Complaints Procedure
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.
We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care and aim to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service. However, if our clients would like to discuss how the service to them could be improved, the level of their bill, or should there be any aspect of our service with which they are not satisfied, we ask them to please contact the person in our firm responsible for complaints Handling: David Bendell on 01455 619 322, email dbendell@asrsolicitors.co.uk or by post to Catherine House, 10 Coventry Road, Hinckley, LE10 0JT. If we have to change any of the timescales set out below we will let you know and explain why.
What Will Happen Next?
- We will send you an acknowledgement of your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. If it seems appropriate, we will suggest a meeting at this
- We will then record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will also investigate your complaint by examining the file of your instructions.
- If appropriate we will then invite you to meet the Complaints Handler to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We would hope to be able to meet with you in this way no longer than 21 days after first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, we will write fully to you setting out our views on the situation and any
- Within 2 days of any meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions that we have agreed with
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 10 days. This will happen in one of the following ways:
- The Complaints Handler will review their own decision with the other
- We will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review
- An independent Senior Partner will review your complaint within 10
- We will invite you to agree to independent
- We will let you know the result of the review within 5 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.
- Other Avenues:
Clients must always try complaining to us first. In most cases they will not be able to take their complaint further without allowing us the opportunity to put things right.
We are permitted a minimum of eight weeks to consider the complaint. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within that timeframe, then our clients are advised that they may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint.
Clients are free to refer any complaint about our work, fees or level of service but there are some conditions and time limits. Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the client having received a final written response from us about their complaint. Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the act or omission about which the client is complaining occurring; or within one year from when the client should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.
For further information, please contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk. The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
Solicitors Regulation Authority
If someone thinks a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, they have the right to notify our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). There are no time limits for making a report but there are limits on what the SRA will consider. Please note that the SRA is not able to deal with issues of poor service (complaints of this nature should instead be referred to the Legal Ombudsman). For further information about the SRA’s role, please contact the SRA or visit:
https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#report