Complaints Procedure

Our aim is to provide our clients with excellent levels of client service. However, we recognise that there may be times when you feel we fall short of that intention and you may wish to raise a complaint. The first port of call for your complaint should be to the relevant fee earner or client director who will deal with your complaint in line with our internal complaints procedures.

1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 7 days of receiving it, explaining how will deal with your complaint.

2. The next step will be to investigate your complaint. This will usually involve reviewing your file and speaking to the fee earner/partner who acted for you. It may also involve a discussion/meeting with you and if this is considered appropriate, we will advise you accordingly.

3. We will aim to report to you with the outcome of our investigations as soon as possible. This will ordinarily be within 28 days of sending the written acknowledgement.

4. If we need to adjust any of these timescales, we will notify you accordingly.

We hope to be able to resolve all complaints internally as swiftly as possible. Where matters cannot be resolved internally you may be entitled to ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint or an alternative complaints body, such as ProMediate (www.promediate.co.uk). We believe that the Legal Ombudsman’s scheme is the most suitable for legal complaints and they would be our suggestion if we were unable to resolve your complaint.

Complaining to the Legal Ombudsman – if your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of making the complaint, you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. However, the Ombudsman's powers are limited in certain respects as they can only accept complaints from individuals and certain small businesses and organisations. Full details of the kinds of complaints which the Ombudsman will accept can be found on their website at www.legalombudsman.org.uk and their address and contact details are: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ (email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; tel: 0300 555 0333).

If you are entitled to make a complaint to the Ombudsman, please note that you must normally do so within 6 months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint. Complaints must be made within 6 years from the date of the act/omission or 3 years from when you should have known about the complaint. You should also note that the Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill if you have applied to the court for it to be assessed.

If the complaint relates to our charges, you may be entitled to apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 in which case the Legal Ombudsman may not consider your complaint. If all or a part of a bill remains unpaid we may be entitled to charge interest.

Please get in touch
Email:
info@crestlegal.com