Our Complaints Policy

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have any concerns about the way in which work is being carried out by Wilson Nesbitt, you should, in the first instance, contact the person within Wilson Nesbitt who is principally dealing with your case or matter and/or the relevant supervising partner.

If you do not wish to contact that person, or if having done so, you remain dissatisfied or concerned and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact the Risk Partner who is the person designated to handle complaints about the firm. The Risk Partner may, if considered appropriate, designate another partner within the firm to deal with your complaint and to ensure that it is dealt with thoroughly and speedily. If your complaint is about the Risk Partner you should raise your complaint with one of our other partners.

If you wish to make a complaint, please provide us with the full details, preferably in writing. You can contact us at 33 Hamilton Road, Bangor, BT20 4LF, Tel 02891271035 or email complaints@wilson-nesbitt.co.uk.

We will deal with your complaint promptly, fairly and free of charge.

How we will deal with your complaint

1) We are required to ask for client complaints to be in writing in either letter or email form. Any information given over the telephone by you will, therefore, have to be confirmed by you in writing.

2) We will write to you acknowledging your complaint with seven days of receiving it and may ask you to provide further details if necessary. With that acknowledgement, we will provide you with a copy of this complaints procedure, confirmation as to who will be dealing with your complaint and details of what will happen next.

3) We will record your complaint in our central register within seven days of receiving it to include the date on which the complaint was made, your name and address.

4) We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:

a) We will ask the member of staff who acted for you to comment on your complaint;

b) We will then consider your complaint, the comments of the relevant member of staff and examine your file;

c) If we need further information to help with our investigation, we will contact you to request such information. Where practicable, such information should again be provided to us in writing. A further acknowledgement letter or email will be sent to you within 7 days of you providing such further information.

5) We will then write to you with a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. We would normally expect to respond within 28 days of our receipt of your complaint. However, if the subject matter of the complaint is complicated and/or we anticipate that it will take longer to examine and deal with your complaint, we will contact you as soon as practicable to give you an approximate timescale of when you can expect a substantive written response to your complaint. This will be no more than 8 weeks from our receipt of your complaint.

What to do if you are dissatisfied with our response to your complaint?

If after our investigation of your complaint you remain unhappy or dissatisfied, you can escalate your concerns:

If your work was carried out by Wilson Nesbitt Solicitors (regulated by the Law Society of Northern Ireland).

You can refer your concerns to the Solicitor Complaints Committee, Solicitor Complaints Office, 96 Victoria Street, Belfast BT1 3GN.

You must make this referral within 3 months of the conclusion of the firm’s investigation of your complaint.

If your work was carried out by Wilson Nesbitt (E&W) (approved and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority).

You can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from Wilson Nesbitt (E&W).

You must make this referral within one year from the later of (i) the date of the problem occurring; and (ii) the date you should have realised there was cause for complaint.  The referral must also be made within six months of the date of our final response letter to your complaint.

You can contact the Legal Ombudsman by visiting www.legalombudsman.org.uk contacting them on 0300 555 0333, by email on enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or you can write to them at;

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough SL1 0EH

In addition to directing a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman you will be able to refer your dispute for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). There are three Institutions available to deal with disputes in the legal services sector, namely the Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation. If required, we will provide contact details for those mediation services.

You also have the right to make a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in the event that your complaint relates to;

• A breach of a Principle of the SRA Standards & Regulations 2019 and/or;
• Allegations of dishonesty or discrimination.

To make a report see http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/reportsolicitor.page or contact the SRA at:

Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube 199 Wharfside Street
Birmingham B1 1RN
Tel : 0370 606 2555