Whether youre a Victor Meldrew or too polite to cause a fuss, if your lender, solicitor or estate agent does something wrong in the homebuying process, theres a lot at stake. If you find yourself in this situation What Mortgage investigates how to complain in the most effective way possible.
Where do I start?
Stage 1: If a service or product is sub-standard, the first port of call is always the firm that sold you the product or service. Ask what the firms internal complaints procedure is and follow it. Not only must you have done this before going on to the next stage in the official complaints procedure, it also means that problems can be resolved earlier on, says David Cresswell of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
By law you normally have six years from the sale of the product or service to complain about a financial services firm, or three years from the date you realised you have cause for complaint. For example, it could be that you discover your mortgage has been set up as the wrong type only when you come to remortgage after seven or eight years.
If you believe you are a victim of mortgage endowment mis-selling you must complain within three years from receipt of a red letter the reprojection letter advising that you are at high risk your policy will fall short of the target sum. En-dowment providers must give at least six months warning before this time is up.
There are no time limits on making a complaint to your solicitor or estate agent, but its wise to do so as soon as possible. Stephen Carr-Smith, ombudsman at the Ombudsman of Estate Agents (OEA), reveals that some people say they leave a complaint about their estate agent until after the transaction is complete so as not to jeopardise matters. This is a short-sighted policy, Carr insists. If something goes wrong, how can an agent be given the chance to rectify it if he or she is not advised at the time?
What makes an effective complaint?
Its usually best to put your complaint in writing, but if you speak to anyone make a note of their name, the time and date of the conversation and ask them for written confirmation of the points youve discussed.
But most importantly, stay calm and polite, even if you have good reason to be angry. To get a complaint dealt with adequately you need to focus on the facts, explains Cresswell. Dont confuse anger management with actual complaining.
When sending a written complaint put complaint at the top, state your case simply, include relevant dates and reference numbers, send photocopies of documents and, most importantly, communicate clearly to the firm how you want your complaint resolved.
What if Im unhappy with the firms final decision?
Stage 2: You can take your complaint to an independent complaints-handling body such as an ombudsman scheme or trade association. They can help by acting as mediator between yourself and the firm. Also, they can undertake an impartial informal, then formal, investigation and recommend a resolution.
You can refer a complaint about any financial services company (about maladministration, for example) to the FOS if youre still dissatisfied or it has failed to provide a final resolution to your grievance within eight weeks. If a formal ombudsman decision is needed for your case, this is final and binding on the firm.
The Law Society provides a Consumer Complaints Service for complaints about your solicitors service (delay or negligence, for example) within six months of the end of the work, or within six months of the solicitors final response to your complaint, whichever is later. The society states: Our aim is to help agree a way forward, but we can also investigate complaints more formally and order solicitors to put things right, sometimes by the payment of compensation.
For complaints about estate agents, things are not quite as simple. If your agent has broken a law such as the Estate Agents Act, by not passing on every offer on a property, for example, or the Property Misdescriptions Act, you can go to Trading Standards. If your complaint is about lousy service, explains Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the NAEA, theres nothing really you can do unless its a member of a redress system.
However, membership of estate agent ombudsman schemes or a trade body is voluntary. The Ombudsman for Estate Agents (OEA) can deal with complaints about its members only (45 per cent of estate agents) if the agent doesnt deal with the complaint within three months. But even the complaints we cant deal with, we try to give as much help as possible and point the complainant in the right direction, says Carr-Smith.
This may be to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) or to Citizens Advice. The NAEA can also bring its members (one third of all estate agents) to task for breaching their Code of Conduct, but is unable to provide compensation. Both organisations are campaigning that government make it a statutory requirement for all agents to belong to a redress scheme.
Still unhappy?
Stage 3: You are free to go to court, but as this can be a lengthy and expensive process and unlikely to produce a different result than in stage two, it is a last resort.
If you are failed by a product provider it may not be your fault. However, make sure that no blame can be laid at your door. Proper communication between you and the provider from the word go is vital for this. Cresswell explains: The answer is in reading all the paperwork, asking any questions and having the confidence to do both.
And heres how it works
Mr G repaid his mortgage then received an offer from a different lender through a mortgage broker. One of the conditions of the new offer was a satisfactory reference from his old lender. But the broker told Mr G that copies of statements should do instead they would be quicker, cheaper, and easier to get hold of. This was important because the sellers wanted a quick exchange of contracts.
Three weeks later after requesting the copies, and after chasing the lender several times, Mr G was still waiting. A few days after that, the sellers pulled out of the deal, saying they had lost confidence in Mr Gs ability to follow it through.
Two weeks later, Mr G got his statements, but by then the property had been remarketed at a higher price up by £15,000. Mr G went back to the sellers and managed to negotiate a lower purchase price, although it was still £5,000 more than he had originally agreed to pay. He claimed this amount from the firm, together with costs of over £1,000.
The FOS decided that Mr G would have had a very substantial chance of buying the property at the original price if the firm had let him have the copy statements within five days, as it had said it would do. After questioning some of the costs, it eventually told the firm to pay Mr G £5,750.
