Our Complaints Procedure

What to do if you have any concerns or complaints?

At Watson Woodhouse Solicitors, we pride ourselves on the highest quality customer care. Should you feel dissatisfied at any stage, we would always ask for the opportunity to talk it through with you informally first and attempt to rectify the problem.

Your first two (informal) steps: firstly do contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and they will do their very best to resolve any issues. Most issues can be resolved quickly and amicably at this stage, however, if you feel uncomfortable discussing your concerns with the individual directly then their Head of the Department will be available to discuss the matter informally with you, and take action to resolve the problem. Heads of Departments and their contact details can be found on our people section of our website. 

Your third (formal) step If after speaking to the HOD you feel the issue has still not been dealt with to your satisfaction, please direct your formal written complaint to Neil Douglas, who is the Director in charge of Client Care (or by post to our office address). You can also send an email to our dedicated email address: complaints@watsonwoodhouse.co.uk. Please be assured making a complaint will have no negative impact on how we handle your case.

What is the process for a formal complaint?

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing within a week. If the complaint has been made verbally, we will include a summary of our understanding of your complaint and then investigate it. Neil Douglas will review your file which might include speaking to any other members of staff who have been involved in your matter. The investigation might also involve inviting you to a meeting to discuss your complaint. If we invite you to a meeting, we will do this within three weeks of sending the acknowledgement letter. Within one week of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions or further steps that were agreed with you.

Should you not wish to attend a meeting in person (or it is not possible), we will aim to send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within four weeks of sending you the acknowledgement letter. However, if the issue is complex this may take up to eight weeks from the date of your complaint.

If it is not possible to deal with your complaint in this timeframe we will inform you of the delay and the reasons. However, we will do our best to resolve the matter as soon as practicable.

Is there a cost to making a complaint?

Please be assured there are no costs for the conduct of a complaints investigation.

Management of your complaint

We record all complaints centrally to enable us to be aware of any recurring problems or trends in themes. We use this insight to amend and innovate our practices, and processes as well as to monitor potential training needs.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint?

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint.  If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within that time frame, then you may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint.  The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.

Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of your having received a final written response from us about your complaint.   Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring; or within one year from when you should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.

For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk

If you have concerns about our behaviour, such as dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristics then you can raise your concerns with our regulators, the Solicitors Regulation Authority at http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page

You also have the right to complain about or challenge the bill by applying for an
assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 but you should be aware that the Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about the bill if you have applied to the court for assessment of the bill.