Complaints Procedure
Our Complaints Policy
Medlock Solicitors Ltd are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.
Our Complaints Procedure
If you have a concern or a complaint in respect of our service, our bill or any other matter, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed. The firm’s complaints director is Mr. Ishthaiq Ahmed. The address to write to is Medlock Solicitors Limited, 6 Oldham Road, Manchester, M4 5DB. The telephone number is 0161 505 1878. The email address is info@medlocksolicitors.co.uk.
What will happen next?
- We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 7 working days of our receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure. If you require a specific format then please contact Mr. Ahmed and advise him of your specific requirements.
- We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our client care director, Mr. Ishthaiq Ahmed, who will either himself or appoint an appropriate individual to review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
- We have 8 weeks from the date of your complaint to investigate the same and respond to you.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can contact us again to explain why you remain unhappy with our response and we will review your comments.
- 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.
Do You have a right of Appeal?
If you remain dissatisfied with our final response to your complaint you may be eligible to refer your complaint to the legal ombudsman provided you do so within 6 months of our final response to you in respect of your complaint
Any complaint made to the Legal Ombudsman must be made within 1 year from the date of the problem which brought about your complaint or within 1 year from the date that you should have reasonably known that there was cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman will not normally accept a complaint unless we have been given the opportunity to respond first. However, you will be able to escalate matters to the Legal Ombudsman if:
- The complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 8 weeks from the date that it was made;
- The Legal Ombudsman considers that there are exceptional reasons to consider the complaint sooner, or, without it having been made to the firm first;
- Where the Legal Ombudsman considers the resolution through our internal complaints procedure is not possible due to a breakdown in the relationship between you and the firm.
Anyone making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be:
- An individual;
- An enterprise with less than ten staffs or with a balance sheet of less than 2 million Euros as defined by the European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003;
- A club, association or society with an annual income of less than £1 million;
- A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;
- A trustee of a trust with a net asset value of less than £1 million;
- A personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring their compliant to the Legal Ombudsman.
- If you do not fall into the list of above complainants then the only option open to you is to seek redress through the firm’s Complaints Handling Procedure or by mediation, arbitration or by action through the Courts.
Contact details for the Legal Ombudsman are:
Address: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Email:
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.co.uk
Are there any alternative schemes to the Legal Ombudsman
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has confirmed that the following Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) entities are currently available to deal with disputes in the legal services sector: Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation in the event you wish to engage in mediation concerning your complaint. However, we are not agreeable to enter into ADR mediation until the Legal Ombudsman have been approved as an ADR provider.
Complaints about your bill
The above complaints procedure also applies to complaints arising concerning our bill. There may also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974; and that if all, or part, of a bill remains unpaid, the firm may be entitled to charge interest.
Raising concerns with our regulator
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you 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. You can find information about raising your concerns with the SRA at www.sra.org.uk in the ‘For the public’ section.