Financial ombudsman

Woodlane79

Hi all,

so my complaint has been upheld my initial investigator but firm is contesting. After 3 month investigation would have hoped it would have concluded by now. Anyone have any experience in this field, what is timeline and is it worth negotiating with firm so that an expedited outcome is on offer?

DullGreyGuy

Woodlane79 said:

so my complaint has been upheld my initial investigator but firm is contesting. After 3 month investigation would have hoped it would have concluded by now. Anyone have any experience in this field, what is timeline and is it worth negotiating with firm so that an expedited outcome is on offer?

3 months of investigation or 3 months since you logged the complaint with the FOS?

The investigator's sometimes issues an indicative decision which either can contest, the investigator then issues their final decision. Again at this stage both can contest it and it then goes to an Ombudsman to review. So was the investigator giving their final decision or an interim one? From initial to final will be fairly short, a couple of weeks tops normally but it is dependent on people providing evidence promptly etc. 

The Ombudsman are typically more specialist than the investigators so how long it will take varies very much on what the current trends are and how many people they have with that speciality. I have had a case take a month to go from investigator to ombudsman and had a case take over 9 months to do the same. 

On the plus side, the ombudsman final decision cannot be contested by the firm, it's legally binding on them if you say you accept it. 

Woodlane79

Thanks for your swift response. 3 months in the hands of initial investigator from being allocated. Has given initial view that firm didn’t act fairly and outlined how this can be put right with opportunity for firm to contest. I didn’t expect they would given case fee and would have presumed it was unlikely to be different with escalating it to financial ombudsman? Thinking about negotiating for less as time is of the essence for me. 

Woodlane79

All evidence in their hands so I hope you are right and this is just a couple of weeks but initial investigator has their report proof read by others etc so unlikely to change by escalating it for another ombudsman to second it?

ManyWays

FOS says that in about 90% of cases, the ombudsman reaches the same decision as the investigator. How long it takes may depend on what the lenders objections are