Our aim is to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service at all times. We are proud that we hold the accreditations Lexcel and our clients are of first importance to us. We hope that you will be pleased with the work we do for you.
If you have any problem with the service we have provided for you then please let us know, this could include a complaint about the firm’s bill. We aim to resolve any problem quickly and operate an internal complaint’s handling system to help to resolve the problem between ourselves. Please raise your concern in the first place with the person handling your case. If you still have queries or concerns, Carol Bragg is the Complaints’ Manager to whom any difficulty can be reported. She can be contacted on 01704 532890 or by e-mail complaints@breensonline.co.uk. She is based at 30 Hoghton Street Southport PR9 OPA.
In the first instance you must try to resolve your complaint through our complaints handling process. If you are unhappy with the outcome, or if we have failed to resolve your complaint within eight weeks, and we acted for you as an: individual; a small business; charity; club; or trust, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman, whose address is P O Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH (www.legalombudsman.org.uk), telephone 0300 555 0333, email enquiries@legalombudsman, to become involved.
The legal ombudsman’s time limit for accepting a complaint is one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or one year from the date when the complainant should have realised that there was cause to complain.
The Legal Ombudsman will retain the ability to exercise discretion to extend the one year time limit for specific clients if, on the evidence, it is fair and reasonable to do so.
These rules also apply to prospective clients who could reasonably have expected to receive a service or who were unreasonably offered a service they did not want.
If you would like a copy of our written complaint’s procedure, please let us know and we will send it to you.
In addition to your right to object to our bill by making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you may also have a right to apply to the court for an assessment of our bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. Please note that the Legal Ombudsman may not deal with your complaint regarding your bill if you have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.
If the services we have provided relate to proceedings in a Court or tribunal, you may additionally be entitled to have the amount of our fees checked or assessed under Rules of Court and regulations applying to the particular proceedings, or under the inherent jurisdiction of the tribunal before which the proceedings have taken, or are taking, place.
If all or part of our bill remains unpaid whilst you dispute it, the firm may be entitled to charge interest.
Complaints about online services
If you have a complaint about a service you bought online, you can submit your complaint to complaints@breensonline.co.uk. Go to the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform for more details.
When to report a solicitor to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The SRA deal with cases where firms or those they regulate have breached an SRA Principle. You can find out more here.