Complaints Handling Procedure

Our Complaints Policy

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 enable us to deal with your concern and help us to improve our standards.

In the first instance, it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues. If you would like to make a formal complaint please see below. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.

A complaint is when you have found our services to be unsatisfactory or unacceptable, and we will only action the complaints procedure when a complaint has been put in writing to our Practice Manager.

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint about our service or the fees that we have charged, please contact us in writing to the Practice Manager, Venters Solicitors, 41 London Road, Reigate, RH2 9RJ

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days of us receiving it enclosing a copy of this procedure. The acknowledgement letter will identify the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. Your complaint will be recorded on our central register.

2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to the relevant Head of Department, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you. Should the complaint be about one of our Heads of Department it will be passed to another Head of Department or Partner, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you. The Head of Department or Partner will write a detailed response to you within 14 days of us sending the original acknowledgement letter.

3. If your complaint remains unresolved at this stage, the Practice Manager will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. This will be within 3 days of any further communication with you.

4. Within 3 days of any such meeting, the Practice Manager will write to you to confirm the discussions, and any resolution agreed with you.

5. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, a discussion can be had by telephone with the Practice Manager, or an exchange of emails, whatever you prefer. Within 3 days of this discussion, the Practice Manager will send you a written response to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter.

6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for another Head of Department, Partner or someone unconnected with the matter at the firm to review the matter.

7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. 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:

• 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.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Contact details
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00.
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

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.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

In Summary

1. You must register your complaint with us within one year.

2. The Legal Ombudsman expects you to give us 8 weeks to try to resolve your complaint.

3. After this time, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman: visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk, call 0300 555 0333 or email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Data Protection Complaints Procedure 

We are committed to providing a high-quality service, in accordance with data protection law.

At all times, we seek to comply with data protection principles by ensuring we:

1. process personal data lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;

2. collect personal data for specific and legitimate purposes and do not process personal data in a way that is incompatible with those purposes;

3. collect and use adequate, relevant and minimal personal data;

4. take reasonable steps to make sure personal data is accurate and kept up to date;

5. do not keep personal data longer than necessary; and

6. implement appropriate security measures.

We acknowledge that we may not always get things right, so if something has gone wrong, we need you to tell us. This will help us to improve our standards of service and data protection controls.

How to make a data protection complaint

The table below shows the different ways you can contact us to make a data protection complaint. For any other type of complaint, please follow the process above.

Acknowledging and verifying your complaint

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it.

We will take reasonable steps to verify the identity of the person making the complaint. This may involve requesting further information or documentation from you. If the complaint is made on behalf of someone else, we will also need to check that the person making the complaint is properly authorised to do so.

If, having requested additional information, we are not in a position to identify the person making the complaint or we are not satisfied that they have proper authority to make the complaint, we may be unable to deal with it.

Investigating your complaint

We will investigate your complaint. This will usually involve:

1. reviewing your complaint;

2. locating and reviewing the records we hold about you;

3. establishing the relevant facts; and

4. liaising with individuals who you may have dealt with.

We may also need to ask you for further information or documents. If so, we will ask you to provide the information within a specific period of time.

We will update you on the progress of your complaint at appropriate times.

Notifying you of the outcome of our investigation

We will inform you of the outcome of the complaint without undue delay.

We will explain clearly what we've done to resolve your complaint and, where appropriate, any action we have taken as a result.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or you can seek to take action in the courts.

The ICO’s contact details are: 

Address:  Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Helpline Number: 0303 123 1113

More details on how to complain to the ICO are available on the Complaints page of the ICO’s website. You should usually submit your complaint to the ICO within three months of your last contact with us.