This Complaints Handling Procedure tells you how we will deal with your complaint and how long it is likely to take. It also provides important information about what you can do if you are not happy with the way in which we are dealing with your complaint, or about our final decision. Our Complaints Policy contains further information about what you can expect from us when you make a complaint.
If you have any concerns about our service, our work, or our charges, you should discuss these first with the individual who has day-to-day control of your matter.
If this person cannot satisfactorily address your concerns and you wish to make a complaint, please contact our Designated Complaints Manager, Andrew McBirnie.
You can write to Andrew at St Mary’s Court, Lowgate, Hull HU1 1YG or send an Email to Andrew.mcbirnie@swaineallen.co.uk. Andrew may investigate your complaint himself or may delegate this to another senior manager.
Step One: Acknowledging your Complaint
Within two working days of receiving your complaint, your complaint will be recorded in our Complaints Register and a separate file will be opened in which we will store any correspondence and other documents relating to your complaint. Within two working days we will also send you a letter acknowledging your complaint.
Step Two: Investigating your Complaint
Within five working days of receiving your complaint, we will review your file(s) and any other relevant documentation and send you a letter telling you how we propose to deal with your complaint.
Examples of what we might say in this letter are as follows:
In all cases we will issue a final written response to your complaint fully setting out our views on the situation and if appropriate making suggestions as to how we can put things right and to confirm any offer of redress that we believe to be appropriate.
Whichever form our investigation takes, we will aim to give you our final decision within six weeks of receiving your complaint (or sooner if possible).
Step Three: Appealing against our Final Decision
If you are not satisfied with our final decision, please let us know and let us have any further information or comments you wish to make and we will review our decision in light of that information.
We will aim to let you know the result of any review within five working days of receiving your request or will let you know within that period when we expect to be able to respond.
Step Four: The Legal Ombudsman
If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman who investigate complaints about service issues with lawyers.
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.
You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you under our internal complaints handling procedure.
Ordinarily, you cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless you have first attempted to resolve your complaint using our internal Complaints Handling procedure, but you will be able to contact the Legal Ombudsman if:
If you wish to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman you must be one of the following:
If you are not, you should be aware that you can only obtain redress by using our Complaints Handling Procedure or by mediation or arbitration, or by taking action through the Courts.
Legal Ombudsman Contact Details
Address: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Alternative complaints bodies such as mediation services exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.
We will not automatically agree to use mediation to seek to resolve your complaint.
Solicitors Regulatory Authority
If your complaint does not relate to poor service but you believe the firm has breached one of the Solicitors Regulatory Authority Principles or if the firm has closed and you believe the firm owes you money, then you may complain to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority.
Solicitors Regulatory Authority Contact Details
Address: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN
Email: report@sra.org.uk
Website: www.sra.org.uk
If you are a customer of Swaine Allen Solicitors and we have contracted with you online you may be entitled to use the EU Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform to assist in resolving any dispute with us. This service can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr.
Our email address is info@swaineallen.com.
Swaine Allen is a trading name of Lockings Legal Services Limited registered in England and Wales company registration number 09244568 Lockings Legal Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA ID number 626081). All telephone calls are recorded for training and quality purposes. A list of our directors is available for inspection at our office.