Complaints Procedure

On this page you’ll find:

How to make a complaint about your solicitor
How to make a complaint about the service received from National Accident Helpline
Links to our privacy policy, Customer Charter, and the Ethical Marketing Charter
Contact details for the Legal Ombudsman

How to make a complaint about your solicitor

If you’re unhappy with the service you received from your solicitor and want to make a complaint about your experience, we advise raising it with your solicitor directly.

If the service from one of our solicitor firms was below your expectations, then that firm should be able to deal with this under their complaints handling procedures. We recommend contacting them for more information about their complaints procedure and discussing your experience with them.

We will also forward any complaints we receive about our solicitors to the relevant solicitor firm to make them aware of the issue.

If you feel unhappy with your solicitor’s response to your complaint, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Ombudsman is an independent and impartial scheme. It’s there to help resolve legal service disputes and it offers a free service. They’ll be able to talk through your experience and give advice on how to resolve your complaint.

From the 1st April 2023, the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the final response to you.

Where we have allocated you a firm in Scotland

If you don’t feel happy with your solicitor’s response to your complaint, the matter should then be referred on to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (please see contact details below). You can find out more information about the services of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission here.

The details for the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission are as follows:

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission
The Stamp Office 10 – 14 Waterloo Place
EDINBURGH
EH1 3EG

Legal Post 86, Edinburgh 2

Tel: 0131 201 2130
Fax: 0131 201 2131
Email: enquiries@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk

Lines are open from 9am until 5pm, Monday to Friday, apart from Tuesday when they close for staff training between 10am and 11am.

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission operate strict time limits for accepting complaints, which require complaints to be made within one year of the service ending or the conduct occurring. However, they will disregard any time it considers that the complainer was excusably unaware of their concerns. If you make a complaint after the one-year deadline has passed, it is unlikely that they will be able to consider your complaint unless there are exceptional circumstances.

How to make a complaint about us

If you are unhappy with the service you’ve received from us, then we want to know. We are continually working to improve our service and your feedback is invaluable to this improvement.

We’ve outlined our beliefs, business ethics and promises to you in our Customer Charter.

To make a formal complaint, please contact us by letter, email, fax, telephone or any other means.

We will pass your complaint to our Complaints Officer on the day we receive your complaint.

We will then handle your complaint in the following way:

Once our Complaints Officer has received your complaint, they will send a written acknowledgment of the complaint to you within five business days. This written acknowledgment will also include our company’s internal complaints handling procedures, explaining the process we follow at National Accident Helpline.

Within four weeks of us receiving your complaint, the Complaints Officer will be in contact again with either:

A final response – this is our final response to your complaint and will explain any action we may have taken to resolve the complaint, or answer your complaint. If you are dissatisfied with this response, you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. Their details are below.
A holding response – this will explain why the business is not yet in a position to resolve your complaint. It will also contain details as to when you can expect to be contacted about the matter again.

Within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, if you have not received a final response, the Complaints Officer will send either:

A final response – this is our final response to your complaint and will explain any action we may have taken to resolve the complaint, or answer your complaint. If you are dissatisfied with this response, you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. Their details are below.
A holding response – explaining why we are unable to provide a final response at that time. It will give reasons for the delay and a timescale we are working towards for a final response.