Legal, Quality, Compliance & Client Care

Registered name & address

Latimer Hinks is the trading name of Latimer Hinks Solicitors Limited, a limited company which is registered in England and Wales under number 09329066. Our registered office 5-8 Priestgate, Darlington, County Durham DL1 1NL. Latimer Hinks Solicitors Limited is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales (the “SRA”) SRA No. 619538. Their rules can be found on their website at http://www.sra.org.uk/.

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Latimer Hinks Quality Statement

At Latimer Hinks, we are committed to delivering legal services of the highest quality, guided by our ISO 9001 Quality Management System and our Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accreditation. Our aim is not only to meet these standards, but to exceed client expectations through professionalism, efficiency, and integrity in everything we do.

We recognise that true quality extends beyond compliance. It is reflected in how we respond to our clients, how we manage our work, and how we support our people. Every member of our firm plays a vital role in maintaining and enhancing our reputation for excellence. We expect our team to act from the client’s perspective—being available, approachable, comprehensible, prompt, and courteous at all times.

Natalie Palmer, Quality Director and COLP (Compliance Officer Legal Practice), oversees the firm’s Quality Management System, ensuring that performance is continuously monitored and improved. Heads of Department and Supervisors are responsible for embedding quality principles in their teams, ensuring consistency, accountability, and alignment with our quality objectives.

We pursue clear, measurable quality objectives that reflect our commitment to continual improvement, including:

• Reducing client complaints and professional indemnity claims;

• Achieving high client satisfaction (target Net Promoter Score 97);

• Ensuring zero GDPR and regulatory breaches;

• Maintaining staff retention levels above industry averages through engagement, development, and wellbeing.

To achieve these goals, we:

• Provide comprehensive induction and ongoing training for all personnel;

• Maintain regular departmental meetings, file reviews, and appraisals;

• Actively seek client feedback to identify improvements;

• Monitor compliance and risk monthly through our COLP and COFA;

• Review IT systems and procedures to enhance efficiency and service delivery.

Our Quality Policy and supporting procedures are made available to all personnel and form a key part of staff induction. They are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect best practice and evolving business needs. Suggestions for improvement are encouraged from all team members as part of our culture of continuous improvement.

We also recognise that our quality standards must evolve alongside client expectations and legal sector developments. Accordingly, we monitor performance annually through a formal Quality Review Plan and remain open to adopting new systems and methods that strengthen our service.

Through these commitments, Latimer Hinks ensures that its clients receive exceptional legal services delivered by a motivated and well-supported team, upholding our long-standing reputation for quality, trust, and excellence.

For a copy of our full Quality Policy please email LH@LatimerHinks.co.uk

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Complaints policy

Occasionally mistakes will happen and things will go wrong – and where they do, we want to resolve and put things right as quickly and effectively as possible, using any concerns or complaints as a way of improving our services.  When we are dealing with complaints, we will always aim to be reasonable, fair, proportionate, accessible and responsive to your needs. This Complaints Handling Policy tells you what you can expect from us and how to make a complaint.

Click here to read our Complaints Handling Policy.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.  You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

What do to if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers and can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

• within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint

and

• no more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about

or

• no more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 10.00 to 16.00.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Privacy policy

Our privacy policy sets out how we use and protect information you provide us.

Click here to read our Privacy Policy

Accessibility policy

This Accessibility Statement provides an overview of the accessibility features we have implemented on this website. We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible for all our website visitors, including those with disabilities.

We try to adhere to the most stringent standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium, which is an international group responsible for setting standards for web technologies. The Consortium has set up a specialist task group, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), to define standards on web accessibility for disabled users.

The WAI produces varying levels of standards and grades them in order of importance. Organisations can use these grades to decide what level of accessibility to aim for. The standards are designed to ensure that all users can access the content on our website, including:
Blind users

• Partially sighted and colour-blind users
• Deaf users
• Hearing-impaired users
• Users with limited mobility
• Users with cognitive disabilities or learning difficulties
• Users with photo-sensitive epilepsy

If you have any questions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact us.

Cookie policy

A cookie is a small file that can be placed on your device that allows us to recognise and remember you. It is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive or tablet or mobile device.

When you visit our site, we may collect information from you automatically through cookies or similar technology. We use cookies to provide the best possible user experience as well as to track site use and behaviour in order to continue to enhance our website and its content.

We use Google Analytics to collect anonymous data to help us understand how our website is used. We also use cookies to bring to your attention relevant content across social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. No personal information is stored and data is used for historical purposes to enable us to make improvements to the website.

MailChimp – When clicking through to our website from one of our marketing emails sent with the MailChimp platform some additional cookies are used on our website to connect your e-marketing journey with your website journey. This helps us learn about the effectiveness of our campaigns and helps us provide you with the best user experience and relevant content across our digital marketing channels.

Essential cookie – we use  _cfduid by CloudFare to detect malicious users. More information is available here Understanding the CloudFare cookies

Our website cannot function properly without these cookies.

Fraud prevention guidance for clients

Click here to view our Terms & Conditions.