Complaints Policy ================= Vardags is committed to providing an excellent service to all our clients. We take any expression of dissatisfaction about the service you have received seriously. We will investigate your concerns objectively and respond promptly to any complaint. 1\. INTRODUCTION We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all of our clients. When clients raise concerns or something goes wrong we really do need to be informed. This will help us to improve our standards going forward and rectify any issues which can be resolved during the course of our instruction, to provide the best possible service that we can. 2\. WHAT IS A COMPLAINT? We define a complaint as: "any issue or concern raised or reported by a client in relation to our service, the level of our fees, or how we have dealt with a matter". 3\. MAKING A COMPLAINT You can register a complaint with the person with day-to-day conduct of your matter or with the Director with overall responsibility for your matter, details of which are given in your initial Client Engagement Letter. You can do this verbally or in writing and our preference would be the latter so that we have a good understanding of the issues of concern to you. Details of your complaint with be passed to our Complaints Officer. However, in the first instance, the person with day-to-day conduct of your matter and the Director with overall responsibly for your matter, with the assistance of our Practice Support Officer where appropriate, will try to resolve the problem to your satisfaction informally. If they are not able to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you may request that the complaint be escalated to be dealt with by our Complaints Officer. We will ask you to provide us with a formal letter (an "Escalated Complaint Letter") setting out: - the full nature of your complaint - the names of the parties who you believe to be responsible - how you propose your complaint be resolved. 4\. INVESTIGATING THE ESCALATED COMPLAINT Upon receipt of your Escalated Complaint Letter, our Complaints Officer will: - acknowledge receipt within 7 days; - record your complaint in our Central Complaints Register and open a separate file for your complaint; - conduct a full investigation and an independent review of the matter; - aim to respond to you in full within 8 weeks. However, if your complaint is of a more complex nature more time may be required and if that is the case our Complaints Offer will let you know when you can expect to receive a full response. Our Complaints Officer may also invite you to meet with her and the Director with overall responsibility for your matter in order to gather more information and resolve the matter; and - reply to you in writing, to tell you of her views on the complaint and, where applicable, how she proposes to resolve it, hopefully to your satisfaction. If still unresolved at this stage, you may take the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, further details in respect of which are given below. We will issue a final letter advising you of this. 5\. LEGAL OMBUDSMAN The Legal Ombudsman is the independent body established by the Office for Legal Complaints under the Legal Services Act 2007 to deal with complaints against Solicitors. The Legal Ombudsman may: - investigate the quality of professional service supplied by a solicitor to a client; - investigate allegations that a solicitor has breached rules of professional conduct; - investigate allegations that a solicitor has unreasonably refused to supply a professional service to a prospective client; and - investigate allegations that a solicitor has persistently or unreasonably offered a professional service that the client does not want. Before it will consider a complaint the Legal Ombudsman generally requires that the firm's internal Complaints Procedure (outlined above) has been exhausted. If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the firm's proposals for resolving a complaint are reasonable, it may decline to investigate further. You will have to bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final response from us about your complaint and 6 years from the date of the act or omission, giving rise to the complaint or, alternatively, 3 years from the date you should reasonably have known there are grounds for complaint. The Legal Ombudsman's address and contact details are: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ; telephone, 0300 555 0333; website, www.legalombudsman.org.uk; or email 6\. THE SOLICITORS REGULATION AUTHORITY 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. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. 7\. CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO ONLINE If we are unable to resolve your complaint which relates to a contract entered into online, you may contact the Online Dispute Resolution providers by accessing the following link "A handful of firms dominate the so-called 'glamour' end of the market ... 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