Complaints

It is in our interests, as well as yours, that you receive a high quality service. Whilst we try to avoid it, sometimes things go wrong and we need you to tell us about it. It is our policy to investigate all complaints or expressions of dissatisfaction to assist us in the improvement of the service we provide.

If you have been unable to resolve any issues with the person dealing with your matter, or the named person in our original letter to you, if you have not already done so, a complaint can be made by telephone, email, or by letter but we may ask you to send confirmation in writing.

Complaints should be directed to:

Professional Standards Team
Nelsons Solicitors Limited
Pennine House
8 Stanford Street
Nottingham
NG1 7BQ
Tel: 0115 989 5352
Email: riskandcomplianceteam@nelsonslaw.co.uk 

Full details should be provided to the Professional Standards Team, including the background leading up to the complaint and details of all areas of concern.

Responding to your complaint

On receipt of your complaint, an acknowledgement letter will ordinarily be issued within five business days. This letter will include the following information:

1. The name of the person investigating the complaint.
2. If appropriate, confirmation of our understanding of the nature of your complaint and a statement that you should contact us if you disagree with this.

Investigation of complaints

We will promptly and thoroughly investigate all complaints. The investigation will be carried out by a suitably qualified person who, usually, will not have had direct involvement in the subject matter giving rise to the complaint.

The timescales we aim to achieve are as follows:

1. Within four weeks of receiving your complaint we will either:
   a. Send you our final response after completing our investigation; or
   b. Send you a holding letter explaining why we are not in a position to resolve your complaint and advising when we will make further contact.
2. By the end of eight weeks after we have received your complaint we will either:
   a. Send you our final response after completing our investigation; or
   b. Send you a response which explains why we are still not in a position to provide our final response and informing you of your other remedies at that stage.
3. On concluding our investigation, we will produce a written report which will explain:
   a. The outcome of our investigation; and
   b. The nature and terms of any offer of compensation; or
   c. Reasons for not making an offer.
   d. Any further remedies which may be available to you

We shall assume that the complaint is resolved if we have not heard from you within two weeks of our response.

Rights if you are not satisfied

If we have been unable to settle your complaint using our internal complaints procedure, you have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body, established under the Legal Services Act 2007, who deals with legal services complaints.

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 our 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.

You can refer to the Legal Ombudsman by post, email or telephone as follows:

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ
Tel: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk 

The Legal Ombudsman does not have power to deal with some types of client – further information is obtainable on their website, which can be found here.

Alternative complaints bodies (such as Ombudsman Services, Pro-Mediate and Small Claims Mediation) exist, which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and Nelsons wish to use such an alternative scheme.

Nelsons do not agree to use any of these or similar schemes.

Online Contracts

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, and it relates to a contract we entered into online or by other electronic means, you may also be able to submit your complaint to an approved Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) provider in the UK via the EU ‘ODR platform’.

The ODR platform is an interactive website offering a single point of entry for disputes between consumers and traders relating to online contracts. The ODR platform is available to consumer clients only, e.g. where you have instructed us for purposes outside your trade, business, craft or profession.

The website address for the ODR platform can be found here.

Rights where you think there has been Professional Misconduct or a Regulatory breach

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. In these cases, contact details for the Solicitors Regulation Authority are:

The Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
199 Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN
Tel: 03706062555
Email: report@sra.org.uk
Website: https://www.sra.org.uk