If you have any cause for concern, including about a bill, in the first instance please contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues.

If this person cannot satisfactorily address your concerns and you wish to make a formal complaint, please contact our Designated Complaints Handler, Fleur Everett, Solicitor/Partner. She can be contacted in writing at The Old Parsonage, 2 St Marys Gate, Rochdale, OL16 1AP or by Email to [email protected]  or by telephone on 01706 644187. If the complaint is about Fleur Everett you may contact Sarah Milner at the same address and telephone number and her email address is [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 and we will also send you a letter or email 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 or email 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 or by Skype and we would hope to be able to have such a meeting 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 may 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/helping-the-public/#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.

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 complaint to us; or
• The Legal Ombudsman decides that there are exceptional reasons 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.

A complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made:

• Within six months of you receiving a final response from us to your complaint;

and

• No more than one year from the date of act/omission being complained about; or
• No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

Legal Ombudsman Contact Details

Address:    PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 OEH

Telephone:    0300 555 0333

Email:             [email protected]

Website:          www.legalombudsman.org.uk

JBHS is committed to ensuring that all Partners and employees give their full co-operation to the Legal Ombudsman in the event of any dispute or complaint against the firm.

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, disability, or other characteristic.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/