Complaints Policy

BUTCHER ANDREWS COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

 

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to our clients.
When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please raise the problem with the lawyer responsible for your matter, or if you prefer, our complaints manager, Adney Payne. You can contact him at our Fakenham office, telephone number 01328 863131.

What will happen next?

1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within three days of receiving it.

2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve our complaints manager reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.

3. Within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter our complaints manager will invite you to a meeting to discuss and resolve your complaint. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, our complaints manager may instead offer you a chance to discuss the matter by telephone.

4. Within three days of the meeting, or any telephone conversation we have with you instead of a meeting, our complaints manager will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.

5. In any case he will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the written acknowledgement of your complaint referred to in paragraph 1 above.

6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for another partner who is unconnected with the matter at the firm to review his decision.

7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

8. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ (or telephone number 0300 5550333 (calls are charged at local rate) or by email: [email protected] about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you. Note that the Legal Ombudsman service cannot be used by businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman. The time limits for the Legal Ombudsman accepting a complaint are six years from the date of the act or omission; or three years from when you found out about the act or omission. However, the Legal Ombudsman will not accept complaints where the act or date of awareness were before 6 October 2010.

9. You may also be entitled to apply to the Court for an assessment of our charges under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. The Legal Ombudsman may not deal with a complaint about our charges if you have applied to the Court for assessment of the charges. If all or part of our charges remain unpaid, the Firm may be entitled to charge interest.

10. If we have to change any of these timescales we will let you know and explain why.

Referring a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”)

If you are concerned about matters such as conduct or ethics, you should report these concerns to the SRA.
Details of how to do this can be found at: http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/.

The SRA can be contacted via their website (http://www.sra.org.uk/contactus/) or by the following means:

Phone: 0370 606 2555 (or +44(0)121 329 6800 for international callers)

Fax: +44 (0)121 616 1999

Post: Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharf Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN

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