Our Complaints Procedure

SUMMARY OF THE INTERNAL PROCEDURES FOR HANDLING COMPLAINTS FOR MORTGAGE ADVICE SERVICES

On this page we publish appropriate information regarding our internal procedures for the reasonable and prompt handling of complaints. We will provide a copy of this document on request, on our website and when acknowledging a complaint. There will be no charge for this.

We regard a complaint as being:

Any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a person about the provision of, or failure to provide, a financial service, which:
(a) alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience; and
(b) relates to an activity of our firm, or of any other firm with whom we have some connection in marketing or providing financial services or products, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

A complaint can be made via any reasonable means, including letter, telephone, email, and in person. We operate a telephone line for the purposes of enabling a complaint to be filed and you will not be bound to pay more than the ‘basic rate’ when using this.

On receipt of a complaint, we will pass the details onto a Compliance Officer of the company, who will be responsible for ensuring that any complaint will be dealt with promptly and fairly.

No charge will be made for handling a complaint from an eligible complainant.

An eligible complainant is defined as a person eligible to have a complaint considered under the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Making a Complaint

If you wish to make a complaint, we can be contacted as follows:

Compliance Department
Mortgage Advice Services
16 St Christopher’s Way
Pride Park
Derby DE24 8JY
Telephone number: 01332 257 000
Email: compliance@mortgageadviceservices.co.uk

Complaints resolved by the close of the third business day after receipt

Where we consider your complaint to have been resolved by the close of the third business day following the day it is received, we will promptly issue our Summary Resolution Communication which will:
• be fair, clear and not misleading;
• refer to the fact that you have made a complaint and that we consider the complaint to have been resolved;
• If relevant, include any offer of remedial action or the appropriate level of redress (or both);
• provide you with details of your right to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you subsequently decide that you are dissatisfied with the resolution of the complaint.

We will also provide you with the contact details of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), their website address and refer you to the availability of further information on the FOS website. The Financial Ombudsman Service can be contacted as follows:

The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London E14 9SR
Telephone number: 0800 023 4 567
Further information is available on the Ombudsman’s website: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

If you are not satisfied with our decision, you will have the right to refer the matter onto the Financial Ombudsman Service within 6 months from the date of our ‘Summary Resolution Communication’ or you may lose that right. Details of this right will be provided.

We will also confirm whether or not we consent to the Financial Ombudsman Service considering a complaint if it becomes apparent that the complaint has been made or referred outside the time limits specified under Financial Conduct Authority rules. Under these rules the ombudsman service cannot normally look at a complaint if it is referred more than 6 months after our summary resolution communication or final response is issued, or, 6 years from when the act complained of happened and 3 years from when a complainant should reasonably have been aware of a problem.

Acknowledging your Complaint

If your complaint cannot be resolved by the close of the third business day, following its receipt, we will promptly send you a written acknowledgement of your complaint to confirm that it has been received and that we are dealing with it.

If you make an oral complaint, our written acknowledgement will set out our understanding of your complaint.

If we have reasonable grounds to be satisfied that another firm may be solely or jointly responsible for the allegation(s) made, we will promptly forward the complaint, or the relevant part of it, to that firm. We will write to you to confirm our actions and provide contact details of the firm concerned.

Investigating your Complaint

Your complaint will be investigated by somebody who is competent and, as far as is possible, by an individual who is unconnected to the subject of your complaint. Your complaint will be investigated diligently and will be assessed fairly, consistently and promptly.

We may ask you to submit copies of documentation and may request further information from you to assist us with our investigation. We will take into account any documents and/or information you may provide in relation to your complaint.

Keeping you Informed.

If your complaint cannot be resolved by the close of the third business day, following the day of receipt, we will regularly keep you informed of the progress of our investigation into your complaint. Any progress updates will include:
• an explanation of why we are unable to make a final response and when we expect to be able to provide one;
• what further information/documents we require to resolve your complaint; and
• when you may expect to receive a further update / our Final Response letter.

We will work towards completing our investigation into your complaint within eight weeks of its receipt.

We will undertake a thorough investigation of your complaint which may take a little bit of time. However in the event that we have been unable to conclude our enquiries within the eight week period, we will write to you and provide an explanation why we are not in a position to make a final response and indicate when we expect to be able to provide a final response.

We will also provide you with details of your right to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are dissatisfied with the progress of our review, together with the Financial Ombudsman Service’s contact details and website address and refer you to the availability of further information on the Financial Ombudsman Service website.

We will also confirm whether or not we consent to the Financial Ombudsman Service considering a complaint if it becomes apparent that the complaint has been made or referred outside time limits specified under Financial Conduct Authority rules.

Resolving your Complaint

When we have finalised our investigation into your complaint, we will issue our Final Response letter, which will:
• be fair, clear and not misleading;
• provide details of our investigation and decision;
• if relevant, include any offer of remedial action and/or the appropriate level of redress;
• provide you with details of your right to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you subsequently decide that you are not satisfied with the resolution of the complaint.

If you are not satisfied with our decision, you will have the right to refer the matter onto the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) within 6 months from the date of our Final Response letter, or you may lose that right. Details of this right and an explanatory leaflet will be provided.

We will also confirm whether or not we consent to the Financial Ombudsman Service considering a complaint if it becomes apparent that the complaint has been made or referred outside time limits specified under Financial Conduct Authority rules.

Record Keeping

We will keep records of all complaints, and the measures taken for their resolution, for three years from the date the complaint was received.

You can be assured that we treat all complaints very seriously and we will conduct a full review of the issue(s) raised.