Complaints Procedure

Our complaints policy

Guardian Wills and Probate Services Limited t/a Clifford Smith & Buchanan is 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.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, please direct your letter to the firms “Client Care Manager”. You can write to the firms’ “Client Care Manager” at Client Care Manager, Clifford Smith & Buchanan, 79 to 81 Scotland Road, Nelson, BB9 7UY. Please write by first class post or recorded delivery..

What will happen next?

  1. Within three working days we will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. Your file(s) and any other documentation relevant to your complaint will be reviewed.
  2. Your complaint will be recorded in our central register and a file opened for your complaint.
  3. If it seems appropriate we will suggest a meeting at this stage. I would hope to be in a position to meet with you in this way no longer than 14 working days after first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, I will write to you fully setting out my views on the situation and any redress that I would feel to be appropriate.
  4. Within three working days of any meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions that we have agreed.
  5. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let me know. I will then review my decision again.
  6. We will let you know the result of the review within five working 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.

If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Office for Legal Complaints about your complaint.

Ordinarily, a complainant cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless the complainant has first used the firm’s internal complaints procedure. But a complainant can use the Legal Ombudsman if:

  1. The complaint has not been resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction within 8 weeks of first making the compliant to the firm;
  2. or an Ombudsman considers that there are exceptional reasons to consider the complaint sooner, or, without it having been made to the firm first;
  3. or where an Ombudsman considers that in house resolution is not possible due to irretrievable breakdown in the relationship between the firm and the complainant.

A complainant to the Legal Ombudsman must be one of the following:

  1. An individual;
  2. A micro-enterprise as defined in European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 (broadly, an enterprise with fewer than 10 staff and a turnover or balance sheet value not exceeding €2 million);
  3. A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;
  4. A club, association or society with an annual income less than £1 million;
  5. A trustee of a trust with a net asset value less than £1 million;
  6. or a personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.
  7. 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

  1. Address: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
  2. Telephone: 0300 555 0333
  3. Email: [email protected]
  4. Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Clifford Smith & Buchanan Limited, Legal Department Tel 01282 693182, https://www.cs-b.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE A REASONABLE RESPONSE TIME FOR A REPLY TO YOUR EMAIL, LETTER OR PHONE CALL IS 5 WORKING DAYS.

BEFORE SENDING ANY FUNDS TO OUR FIRM YOU MUST RING TO CHECK OUR BANK DETAILS AND OBTAIN OUR AUTHORITY TO RECEIVE THE FUNDS FROM YOU.

For Property Ombudsman Complaints –

We are committed to providing a professional service to all our clients and customers.  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 put it in writing, including as much detail as possible.  We will then respond in line with the time frames set out below (if you feel we have not sought to address your complaints within eight weeks, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Property Ombudsman to consider without our final viewpoint on the matter).

What will happen next?

  1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three working days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
  2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally be dealt with by the office manager who will review your file and speak to the member of staff who dealt with you.  A formal written outcome of our investigation will be sent to you within 15 working days of sending the acknowledgement letter.
  3. If at this stage, you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for a separate review to take place by a senior member of staff.
  4. We will write to you within 15 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final viewpoint on the matter.

The Property Ombudsman
Milford House
43-55 Milford Street
Salisbury
Wiltshire
SP1 2BP

01722 333 306

[email protected]
www.tpos.co.uk

Please note the following:

You will need to submit your complaint to The Property Ombudsman within 12 months of receiving our final viewpoint letter, including any evidence to support your case.

The Property Ombudsman requires that all complaints are addressed through this in-house complaints procedure, before being submitted for an independent review

Designated Complaints Handler

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 Handler, Devendra Rampersaud.

You can write to him at Guardian Solicitors, Salisbury House, 81 High Street, Potters Bar, Herts EN6 5AS or send an email to [email protected].

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:

  • If your complaint is straightforward we might make suggestions as to how we can put things right or we may offer you some form of redress;
  • If your complaint is more complicated we might ask you to confirm, explain or clarify any issues;
  • We may ask to meet with you to discuss things face-to-face and we would hope to be in a position to meet with you no longer than fourteen working 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 to you fully setting out our views on the situation and making suggestions as to how we can put things right, or asking you to confirm, explain or clarify any issues. Within three working days of any meeting, we will write to you again to confirm what took place and to confirm any offer of redress that we have made.

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 we will review our decision again. We will let you know the result of any appeal within five working days of receiving your appeal.

Step Four: The Legal Ombudsman

If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint provided you do so within six months of the end of our Internal Complaints Handling Procedure.

In addition, there are time limits relating to the date you first became aware or should have become aware of the problem. The relevant time limits are set out in the version of the Legal Ombudsman’s Scheme Rules in force from time to time (which can be accessed at: https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/information-centre/corporate-publications/scheme-rules or by contacting the Legal Ombudsman using the contact details provided below) and may only be extended by the Legal Ombudsman in exceptional circumstances.

You must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

  • Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint, and
  • No more than one year from the date of act/omission; or
  • No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

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:

  • The complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of first making the compliant to us; or
  • The Legal Ombudsman determines fair and reasonable circumstances why the Legal Ombudsman should consider your complaint sooner, or without you having to use our internal Complaints Handling Procedure first; or
  • The Legal Ombudsman considers that your complaint cannot be resolved using our internal Complaints Handling Procedure because the relationship between you and us has broken down irretrievably.

If you wish to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you must be one of the following:

  • An individual;
  • A micro-enterprise as defined in European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 (broadly, an enterprise with fewer than 10 staff and a turnover or balance sheet value not exceeding €2 million);
  • A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;
  • A club, association or society with an annual income less than £1 million;
  • A trustee of a trust with a net asset value less than £1 million; or
  • A personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.

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:                [email protected]

Website:             www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Complaining to the Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you 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.

Address:            Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN

Telephone:         0370 606 2555

Email:                [email protected]

Website:            www.sra.org.uk

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Where we are not able to settle your complaint using our internal complaints process, there are alternative complaints bodies (such as the Ombudsman Services www.ombudsman-services.org) which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.

Please let us know if you would like to consider using an alternative complaints body to resolve your complaint.