We are committed to providing a high-quality service to all our clients and prospective clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.
We aim to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction (or otherwise issue our full response) within 8 weeks of you making the complaint.
If you are unhappy with any aspect of how your matter is being handled, please speak promptly to the person who is dealing with it: we find that concerns can often be resolved quickly and easily this way. However, if you remain dissatisfied, please contact us with full details so that this may be investigated. We would like complaints to be in writing either by letter, addressed to Chloe Jay, our Client Care Partner, at Star Lane House, Staple Gardens, Winchester SO23 9AD or email to cjay@shentons.co.uk. If you cannot put your complaint in writing, please telephone Chloe Jay on 01962 844544. She will discuss your complaint with those involved and reply to you.
1. We hope it is obvious, but we confirm we will not charge you for dealing with your complaint.
2. We will send you a letter/email acknowledging your complaint and ask you to confirm or explain the details set out. We will also confirm that Chloe Jay will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter/email within three days of us receiving your complaint.
3. We will record your complaint in our central registrar and open a file for your complaint. We will do this within three days of receiving your complaint.
4. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps: We may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within five days. We may examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask them for more information. This will take up to three days from receiving their reply and the file.
5. We may invite you to meet Chloe Jay to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We will do this within three days of receiving all the details we need from the member of staff who acted for you.
6. Within two days of the meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.
7. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, or we perhaps consider it is not required, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. This will happen within five days of us completing our investigation. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain the reason why.
8. If we are unable to resolve the complaint with you then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and/or the Legal Ombudsman. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them. Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00. Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or write to Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.
Do not send original documents to the Legal Ombudsman. They will scan any documents you send to make computer copies and then destroy the originals.
9. At the end of our internal complaints handling process, in our final letter of response to you, we will ask you to let us know whether you accept our response and to do so by a set date. However, if you remain unhappy then we will remind you of how you can progress your complaint with the SRA or Legal Ombudsman, as set out above.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help 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. Their website explains how you can raise your concerns https://www.sra.org.uk/home/contact-us/ you can call them on 0370 606 2555 or write to the SRA at The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN.
If your complaint has not been resolved within 8 weeks to your satisfaction, and our complaints procedure has been exhausted, there are alternative complaints bodies, such as Ombudsman Services, 3300 Daresbury Park Daresbury, WARRINGTON WA4 4HS https://www.ombudsman-services.org/about-us/contact-us exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. We do not agree to use the Ombudsman Services.
