Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman will cost complained-about conveyancers regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers more under a ‘polluter pays’ model proposed by the specialist regulator.
The Office for Legal Complaints, which oversees the legal ombudsman scheme, is funded by a levy on the profession and case fees. The levy is collected from the profession’s approved regulators.
The CLC wants to change how its levy is split among members. Currently, 70% of the levy is met by all firms. This is known as a ‘service availability charge’. The remaining 30% is allocated to firms as a ‘usage charge’ based on the number of cases accepted for investigation by the Legal Ombudsman.
CLC wants to reduce the service availability charge to 50% and increase the usage charge to 50% ‘to provide a stronger incentive for the small number of firms that generate disproportionate levels of referrals to the Legal Ombudsman to reduce those consumer complaints’.
CLC said 57% of all CLC practices currently have had no cases accepted for investigation in the last three years.
Chief executive Sheila Kumar said: ‘We first split the cost of the Legal Ombudsman levy in 2022, so that those generating more complaints bore more of the burden, and this year marks the first step of our stated goal of increasing the share that is met by practices originating disproportionate levels of complaints. We believe this is equitable and should also act as a strong incentive for firms to ensure they deal with complaints quickly and fairly.’
Levy contributions from firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority do not operate under a ‘polluter pay’ model.
