Complaints procedure

We are dedicated to delivering excellent advice and service to our clients. However no organisation is perfect in every way and from time to time things will inevitably go wrong. We believe that how we treat you when things haven't gone exactly to plan is important. Hopefully by now we have tried to resolve your issue. If not then the Legal Complaints Service is your next port of call.

We've created a procedure to follow within our firm to try and make sure we deal with your complaint well:

1. If you have a complaint, contact us either by telephone or in writing with the details relating to the reason for dissatisfaction with the service that has been provided. Our Head of Compliance is Gary Christianson and he should be contacted in the first instance.
2. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and, if necessary, ask you to confirm or clarify the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with the matter. You can expect to receive our letter within five working days of us receiving your complaint.
3. Your complaint will be recorded in a central register and a separate file opened for the matter. We will do this within five working days of us receiving your complaint. The Head of Compliance will then start to investigate and ascertain the reasons for your concern with the relevant personnel involved with your matter.
4. The member(s) of staff who acted for you will be asked to reply to the Head of Compliance on the issues raised by you within five working days of its receipt.
5. The Head of Compliance will record a note of his investigation and findings and substantive letters. This information will be recorded in your complaint file.
6. Within five working days of completing his investigation, the Head of Compliance will respond to you fully and hopefully resolve your complaint.
7. If a meeting with you is held to discuss the issues raised we will write to you within three working days of the meeting to confirm what took place and any solutions that has been agreed with you.
8. If a meeting with you does not take place, you will receive a written detailed reply to your complaint, which will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. We will do this within five working days of completing our investigations.
9. If Shakespeare Putsman is at fault, we will:
   • Offer an apology and remedy if appropriate
   • Give a full explanation
   • Consider transferring the matter to another person within the firm if appropriate
10. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision.
11. We will let you know the result of the review within five working days of the end of the process. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint explaining our reasons. We will also give you the name and address of the Legal Complaints Service. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact them about your complaint.
12. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.