Complaints
Date last reviewed January 2024
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. If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details.
What will happen next?
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days of receiving it.
We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve your matter file being reviewed by the member of staff who is responsible for handling your equity release application. They will then seek your views on what you believe has gone wrong, and they will try to resolve your complaint directly with you. They will do this within 5 working days of us acknowledging your complaint.
If your Case Manager is unable to resolve your complaint then they will pass the matter to their Team Manager, who will review the issues raised and they will contact you in order to establish what needs to be done in order to resolve your complaint. They will do this within 10 working days of us acknowledging your complaint.
If the Team Manager is unable to resolve your complaint then the matter will be passed to our Operations Director, Sarah Robertson, for further review. She will contact you within 15 working days of us acknowledging your complaint, in order to discuss your concerns in detail and she will try to resolve the matter directly with you.
In the event that we have been unable to resolve your complaint by this stage, then the matter will be passed to our Managing Director, Max Hayden, or our Group Compliance Director, David Bush, for final review. They will contact you within 10 working days of receiving your request for a review and will seek your views on what has gone wrong and what is needed to put things right. They will then write to you, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman. However the Ombudsman’s powers are limited in certain respects as they can only accept complaints from individuals and certain small businesses and organisations. Full details of the kinds of complaints which the Ombudsman will accept can be found on their website at http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/ and their contact details are: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH (email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; telephone: 0300 555 0333). Do not send originals of anything to them.
If you are entitled to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, please note that you must normally do so within 6 months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint. Complaints must be made within 1 year from the date of the act/omission or 1 year from when you should have known about the complaint. Both of these time limits were significantly reduced with effect from 01 April 2023 and the Ombudsman has discretion to accept out-of-time complaints where it is deemed fair and reasonable to do so, but will not accept complaints where the act/omission/date of awareness was before 6 October 2010.
We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) and you may contact them if you believe we have not acted properly in relation to your matter. Details may be found at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/ and their contact details are: Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN (also by email: report@sra.org.uk; or telephone: 0370 606 2555).