Over a third of complaints submitted to the Legal Ombudsman related to residential conveyancing, nearly three times the number of the next most-complained about services – personal injury and wills and probate. Just under 10% of complaints related to family law.
The figures in the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) 2025/26 annual report revealed 36.1% of all accepted new complaints in 2025/26 were related to residential conveyancing, with 13.6% each for personal injury and wills and probate and 9.8% for family law. Litigation accounted for 9.6% of complaints, with the remainder for property (5.1%), criminal law (3.2%), employment law (3%) and immigration and asylum (2.5%).
The ombudsman identified five key areas of failure: in a quarter of all complaints, poor communication was the main issue, with delay and failure to progress identified in 22.2% of complaints. Failure to advise was the cause of 18.7% of cases, with cost accounting for 9.1%, and failure to follow instructions identified in 8.4% of complaints.
New customer complaints have risen steadily in recent years, with an increase of 36% over the last 12 months alone. In 2019/20 there were 6,349 complaints; by 2024/25 that had risen to 10.447, and in the last year there were 14,259 complaints.
The report reveals the ombudsman missed several of its resolution timing targets, including setting itself an 80% completion target of ‘low complexity’ complaints in under 325 days and achieving just 27.8%.
The number of outstanding cases awaiting assessment fell to 2,767 compared to the previous year’s total of 3,275, but failing to reach the Leo’s target of 1,929.
In its 2026/27 budget and strategy, the LeO outlined its request for a 6.1% increase in budget to tackle the growing number of complaints it deals with. In May, the LeO consulted on introducing a new model complaints resolution procedure (MCRP) aimed at improving the consistency and quality of how complaints are handled by legal service providers. Its own data suggests almost half of complaints with an investigative outcome in 2024/25 involved findings of poor complaints handling by law firms.
Alongside efforts to improve first tier complaint handling, LeO is working to identify complaints that can be resolved quickly, with just over half of all cases closed through its early resolution route and the remainder requiring an in-depth investigation.
The ombudsman is also consulting on a ‘polluter pays’ model of charging to deal with client complaints.
The current flat fee of £400 could be replaced by a phased pricing model, which would see a fee of £200 levied where early resolution is achieved, £750 if there is an investigation but no ombudsman decision, and £1500 if an ombudsman decision is necessary. An additional £400 would be charged if it can be established no final response to a complaint has been issued within eight weeks of the complaint being made to a firm, irrespective of the eventual outcome of any LeO investigation.
The consultation closes on 2nd September 2026.
