Probate Service Complaint Procedures

In respect of our Probate Services, we aim to provide you with the best possible service and Christopher Steele as our Head of Legal Practice will seek to ensure that this is so.  If, however, you are unable to deal with any difficulty through him and his team please contact our partner David Wright. We will consider carefully any complaint you may make about our probate or estate administration work as soon as we receive it and do all we can to resolve it. We will acknowledge your complaint within five business days of its receipt and endeavour to deal with it within eight weeks.

If we do not answer your complaint to your satisfaction, you may of course take up the matter with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales by whom we are regulated. With regard to a complaint about probate services, you may also take the matter up with the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Ombudsman’s ability to deal with your complaint is dependent on the following factors:

a) you must refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no later than six years from the act/omission; or three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint; and

b) you must refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the date of our written response.

Contact details for the Legal Ombudsman

T: 0300 555 0333

E: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ 

ICAEW Probate Compensation Scheme

In the unlikely event that we cannot meet our liabilities to you, you may be able to seek a grant from ICAEW’s Probate Compensation Scheme. Generally, applications for a grant must be made to ICAEW within 12 months of the time you became aware, or reasonably ought to have become aware, of the loss.

Further information about the scheme and the circumstances in which grants may be made is available on ICAEW’s website: www.icaew.com/probate.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

We hold Professional Indemnity Insurance with Markel, under Policy Number A47246/1213.