Please note this Complaints Policy has been updated as of 1st April 2023 to reflect the changes to the time limits for referring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
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 Tracey Greatorex, our Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (COLP). You can contact her at Antony Hodari Solicitors, 83 Fountain Street, Manchester M2 2EE, by telephone on 0161 838 7011, or e-mail TGreatorex@antonyhodari.co.uk. Tracey Greatorex will pass your complaint to the Manager in charge of the department involved in your complaint. If she has to change any of the time scales set out below she will let you know and explain why.
What will happen next
1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. If it seems appropriate we will suggest a meeting at this stage. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.
2. We will then open a file for your complaint and commence our investigation. This may involve one or more of the following steps:-
· We will ask the person who acted for you to provide their comments on your complaint. We will then examine their reply and any information in your file, and we may also speak to the person who acted for you.
· We will then write, discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
· We aim to resolve any complaint within 7 working days of its receipt.
· In appropriate cases we would offer an apology/a reduction in any bill or a repayment in relation to any payment received.
· Alternatively if the matter cannot be resolved swiftly then we would liaise with the person dealing with your file to attend to any problem to your satisfaction before the file is continued with.
At this stage if you are still not satisfied please let us know. We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally intend to do this within a further 10 days
This will happen in one of the following ways:-
or
3. We will let you know the result of the review within 5 days of the end of the review.
4. If you are still not satisfied you can contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint. We very much hope this will not be necessary. The postal address of the Legal Ombudsman is PO BOX 7167, Slough, SL1 0EH. Their web address is www.legalombudsman.org.uk. Telephone: 0300 555 0333 Minicom: 0300 555 1777
There is a time limit for complaints to the Legal Ombudsman. 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.
The Legal Ombudsman will not consider a complaint before the solicitor has had the opportunity to seek to resolve the complaint through its own internal complaints procedure
Please note that there is a shorter time limit of 12 months from the date of our written response to your complaint for you to refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman if we have given you the explanation about the Legal Ombudsman contained in this letter, including this warning about the reduced time limit.
Alternative complaints bodies (such as Pro Mediate, www.promediate.co.uk) 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 ProMediate. This is because we consider that the service offered by the Legal Ombudsman to be the most appropriate means of resolving any dispute. However if you would like to make representations as to why we should use ProMediate on this occasion then you may do so.
We will not consider using ProMediate if the matter has already been dealt with by the Legal Ombudsman.
Tracey Greatorex
Solicitor/COLP
If you have concerns about how we have processed your personal data, you should initially contact Tracey Greatorex, Compliance Office for Legal Practice, by email at TGreatorex@antonyhodari.co.uk or at our registered address.
Antony Hodari Holdings is registered with the ICO reference ZA097080.
If you remain unsatisfied, you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office – concerns can be reported online at www.ico.org.uk, by telephone to 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745, or in writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
