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“Certus Solicitors has been established for 15 years. We are specialist litigation lawyers in commercial and civil dispute resolution and enforcement. We have built a privileged and enviable reputation for our integrity, professionalism and results.  Our clients want practical solutions on a cost effective basis. We couple our in-depth knowledge of business with an understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

Relationships and the trust of our clients are foremost to us. Our aim is always to be accessible and for clients to know who is  doing the work for them. This is reflected how often our clients return to us . Our clients trust us to work in their best interest; this fortifies our desire to succeed and excel. We believe in hard work, integrity and competence. Our clients respect our size and flexibility and trust us implicitly.”

Naheem Anwar, Managing Partner

Certus Solicitors LLP Complaints Procedure

Our complaints procedure

If you have any concerns about our service, our work, or our charges, please contact Mr Anwar, our Principal Solicitor, in writing. You can write to him at 33 Manor Row, Bradford, BD1 4PS.

What will happen next?

  1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. 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 five days of us receiving your complaint.
  2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a section within the central register for your complaint. We will do this within a day of receiving your complaint.
  3. We will acknowledge your reply to our acknowledgment letter and confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within five days of your reply.
  4. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps:
  • we may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within five days;
  • we may examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask them for more information. This will take up to five days from receiving the reply and the file.
  1. We may invite you to meet Mr Anwar to discuss and, it is hoped, resolve your complaint. We will do this within three days of receiving all the details we need from the member of staff who acted for you.
  2. Within three days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions we have agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. This will happen within five days of us completing the investigation.
  3. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:
  • Mr Anwar will review his own decision within five days;
  • we will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it. He or she will do this within 10 days;
  • we will invite you to agree to independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take.
  1. We will let you know the result of the review within five days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
  2. If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint.

Ordinarily, you cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless you have first attempted to resolve your complaint using our internal Complaints Handling procedure, but you will be able to contact the Legal Ombudsman if:

  • The complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of first making the complaint to us; or
  • The Legal Ombudsman decides that there are exceptional reasons why the Legal Ombudsman should consider your complaint sooner, or without you having to use our internal Complaints Handling Procedure first; or
  • The Legal Ombudsman considers that your complaint cannot be resolved using our internal Complaints Handling Procedure because the relationship between you and us has broken down irretrievably.

If you wish to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman you must be one of the following:

An individual;

  • A micro-enterprise as defined in European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 (broadly, an enterprise with fewer than 10 staff and a turnover or balance sheet value not exceeding €2 million);
  • A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;
  • A club, association or society with an annual income less than £1 million;
  • A trustee of a trust with a net asset value less than £1 million;
  • or a personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.

If you are not, you should be aware that you can only obtain redress by using our Complaints Handling Procedure or by mediation or arbitration, or by taking action through the Courts.

Please note as well there are time limits in which to approach the Legal Ombudsman.

The time limits for the Legal Ombudsman accepting a complaint are as follows:

  • six years from the date of act/omission, or
  • three years from when the complainant should have known about the complaint.

However, the Legal Ombudsman will not accept complaints where the act or date of awareness was before 6 October 2010.

The time limit for you to complain to the Legal Ombudsman remains six months from the end of the complaints process.

Legal Ombudsman Contact Details

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

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