COMPLAINTS POLICY - Chisholms
If you feel you have a complaint about our service:
1. Communicate it to Charles Rushforth.
by post: addressed to him at Chisholms 58 Molesworth Street Wadebridge, Cornwall PL27 7DR
email: mail@chisholmswade.plus.com addressed for the attention of Charles Rushforth
Telephone: 01208 812470
2. If you are telephoning, ask to be put through to me: say you have a complaint to make about our service and you wish to speak to me. You will be put through unless I am unavailable.
3. If you speak to me on the telephone I will try to resolve it to your satisfaction there and then. I will investigate it immediately if it is capable of being dealt with so quickly, and either deal with it for you, or call you back when I can – usually within one working day.
4. If you prefer, or if it cannot be resolved over the telephone, or if I am unavailable or if it is better because the subject is sensitive, or lengthy or detailed, you can put your complaint in writing (by ordinary or electronic mail) – or we may have to ask you to do so for any of the above reasons. If you do write, please make clear:
- The fact that you have a complaint about our service
- What it is you are complaining about
5. If you write we will:
- Investigate the matter as quickly as possible
- Either reply substantively within two working days …
… or acknowledge your letter immediately and tell you when we will be able to reply substantively, and why not immediately. It is expected that the substantive reply would be within seven days.
6. If we find that your complaint is justified we will certainly try to resolve it to your satisfaction and we will, in our letter to you:
- Confirm what we found to be justified
- Explain what went wrong, if possible
- Apologise if appropriate
- Tell you what we suggest can be done to put it right, if appropriate or how, if appropriate, you can be compensated …
- or tell you what to do next to take the matter further, if appropriate, whether to the Legal Complaints Service (the Legal Ombudsman) or otherwise, if you are still dissatisfied. If the complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction within 8 weeks you will have the right to refer it to the Legal Ombudsman. Note you have 6 months in which to lodge a Claim with the Ombudsman (Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ; telephone 0300 555 0333, http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk) Email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
It can be extended by them in certain circumstances, subject to an overall time limit of six years from it arising (or three years from your becoming aware of it).
7. Of course, when we investigate the complaint it is possible that we may come to the conclusion that it is not justified. If so, we will:
- Explain what we have done to investigate the complaint and how we have come to the conclusion that it is not justified. If you do not agree, please feel free to write explaining why not. I would ask that you do so within 21 days so that we do not have such matters hanging over us and so that they can be looked at whilst fresh. Again, we will respond to you within the time set out in paragraph 5.
- Explain what you can do to take the matter further, if appropriate, whether to the Legal Complaints Service (Ombudsman) or otherwise if you are still dissatisfied.
Even so, we will try to find out what went wrong so that you thought you had a complaint even though we did not agree with you in the end. It may be a question of communications, of over-optimistic expectations not recognised and allowed to run unchecked … whatever. If there is something we can learn from to improve our service, we will.
8. Whether or not we agree with your complaint in the end, we will:
-Check whether we did everything we should have done
-See whether there is anything to change to ensure this does not happen again
9. 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.
Solicitors Regulation Authority
Post: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN
Email: via: https://www.sra.org.uk/contact-us/
Phone: 0370 606 2555 Website: www.sra.org.uk
We will keep a central record of all complaints indexed by name, date and file reference. This will enable us to keep a track of all complaints made against our firm, and thus monitor and evaluate the quality of our service to clients and spot any trends in complaints that may appear, and take appropriate remedial action – whether modification of procedures, training, disciplinary
