Greenwood & Co

Our complaints procedure

We are committed to providing a high quality service to all of our clients. Our aim is to give you no cause for complaint.

We want you to be entirely satisfied with our services and for us to learn from your feedback how we can improve our service in the future. We are committed to treat all clients equally, to respect diversity and to deal fairly, openly and effectively with any concerns of discrimination.

However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then please inform us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. 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 at this stage.

If you have a complaint, please contact Jonathan Greenwood, our senior partner. If we have to change any of the responsibilities or the timescales set out below we will let you know and explain why.

What will happen next?

  1. Within seven days 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 record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will also investigate your complaint by examining the relevant file.
  3. We will endeavour to write to you within 21 days after first receiving your complaint dealing with the issues raised and setting out our views on the situation and any redress that we would feel to be appropriate.
  4. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let us know. We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 14 days in one of the following ways.
    • Jonathan Greenwood will review his own decision;
    • Ronald Friend will review your complaint within 14 days;
    • We will invite you to agree to independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take;
  5. We will let you know the result of the review within ten days of the end of the review period. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
  6. If we have been unable to settle your complaint using our internal complaints process you have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body, established under the Legal Services Act 2007, that deals with legal services complaints.
  7. You have six months from the date of this (our final) letter in which to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. He can be contacted by telephone on 0300 555 0333 or e-mail at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. His postal address is PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ. Further information is available on the website at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
  8. If your complaint relates to our bill you may have the right to apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under the Solicitors Act 1974. Please also note that if part or all of a bill remains outstanding we may be entitled to charge you interest.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could relate to concerns about dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.