TedSwippet wrote:We'll see how they respond -- or perhaps more accurately, if they respond! -- to the complaint, I guess.
Complaint filed on 15 Oct. Acknowledgement received on 21 Oct. Email received on 5 Nov suggesting I might receive some form of response "next week". Since then, nothing, despite prompting from me.
That makes eight weeks since filing the complaint with no response. After that period, the case can now be referred to the Legal Ombudsman. So I guess that will have to be the next step. We are not talking about a one-man band solicitor practice here either. According to their company profile, this solicitor group has over 100 employees and sales close to £7mm. It is pretty shocking that they cannot muster the resources to handle even the simpler parts of this complaint (what is the current status of the matter? where is the money held? and so on), never mind the questions in it that they will find much more awkward.
I am not one to place much credence in online reviews. However, the Trustpilot and Google reviews for the Legal Ombudsman paint one of the bleakest pictures I have ever seen regarding a service organisation (and quite possible, any organisation). And by the Legal Ombudsman's own admission, it will likely take between nine months and a year to even get their attention to the point for an investigation to begin. Depressingly useless, considering that the aim here is to get things moving at the solicitor group.
The other avenue I looked at is the Solicitors Regulation Authority. At first blush, the behaviour of the solicitor group I'm dealing with contravenes several of their code of conduct clauses. At minimum, 3.2, 3.5(b), 8.4, and perhaps also 3.6. However, it is unclear to me whether the Solicitors Regulation Authority would take this on, or whether they would instead just slope shoulders and shunt to the Legal Ombudsman. Does failure to follow the code of conduct raise to the level of "break our rules"? Don't know.
Does anyone here have any inside knowledge or other ideas of how to move this forwards?
Removing these solicitors from the case and then following up by taking some form of legal action against them for their incompetence seems drastic, but I'm currently out of better ideas.