Our Complaints Policy

 Whitestone Solicitors are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us. This will help us to improve our standards.

Our Complaints Procedure

 If you have a complaint, please provide us with the full details. You can contact us at:

Whitestone Solicitors

Whitestone House

2 West Street

Rochdale

Lancashire

OL16 2EN

Tel:      01706 645 600

Email:  info@whitestonesolicitors.co.uk 

We will deal with your complaint promptly, fairly and free of charge.

What will happen next?

 We will write to you acknowledging your complaint and may ask you to provide further details if necessary. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within one week of us receiving your complaint.

1. We will record your complaint in our central register within seven days of receiving your complaint.
2. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:-
   1. We will pass your complaint to Sajid Sadiq our client care partner, within one week. If your complaint is about Sajid Sadiq, it will be investigated by Maragaret Bailey-Tsavalas.
   2. We will ask the member of staff who acted for you to comment on your complaint within two weeks.
   3. We will then consider your complaint, the comments of the relevant member of staff and examine your file. We will, if necessary, also speak to the member of staff who acted for you. This will take up to two weeks from receiving their comments and the file.
3. Sajid Sadiq or Margaret Bailey-Tsavalas will then write to you with a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. We will do this within eight weeks of our acknowledging your complaint.
4. However, if you remain unhappy with our response then you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (LEO), an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from us.

The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints up to one year from the date of the problem occurring or one year from when you should have realised there was cause for complaint.

If you wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman this must be done within six months of the date of our final response letter.

You can contact the Legal Ombudsman by visiting www.legalombudsman.org.uk contacting them on 0300 555 0333 or by email on enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Or you can write to them at;

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6167

Slough

SL1 0EH

Your right to complain is not restricted simply to our conduct but also about the amount of our bill.  In addition to your rights to complain about our bill under our Complaints Procedure and to the Legal Ombudsman, you may also have a right to object to the bill by applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under Part 3 of the Solicitors Act 1974. We are obliged to inform you that if all or any part of the bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest upon it.

In addition to directing a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (LEO) you will be able to refer your dispute for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). There are three Institutions available to deal with disputes in the legal services sector, namely the Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation.  If required, we will provide contact details for those mediation services.

You also have the right to make a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in the event that your complaint relates to;

• A breach of a Principle of the SRA Standards & Regulations 2019 and/or;
• Allegations of dishonesty or discrimination. 

To make a report see http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page or contact the SRA at 

Solicitors Regulation Authority 

The Cube

199 Wharfside Street

Birmingham

B1 1RN

Tel : 0370 606 2555