Don’t worry you are one of the 50% of claimants that the banks are declining as a way to deflect potential claims.
The first and most important task is this is a final response from the bank. This is easy to establish in that the final paragraph will talk about the ombudsman and mention a 6 months’ time frame.
This letter is referred to as a ‘final response’ or ‘letter of deadlock’. The most important part of the letter is the date as you only have 6 months to get the claim to the ombudsman.
Now the question is do you deal with the claim and taking it to the ombudsman yourself or do you get a firm to now represent you.
To deal with the complaint with the ombudsman you need to take copies of the correspondence between yourself and the bank and send this to them with 2 forms. A complaint form which is blue and black and askes for details of the complaints bullet points and a red and black questionnaire which you may have already sent to the bank in the first place. This questionnaire is more detailed and is required to be completed for all borrowing facilities regardless as to whether they are with the same lender.
Send all of this information with a covering explanation to the ombudsman and wait. They will confirm receipt and confirmation that due to a the large number of claims it may be between 12 and 18 months to deal with your concerns (this applies to both dealing with the complaints yourself or through a Claims Management Company’s)
As a consumer it is important to check out any business you are about to employ on your behalf. This is no different than with Claims management companies (CMC’s). There are several important areas to check:
When you are declined remember you only have 6 months to take or arrange to have the complaint taken to the ombudsman.