Regulatory and complaints

Regulatory

White & Black Legal LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

White & Black Legal LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC327431. The term “partner” in relation to White & Black Legal LLP is used to refer to a member, employee or consultant of White & Black Legal LLP. A list of the names of the members of White & Black Legal LLP is open to inspection at our registered office, which is at The Great Barn, Chalford Park Barns, Oxford Road, Old Chalford, Oxfordshire, OX7 5QR, England.

We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority but we are able in certain circumstances to offer a limited range of investment services to clients because we are members of the Law Society and are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (which took over the regulatory functions of the Law Society on 29th January 2007). We can provide these investment services if they are an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide. The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society. The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints against lawyers. If you are unhappy with any investment services you receive from us, you should raise your concerns with either of those bodies.

We comply with the Provision of Services Regulations 2009 by displaying the required details of our professional indemnity insurance at our office.

The professional rules applicable to White & Black Legal LLP may be accessed at: http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/code-of-conduct.page

Our VAT registration number is GB 910 3807 54.

Complaints procedure

Please let us know immediately if you have any problems with the service we provide. Our policy is to look at complaints objectively and to take a constructive approach to reaching a satisfactory conclusion. We recognise that complaints may provide us with an opportunity to check the quality of our service and to make improvements to it; indeed, whether or not you have any concerns about our service, your suggestions as to how it might be improved will always be welcome.

If you are dissatisfied with our service you are entitled to complain (and this could include a complaint about our bill). This policy explains how you may raise your concern and /or make a complaint.

1. The first thing you can do is raise any problem with the person dealing with your work (if you are not sure who this, you can either obtain their details or references on our correspondence with you or you may refer to our terms of engagement or simply call our Client Relationship Administrator, Rebecca Mackenzie on 0845 201 3152).
   
   
2. If you are not satisfied with the response of the person dealing with the matter (or if it is inappropriate to raise your concern with that person, or if the complaint is in relation to more general matters), you should call that person’s supervising partner.
   
   
3. If you are not satisfied with the response of the supervising partner, you should address your complaint to the Managing Partner, Phil Riman. Phil can be reached on 0845 201 3142 or you can email him at phil.riman@wablegal.com or you can write to him at our office address below.
   
   Alternatively, you may address your complaint to our Compliance Partner, John Allen. John can be reached on 0845 2010 3143 or at the address below or you can email him at john.allen@wablegal.com
   
   
4. We take complaints extremely seriously and will make every effort to deal with your complaint effectively and swiftly. If you make a complaint in writing or tell us verbally that you wish to make a complaint then, as a minimum, we will write to you explaining how your complaint will be handled and detailing the timescales within which we will respond to your complaint.
   
   We will investigate your complaint, and provide an initial response within 15 business days (of the date you first make a complaint to us). If, for any reason, we are unable to respond within this period (for example if a person is absent from the office) we will tell you the reason why and let you know when we anticipate that we will be able to reply to you in full.
   
   We will let you have a full response as soon as we can and in any event within 4 weeks.
   
   
5. You have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, whose address is: PO Box 15870, Birmingham B30 9EB.
   
   Ordinarily you cannot make such a complaint until you have first used our complaints procedure (above) but there are exceptions to this.
   
   Further information can be found on the Legal Ombudsman’s website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
   
   Ordinarily you must refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the date of our written response to you and in any event a complaint should be made within a year of when you realised there was a concern although again, there are exception to these rules.
   
   
6. We trust that this goes without saying but we will not charge any client for our costs in handling any complaint they make.

Our office address: White & Black Legal LLP, The Great Barn, Chalford Park, Oxford Road, Old Chalford, Oxfordshire, OX7 5Q