1. Our Standards of Service
Legal i Services Ltd (trading as “Legal i”) aims to provide all of its clients with the highest standards of service and client care. If we fail to provide this to you, we need you to tell us, so that we can try to put things right. We also learn from complaints so that we can improve our service. Should you need to make a complaint about our services or one of our advisers, we want to hear from you, and this procedure explains how to do so.
It explains how you can complain, how we will handle your complaint, and your right to complain to the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA) at any time. It applies to every complaint made about our organisation and is always followed when we deal with a complaint.
2. Your Right to Complain to the IAA at Any Time
You may complain to the IAA at any stage. You do not have to use or complete our internal complaints procedure first, and you are not required to wait for our final response before contacting the IAA. Using our internal procedure does not affect your right to complain to the IAA.
The IAA’s full contact details are set out under Step 2 in Section 3 below.
3. How to Make a Complaint
There are two routes open to you. You may complain to us (Step 1), and you may complain to the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA) (Step 2). These routes are independent: you may go to the IAA at any time and at any stage, and you do not have to complain to us first.
Step 1 – Complaining to us. We will always try to give you the opportunity to tell us about your concerns and will work with you to resolve them.
Informally. If you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, you may first wish to raise it with your adviser, so that we can try to resolve the matter quickly.
Formally. If you have already spoken to your adviser, or you would prefer not to, you may make a formal complaint, either verbally or in writing, to our Complaints Handler:
- Complaints Handler: Habibur Rahman Tafader, Principal Adviser;
- Email: complaints@legali.uk;
- Post: Legal i Services Ltd, 45 Ben Jonson Road, London E1 4SA;
- Telephone: +44 7466 243203.
We treat verbal complaints as seriously as written complaints. You do not need to put your complaint in writing for it to be investigated. You may also complain through an authorised representative if you wish. How we handle a complaint made to us is explained in Sections 4 to 6 below.
Step 2 – Complaining to the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA). The IAA is the public body that regulates immigration advice and services in the United Kingdom. It is the authority responsible for the conduct of registered advisers and organisations.
You may complain to the IAA at any time and at any stage. You do not have to complete Step 1 first, you do not have to wait for our response, and using our internal procedure does not affect this right. The IAA may examine your case file as part of its regulatory role.
The preferred way to complain is through the IAA complaints portal. If you are unable to use the portal, you may contact the IAA by email or by post:
- Complaints Portal: https://portal.oisc.gov.uk/s/complaints
- Email: info@immigrationadviceauthority.gov.uk
- Post: Immigration Advice Authority, PO Box 567, Dartford, Kent, DA1 9XW
- Telephone: 0345 000 0046
- Website: www.gov.uk/iaa
The IAA is the appropriate authority for complaints about our conduct, our compliance, or any possible breach of the IAA Code of Standards. Other bodies, such as the Legal Ombudsman, do not regulate immigration advisers and have only very limited jurisdiction; nothing in this procedure prevents you from complaining to the IAA directly, at any time.
4. What Happens Next
- We will acknowledge your complaint, both verbally and in writing, within 3 working days of receiving it.
- We will investigate your complaint and provide a full written response within 20 working days of receiving it.
- If we need to change this timescale for any reason (for example, where a complaint is particularly complex), we will let you know and explain why.
- We will record your complaint in our central complaints register, and we will open a separate complaint file (or a separate section within your case file) to record the details of your complaint, our investigation and our response.
5. How We Investigate Your Complaint
Your complaint will be investigated by the Complaints Handler in the following way:
- We will obtain the account of the adviser who worked on your case and ask them to respond to the points you have raised;
- We will consider that response together with the information in your complaint and any other relevant material, such as the contents of your case file and correspondence;
- We will prepare a written response and send it to you. This will set out the findings of our investigation and any proposals for resolving the matter;
- Where your complaint is found to be justified, we will take appropriate remedial action to put matters right.
6. The Outcome and Action We May Take
Depending on the findings of our investigation, the action we take may include:
- An explanation and, where appropriate, an apology;
- Correcting a mistake or taking other remedial steps in your case;
- A refund or a reduction of our fee where this is appropriate;
- Changes to our procedures to prevent the problem happening again.
If the matter cannot be resolved and we are no longer able to work together, we will bring your case to an orderly close as quickly as possible and, where appropriate, help you to find another authorised adviser.
After a complaint has been concluded, we review any problems it has identified and consider how to prevent them from happening again.
7. Professional Indemnity Insurance
The IAA requires us to hold professional indemnity insurance (PII). The purpose of PII is to cover any compensation we may need to pay to you to correct a mistake, or to cover any legal costs, arising from negligence, misrepresentation and/or inaccurate advice that causes or contributes to financial or other loss to you, up to £_____. Further details of our cover are available on request.
8. Confidentiality
We handle all complaints in confidence and in accordance with our duty to maintain confidentiality about our clients’ affairs, except where the law or the IAA Code of Standards requires disclosure, or where you give us express authority to disclose. In line with the IAA Code of Standards, we do not outsource the handling of complaints; all complaints are dealt with within our organisation.
9. Changes to Our Contact Details
If any of our contact details change, we will notify you promptly in writing so that you always know how to reach us and how to make a complaint.
10. Recording and Reviewing Complaints
We keep a central complaints register in which all complaints are recorded. We review this register periodically to identify any trends and to improve the quality of our service. This procedure is reviewed at least annually, and sooner if required by any change in law or regulation.
11. Document Control
This Complaints Procedure is designed to meet the requirements of Principle 3 and Code 3.5 of the Immigration Advice Authority Code of Standards.
