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Services

Kirkham Legal is a trusted team of legal advisors who are here to guide you through your personal legal matters concerning domestic conveyancing, wills, probate and lasting powers of attorney. Whatever the support you require, we aim to provide you with an efficient and professional service that best serves your needs, cutting through the jargon and making life easier for you.

We are here to provide legal services that are all together better.

From our offices in Oldham, we are able to meet you to discuss your requirements, talk you through the process, the expected costs involved, and what the likely outcome is.

See our individual services pages for more information regarding:

 

We have a long history of successfully dealing with the legal process of selling, purchasing, re-mortgaging and/or transferring domestic property not only in Oldham and its surrounding areas, but throughout the whole of England and Wales.

Without a will, your possessions will be distributed by the law, which may not be in line with your personal wishes. The creation of a will is the only way to ensure your estate is handled the way you want once you pass away.

When a person passes away and leaves assets, it may be necessary to apply for a Grant, commonly known as “Probate”. This is often an emotional time for the recently bereaved, so all of our expert advisors are very experienced and well equipped to provide the necessary support and guidance.

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) can be made in respect of both financial and health decisions. You must have mental capacity at the time of making the document, but once made the LPA allows someone of your choice to make decisions for you if you are not able to do so at some future point in time. As such, a Lasting Power of Attorney is a very important document. If you do not have an LPA, and subsequently lose capacity, someone may have to apply to the Court of Protection to be able to help you manage your affairs.

COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

We do sincerely hope that our service does not give you the need to consider making a complaint, but in the unlikely event that it does then, in the first instance, you should raise it with the person dealing with your file, and if that does not resolve the issue, you should then contact the Supervisor, the details of which are set out in the Terms of Business sent to you at the outset of your case.

If your complaint then remains unresolved, you should put your complaint in writing to Kathryn Doogue,
Director (by post to Kirkham Legal, 74 Rochdale Road, Royton, Oldham OL2 6QJ or by email to kathrynd@kirkham-legal.co.uk) who will then deal with it. If the complaint relates to Kathryn, then you should contact Edwina Ashworth, Director (the same postal address as above, or by email to edwina@kirkham-legal.co.uk). We have a formal procedure in place which deals with how we handle complaints and we have eight weeks to consider your complaint, although generally we do respond within 28 days.

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Normally, you need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). The Legal Ombudsman currently states that it could be six months before they look at your complaint. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:-

The Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WVl 9WJ
Tel: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

CLIENT PROTECTION – COMPENSATION

Do I qualify for compensation?

The CLC administers a Compensation Fund on behalf of the profession. You can apply for compensation if you have suffered an actual loss of money or of monetary value arising out of work for which the CLC regulated Practice is legally responsible and if the Practice is unable to meet its liability in full.

You can make a claim if you have suffered a loss that was caused by:

  • dishonesty
  • fraud
  • negligence
  • failure to account for money received

of a practice regulated by the CLC or of one of their employees. Each case is considered on its merits. The CLC has absolute discretion to decide whether to make any payment out of the Fund – nobody has a legally enforceable right to a grant.

It is a fund of last resort – before the CLC accepts your claim, it may require you to recover your losses by all other means available, such as by making an insurance claim or by taking court action. The CLC will not consider making a payment unless it is satisfied that a person has taken all necessary and appropriate steps.

How do I apply for compensation?

You should contact the CLC as soon as possible if you:

  • are considering making an application for a grant (applications need to be made within 6 months after you have discovered you may have a claim) or
  • are considering taking legal advice (since only in exceptional circumstances will the CLC make an allowance for legal costs claimed by an applicant)

We are regulated by the CLC

Our Practice Licence Number is 11250.

Kirkham Legal

Kirkham Legal