BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
We do not offer Legal Aid.

Complaints Policy

Complaints about our services

We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then we would encourage you to inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem.

In the first instance it may be helpful to contact an advisor by sending your complaint who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues.   If you still have queries or concerns, please contact Ms Kanchan on email [email protected] or by post to 48 Warwick Street, London. W1B 5NL. Your right to complain might relate to the way in which your matter is being handled or the fee we are seeking from you.

For further information or if you want to make a formal complaint, then you can read our full complaints procedure here at Terms of Business. In our procedure, we explain how we will handle a formal complaint. We also explain the role of the Legal Ombudsman and the Solicitors Regulation Authority and provide useful contact details so that you can be properly aware of your rights and the options available to you.

Our complaints procedure is as follows:

Stage 1

The first stage of our complaint process is to send a formal complaint to [email protected]. We will acknowledge your email within 72 hours as per our response policy.  This email will be received by our team and forwarded to the senior solicitor or fee earner who is currently handling your case. They will carefully review your complaint and provide a detailed response within 14 working days.

Stage 2:

In the rare case that you are still not satisfied with the response from your solicitor, you have the right to raise your complaint to our company’s founder and principal solicitor, Ms. Kanchan. You can send your complaint to [email protected]. Ms. Kanchan will conduct a full investigation into your matter and provide a detailed response within 8 weeks.
 
Should you remain dissatisfied with our handling of the complaint, or about the firm’s bill, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider it further. Before you make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, it is a requirement that you have raised your complaint with us first and we have 8 weeks to deal with your complaint. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint after the 8 weeks has expired you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. 
 

Other avenues

Clients must always try complaining to us first. In most cases they will not be able to take their complaint further without allowing us the opportunity to put things right.

Legal Ombudsman

We are permitted a period of eight weeks to consider the complaint. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within that timeframe, then our clients are advised that they may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint.

Clients are free to refer any complaint about our work, fees or level of service but there are some conditions and time limits. Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the client having received a final written response from us about their complaint. Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the act or omission about which the client is complaining occurring or from when the client should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.

For further information, please contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk. The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH.

Solicitors Regulation Authority

You may also raise concerns with the Solicitor Regulation Authority and further information can be found by following this link https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page

Information Commissioners’ Office

To the extent that your complaint relates to a breach of Personal Data or it is evident that you are exercising your Rights as a Data Subject under data and information rights legislation (including, but not limited to the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018), there may be aspects of the compliant that we may have to deal with and/or respond to differently in light of our obligations as a Data Controller. It may be that aspects of your complaint will need to be passed to our Data Protection Officer contact [email protected] to assess and respond to in accordance with our Data and Privacy Notice which is available on our website at privacy-policy-data-protection. Our standard complaint handling timescales noted above may also not be appropriate and we will advise you if we have to escalate the timeframe for responding.

In the event of an allegation of a breach of Personal Data and/or any concern that our firm has not handled your personal information properly, we will consider whether a report needs to be made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Not all breaches are reportable and we will advise you of the results of our assessment.

Should it be clear that you are exercising your rights under data and information rights legislation, please be assured that we will handle that aspect of your complaint in accordance with our regulatory obligations. For instance, we will aim to provide a full response to a Personal Data request within one month but if we cannot respond within that timescale, we will let you know when will be able to respond. You can find guidance on our obligations under data and information rights legislation on the ICO’s website (www.ico.org.uk) as well as information on their regulatory powers and the action they can take. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO provided that you have first allowed us the opportunity to attempt to resolve it ourselves. For further information or to contact the ICO please visit www.ico.org.uk/concerns or call 0303 123 1113.

Your rights to refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and SRA (as set out above) may still be available to you in addition to your Personal Data rights.

CILEx Regulation

If someone has a complaint about the misconduct of a chartered legal executive, CILEx practitioner or CILEx member, they have the right to submit a complaint directly to CILEx Regulation. Complaints about poor service should instead be directed to the Legal Ombudsman as directed above. For further information about CILEx Regulation’s role and the means to make a complaint, please visit:

https://cilexregulation.org.uk/complaints/complain-to-us/.

Resolution

If the complaint relates to the conduct of a Resolution Member or Resolution Mediator and suggests that they have worked outside the Resolution Code of Practice or the Family Mediation Council Code of Practice, then a complaint may be referred directly to Resolution. Resolution will only consider the complaint after our own internal complaints procedure has been exhausted (and permitting us a period of eight weeks to attempt to resolve the complaint ourselves). For information. Please see:

https://resolution.org.uk/contact-us/complaints/make-a-complaint-about-a-member/

and

https://resolution.org.uk/contact-us/complaints/make-a-complaint-about-a-mediator/.

If Resolution’s complaints process has been exhausted and the complainant is still not satisfied with the response, where the complaint relates to a mediator, they can appeal directly to the Family Mediation Council. Please see:

https://www.familymediationcouncil.org.uk/complaints-about-mediators/.

Alternative Complaints Bodies

Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate, further details of which can be found at www.promediate.co.uk) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both parties agree to use such a scheme. However, we need to advise you that we do not agree to use an additional complaints scheme in addition to or instead of the redress offered by the Legal Ombudsman.