRCS Legal will contact you and will try and resolve matters on an informal basis at that stage. We hope this will answer any concern you may have.

What happens if this does not resolve matters and you still remain unhappy?

If this does not resolve your concerns or you would like to raise a complaint formally, CRCS Legal will deal with your formal complaint.

You can raise this with CRCS Legal by telephone, e-mail or by letter and they can be contacted on:

Tel: 0330 2210511
E-mail: [email protected]
Address: 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX

If you decide to put your complaint in writing either by e-mail or letter, it is useful if you provide the following information:

Your full name and contact details;
What you think we have got wrong;
How you would like your complaint to be resolved; and
Your file reference number (if you have it).

What does this involve?

A Complaint and Compliance Manager from CRCS Legal will contact you either in writing, e-mail or telephone to acknowledge your concerns within 5 working days of your initial contact.

Following an initial acknowledgement, you will be contacted and an understanding of your concerns will be set out to you. These two steps may be combined in that you may receive an acknowledgement which also sets out the understanding of your complaint. You may be asked to provide any further comments, or further information, and you will be asked to confirm that the understanding is correct. If you have not indicated what you would like to resolve your complaint, you will also be asked how you would like to resolve your complaint. This will happen within 5 working days of the initial acknowledgement of the complaint. If you do not confirm that the understanding is correct within 7 days, it will be assumed that the summary is correct, and the Complaint Manager will move to the next stage.

The Complaint Manager may speak with the person involved, if it is necessary to address your concerns and a review of your file will be undertaken. Our formal complaints policy allows a period of 8 weeks from receipt of your formal complaint for the full investigation to take place, or from when further information or clarification that the summary is correct is provided, if this is not provided within a short space of being requested.

The Complaint Manager will then write to you setting out their view of your complaint and making any proposal for resolution, within 7 working days of completing the review.

Your file in respect of your complaint will then be closed but if an offer is made to resolve your complaint you will be able to either accept this and Taylors Legal will carry out any resolution that is set out in the letter of response.

What will it cost?

There will be no charge to you for handling your complaint.

Please note that if the firm have issued a bill for work done on the matter, and all or some of the bill is not paid, we may be entitled to charge interest on the amount outstanding. This is explained in our Terms of Business.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint?

Whilst CRCS Legal will endeavour to investigate your complaint more quickly, we have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time, you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. This applies if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees and turnover or assets not exceeding a certain threshold, a charity or trust with a net income of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories (you can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman). The Legal Ombudsman will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your matter.

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 a year from the date of act/omission; or
No more than a year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman has limited power to investigate complaints by non-clients.

The contact details for the Legal Ombudsman are as follows:

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH

Tel: 0300 5550333
BT NGT Lite: 18001 0300 5550333
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
E-mail: [email protected]

A referral must be made to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of the date of the letter confirming the investigation has come to an end. In any event you must raise the formal complaint within 1 year of the incident giving rise to the complaint or within 1 year of when you reasonably should have known you had a complaint.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) bodies exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. We have, however, chosen not to adopt an ADR process. If, therefore, you wish to complain further, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.

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