Our Complaints Policy
 
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients.  When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it.  This will help us to improve our standards.
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Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your case to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you. Often, matters can be quickly resolved in this way. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about the bill, please contact us.
 
What will happen next?
 
1. Your complaint will be passed immediately to our Compliance Manager and will be overseen by the Partners, and within five working days we will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and you will be informed about how long it will take to reply in detail to the matters you have raised. You may be asked to confirm or explain your complaint in more detail.
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2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint.  

3. Your complaint will then be thoroughly investigated. Your file will be considered, and the member of staff who acted for you may be spoken to by the Compliance Manager or such other person nominated by him/her to investigate matters.
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4. You will then be sent a detailed reply to your complaint confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons within 21 days of sending you an acknowledgement of your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter, if possible and/or necessary.
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5. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can contact us again and ask us to arrange an arbitrator to undertake binding arbitration, and should we agree to this course of action it will be on the basis that if he finds that we were at fault we will pay the arbitrator’s fee. However, if he finds in our favor then you pay his fee. In the first instance it would be agreed that we would each make a contribution of 25% towards the arbitrator’s fee – which is usually between £300 and £1000, to be paid in advance. On the final determination The unsuccessful party would pay the outstanding balance of that fee to the arbitrator and reimburse the successful party. Both parties (Arma Law and you) would need to agree to this process.
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6. If we have to change any of the above timescales, we will let you know and explain why.
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The Legal Ombudsman
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If you are still not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, or if we have not resolved it within eight weeks, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. We would hope that this does not become necessary and that we can resolve matters between ourselves. Contact details are as follows:
 
Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH
Tel: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Web: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
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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 our final response to you.
 
Complaints about your bill
The above complaints procedure also applies to complaints arising concerning our bill. There may also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974; and that if all, or part, of a bill remains unpaid, the firm may be entitled to charge interest.
 
Raising concerns with our regulator
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. 
 
You can find information about raising your concerns with the SRA at: www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.