Oldgate Trustees Limited Complaints Policy and Procedure
Oldgate Trustees Limited are committed to providing high quality legal services to all our clients. If something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will enable us to resolve the situation and to raise our own standards.
If you have a complaint, please contact Stuart Hamilton directly in the first instance on 0191 429 2637.
What will happen next?
1. We will acknowledge your complaint in writing and ask you to clarify any details required within 3 days of receipt of your complaint. We may suggest a meeting at this stage if we feel it is in your interest.
2. We will record your complaint on our complaints register and investigate your complaint.
3. If appropriate we will then invite you to discuss the matter with us and hopefully resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. We would hope to be in a position to have a discussion with you within 14 working days following receipt of your complaint. If you prefer not to have a discussion or we cannot agree a suitable timescale with you we will write to you fully setting out our views on the situation and any redress we are able to offer, if relevant.
4. Within 5 working days of any discussion, we will write to you to confirm what took place, and any suggestions that were agreed with you.
5. If you do not agree with our conclusion about your complaint, and you are a consumer (or qualifying small business), you may refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk (http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk)
Address: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
To make a complaint online to the Legal Ombudsman, please visit their website here: http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ and complete their online complaint form.
6. Please note that there are strict time limits for making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, although it generally expects consumers to exhaust a law firm’s complaint process before referring a complaint to it. If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of our investigation, then you have six months from our final determination to raise the matter with the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them 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.
7. Alternative complaints bodies also exist, which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. An example is Independent Mediators whose website is www.independentmediators.co.uk. We do not wish to use such an alternative complaints body as we consider that the Legal Ombudsman has the most experience in dealing with such complaints.
8. In respect of any disputed invoice, you may apply to the court for an assessment of the invoice under part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. It is very much hoped, however, this would not prove necessary.
9. We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) (www.sra.org.uk) and the rules and regulations governing how we should act and carry out our business are contained in the SRA Standards and Regulations 2019. These can be accessed and downloaded at https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/principles/) or by asking us to provide a copy.
10. Whilst the Legal Ombudsman concerns itself with issues of poor service or costs related issues, the SRA is available should you consider either an individual solicitor or firm may have breached the SRA Principles. If you wish to report any matter directly to the SRA, the relevant page of the SRA website is here (https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/).
11. How to contact us:
Oldgate Trustees, 14 Telford Court Business Park, Morpeth, NE61 2DB Telephone: 0191 4292637 or by email stuart.hamilton@oldgatetrustees.co.uk
Authorised and regulated by the SRA (No. 655896)