Ombudsmans casebook ; ;A monthly column of examples from the files of the Legal Services Ombudsman ;Although the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) has the powers to deal with complaints of poor service and pay compensation up to 5,000, sometimes it refuses to take action because, it says, the complaint turns on legal issues or finely balanced professional judgements, which can only be determined by a court. ;That may be so where serious negligence is alleged. But, as the following two cases show, there are also many complaints where simple every day legal transactions go wrong and the OSS still seems reluctant to use the remedies it has available to it. ;This attitude will have to change if the Law Society is serious about introducing a service complaints scheme that provides quick and appropriate remedies for consumers as proposed in its recent consultation paper. ; ;Searching enquiries 1 ;Mrs W had a tattoo removed from her arm that left a bad scar. She consulted a solicitor in 1995 about suing the tattooist responsible. In 1998, the Legal Aid Board threatened to withdraw legal aid because there was no evidence that the defendant had assets to pay the claim. Rather late in the day, the solicitor made enquiries about the defendants worth, but her attempts were thwarted when the Land Registry rejected a property ownership search for lack of a plan. The solicitor conceded defeat, saying that she was not an expert in conveyancing. The legal aid certificate was promptly discharged. Although she was not an expert in conveyancing either, Mrs W was not prepared to give up so easily. She obtained a plan of the tattooists shop from the local council and sent it to the Land Registry with the 4 fee. They replied within days saying that the shop was owned by the defendant. Armed with this information Mrs W instructed new solicitors and legal aid was restored. Mrs W complained to the OSS about her first solicitor. ;The OSS said that it could not help, since the inability of the solicitor to do a property search was a legal matter involving the solicitors professional judgement. The ombudsman disagreed. She said that a property search was a simple matter which did not raise any legal issues, and recommended that the OSS reconsider the complaint. ; ;Searching enquiries 2 ;In 1998, Mr S instructed solicitors in the purchase of a house. After completion, a fault developed in the double glazing. On making a claim under the guarantee, Mr S was told by the company that the document was worthless, since it had not been transferred to him and it was now too late to do anything. Faced with a repair bill of several hundred pounds, Mr S went back to his solicitors who said they had not been told that the guarantee needed to be assigned, and there was nothing they could do to help sort out the problem or meet the repair costs. Mr S complained to the OSS. ;After a couple of months, the OSS closed its file, because it said the guarantee document provided by the vendor did not say that it needed to be assigned, and that Mr Ss solicitor could not have been expected to know of such a requirement. The OSS concluded that these were questions of professional judgement and it would not intervene. Mr S was not happy with the OSSs reply. He felt that the solicitors should have made sure that he was properly covered by the guarantee, since they handled this sort of thing every day. ;The ombudsman agreed with Mr S. In her view any reasonable solicitor should have been aware of the possibility that a double-glazing guarantee would need to be transferred to the new owner. The OSS had not even considered whether the solicitors had made sufficiently thorough pre-contract enquiries, which would have revealed that the assignment condition was in the original double-glazing contract and not the guarantee. The ombudsman also felt that the amount of financial redress sought by Mr S fell squarely within the OSSs powers. The complaint was sent back to the OSS for reconsideration. ; ; ;