COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE AND PRIVACY POLICY

Our Complaints procedure

At Bentley Sterling and Co Solicitors, we are sincerely committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. However, if something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it so that we can resolve the problem and continually 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 at this stage.

However, if your concerns are still not resolved and you would like to make a formal complaint then please contact Jawad Baig, a Director at the firm (jawad@bentleysterling.co.uk). He can be contacted by email, or at the address below:

Bentley Sterling & Co Solicitors

Ferry Quays

6 Ferry Lane

Brentford

TW8 0BP

We wish to add that by making a complaint, it will not prejudice your claim nor affect how we handle your case.

What will happen next?

  1. Within five days of receiving your complaint we will send you a letter acknowledging receipt. We will provide details of who will be dealing with your complaint, and when you can expect to have a response. It may be necessary at this stage to ask you for more information, or to invite you to meet with us in person to discuss your complaint.
  2. We will record your complaint in our central register and will investigate your complaint by reviewing the relevant file and the issues you raise. The member of staff who acted for you may be required to provide further details.
  3. We will then provide you with a detailed written response to your complaint, this may include our suggestions for resolving the matter. We will aim to do this within seven days of acknowledging your letter. If your complaint is very detailed, or your matter has been very complex, it may take us longer to complete a review and to respond to you, but we will keep you advised if this is the case. Once again, it may be necessary to ask you to come in and meet with us in person in order to discuss your complaint before we are able to respond fully.
  4. Within three days of any meeting we have with you we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions we have agreed with you.
  5. 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.
  6. We will then write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We will always do this within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, unless there are exceptional reasons why we cannot and we will keep you advised if this is the case.
  7. If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman (contact details below) to consider the complaint.  

The Legal Ombudsman 

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:

within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint

and

No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or

No more than three years 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 as per the details below.

Contact details

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Tel: 0300 555 0333 

Web: www.legalombudsman.org.uk 

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

The Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulatory body which authorises and regulates UK law firms. The SRA 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;

You can raise your concerns with the SRA at the following address – https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/