Complaints Policy

MSB 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.

If you have a complaint, please provide us with the full details, preferably in writing. You can contact us at 4 St Pauls Square, Liverpool L3 9SJ. However you can call us with the details on 0151 281 9040 or email emmacarey@msbsolicitors.co.uk

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

How we will deal with your complaint

1. We will write to you acknowledging your complaint and may ask you to provide further details if necessary. With that acknowledgement, we will provide you with a copy of this complaints procedure.

2. We will record your complaint in our central register within seven days of receiving it.

3. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:-

a) We will pass your complaint to Emma Carey, our Managing Partner. If your complaint is about Emma Carey, it will be investigated by Mark Forman, who is a Partner.

b) We will ask the member of staff who acted for you to comment on your complaint.

c) We will then consider your complaint, the comments of the relevant member of staff and examine your file.

4. Emma Carey or Mark Forman 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 receipt of your complaint.

If your complaint relates to the legal service you have received from us and you remain unhappy with our response, 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, by telephone on 0300 555 0333 or by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

Or you can write to them at:

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH

Data protection complaints

If your complaint relates to the way in which we have collected, used, stored, disclosed, retained or otherwise handled your personal data, we will treat this as a data protection complaint.

Data protection complaints will be handled under this complaints procedure, unless we tell you otherwise. We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days of receipt and will investigate and respond to you as soon as reasonably practicable. In any event, we will provide our response within eight weeks of receiving your complaint.

Where your complaint relates to personal data, we may need to ask you for further information to help us understand your concerns. We may also need to verify your identity.

Our Privacy Notice provides further information about how we handle personal data and explains your rights as a data subject, including your rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and data portability, where applicable. A copy of our Privacy Notice is available https://www.msbsolicitors.co.uk/privacy-policy or can be provided on request.

If you remain dissatisfied with the way we have handled a data protection complaint, you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection matters.

You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at;

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Website: www.ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Where a complaint includes both a concern about our legal service and a concern about how we have handled personal data, you may have the right to refer the service element of your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and the data protection element to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

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, you may 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 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 your complaint relates to:

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

To make a report, see:

http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/reportsolicitor.page

Or contact the SRA at:

Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
199 Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN

Tel: 0370 606 2555