An ombudsman is an independent official who investigates complaints about organisations, government agents, public institutions and corporations. Their role is to ensure accountability, fair and proper conduct in decision making.
In the tree disputes that we are involved with, we regularly bring complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service (the FOS). The FOS is who you’d complain to about an issue with your household insurance cover or an issue with your bank, for example.
Now this is where the ‘O’ in the picture reflects my observation of the FOS as it can feel a little unclear. When helping a client with a complaint to the FOS it can be difficult to predict how a complaint will go. The usual rules of law and precedent, that the Court follow, do not apply. If a similar complaint has resulted in a given decision, that doesn’t mean that’s what will happen in your live complaint.
Also the FOS doesn’t have to follow a strict interpretation of the law. Whilst they must follow legal principles, the focus is on fairness in making their decision.
So a few things to consider when making a complaint to the FOS:
✅You need to have gone through a complaints process with the organisation that you are complaining about. You need to have received the final response letter in respect of that complaint.
✅You have 6 months from the final response letter to start off the complaint
✅You cannot bring a complaint to the FOS at the same time as litigating a claim at Court. If you have a Court claim ongoing in relation to the same issue, the complaint will not go ahead.
✅At the moment there is no fee to make a complaint. The form is online and, whilst clients can seek representation and support from a solicitor to make a complaint, the process is designed to be accessible for individuals to use themselves.
✅Following investigation you will get a response from an Adjudicator. If you do not agree with the outcome of that finding, you can ask for the complaint to be referred to the Ombudsman for a final outcome.
✅If the customer (our client) accepts the decision of the FOS it becomes legally binding on the insurance company meaning the insurer must comply.
✅There is no obligation to accept the decision of the FOS. The customer could reject the decision and chose litigation once the FOS process is complete.
Whilst the FOS do not follow precedent like the Court, past decisions are on their website and are easily searchable. We have searched and documented all decisions on inadequate foundations complaints as an example.
Here at Tree Law we have had successes in taking complaints to a final decision of the FOS. Step one of my advice in those cases was to look back through past decisions to have more of an idea of what could happen.
Check out how we can help with insurance disputes here – Insurance Issues | Tree Law – Legal tree expert
Check out Tree Law TV episode on making an insurance claim – How to make an insurance claim for subsidence damage
