Complaints Policy

The Solicitors Regulation Authority 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 raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

What do to if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

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

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Contact details

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

 

Our complaints policy 

We 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 complaint, contact us with the details.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or

explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within two days of us receiving your complaint.

2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your

complaint. We will do this within 2 days of receiving your complaint.

3. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps

a.  We will pass your complaints to Alia Fardous, our client care Partner within three days.

b. If it is Alia Fardous you are complaining about, your complaint will be passed to Mohammed M Yaqub.

c. We will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 5 days

d. He (or she) will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file and, if necessary, he may also speak to them.

This will take up to three days from receiving their reply and the file.

4. Alia Fardous/ Mohammed M Yaqub will then invite you to a meeting either face to face or by Telephone to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. This will be done within 3 days.

 

5. Within two days of the meeting Alia Fardous / Mohammed M Yaqub will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he (or she) has agreed with you.

If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Alia Fardous/ Mohammed M Yaqub will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include his (or her) suggestions for resolving the matter. He (or she) will do this within five days of completing the investigation.

6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways.

a.Another partner of the firm will review Alia Fardous’s / Mohammed M Yaqub’s decision within 10 days.

b.We will invite you to agree to independent mediation within five days. We will let you know how long this process will take.

7. We will let you know the result of the review within five days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our                final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We will also give you the name and address of our Consumer Complaints              Service. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact them about your complaint.

8. If you are still unhappy with the outcome of the complaint, we will provide you with details of the Legal Ombudsman which is an independent company who will investigate your complaint. We will advise you of time limits for making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.

The address for the Legal Ombudsman is: Legal Ombudsman. PO Box 6806. Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. Web address is: http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk Alternatively, you can e-mail them at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or telephone them on 0300 555 0333. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman should be made within 6 months of the matter having been reviewed and a final decision made by Clearwater Solicitors LLP.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

If your first language is not English or you find it difficult to read our complaints procedure, please tell us which language you read and we will endeavour to have a complaints procedure translated into your preferred language.