Handling complaints

You should start your in-house complaints procedure immediately. Every complaint should be treated seriously and in-line with your procedure, even if you believe there is no basis or justification for the complaint. Your complaints procedure must be in line with our Codes of Practice and/or General Member Obligations.

Yes. With industry input, we’ve produced a range of complaint handling toolkits for different sectors. These documents are under review, pending upcoming legislative and regulation changes.

Lettings and sales:

• England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Scotland

Residential Leasehold Management (block/estate management):

• Residential Leasehold Management (block/estate management)

Sole practitioner/Small business:

• England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• Residential Leasehold Management (Block/estate management)

If it is raised to you on the phone or in-person, make a record by noting details as well as the date and time. You should give the consumer a copy of your in-house complaints procedure and ask that the complaint is put to you in writing in a letter or an email. Let the consumer know who this should be addressed to. If the consumer cannot send the complaint in writing for any reason, you should confirm the complaint in writing to them instead.

We would recommend that you report a formal complaint to your insurer. This is because insurers typically require that you notify them as soon as you become aware that there may be a claim against your business. If an award is subsequently made, you may not be able to claim on your insurance. You may wish to consult your policy or speak to your insurer if you are unsure about when to make notifications to them.

You should follow your in-house complaints procedure, which should be in line with our Codes of Practice and/or General Member Obligations.

After receiving the complaint in writing, reply to the consumer and acknowledge the complaint within three working days. Explain that you will begin your internal investigation and that a written response will be sent within 15 working days. Ideally, the investigation should be carried out by a senior member of staff or a dedicated complaints-handling staff member not involved in the transaction.

Complaints are best resolved as early as possible. When writing to the consumer about the outcome of the investigation, you may wish to consider a range of options in order to resolve the consumer’s concerns. You may also wish to make a goodwill offer to settle the matter. Making a goodwill offer does not mean that you have accepted that you have done anything wrong.

The consumer may not accept either your explanation or your goodwill offer, and may choose to escalate their complaint. We expect that your complaints procedure will have the opportunity for the consumer to have their complaint to be reviewed by another member of staff who has had no involvement in the matter. You should conduct your final investigation within 15 working days.

After completing your investigation, issue your final viewpoint letter. This is your final view on all of the complaint issues raised and this marks the end of your in-house complaints procedure. Remember to explain that they can refer their complaint to The Property Ombudsman in your letter. Share our contact details, including our website, and the timescales for referring the complaint.

It should take no longer than eight weeks from the date you receive the complaint in writing.

Yes. You may wish to make a goodwill offer in full and final settlement of all complaints raised. If the consumer accepts this, we will consider the matter settled. If the consumer rejects the goodwill offer and refers the complaint to us, we will come to our own decision as to whether or not the offer you’ve made is reasonable.

After investigating the complaint internally, you must send the consumer a final viewpoint letter. This clearly communicates your final view on all the complaint issues and should tell the consumer that having received the letter, they have completed your internal complaints procedure.

Your final viewpoint letter should signpost the consumer to us if they are still dissatisfied with your decision. It should include our contact details, including our website, and explain that they can refer their complaint within 12 months of receiving your final viewpoint letter.

Yes. If you do not respond to the consumer, or if your internal complaints procedure takes more than eight weeks to complete, we can accept the consumer’s complaint.

Once we receive the consumer’s complaint, we will decide whether we can accept it under our Scheme Rules. If we can, we will refer the complaint to one of our resolution teams.

A consumer can only add a new complaint if it is about your internal complaints process. They can add this to their complaints form without raising it with you first. Outside of this, we cannot consider complaints that have not been subject to your internal complaints procedure.

We will tell you what evidence we need to make a decision. This may be emails, agreements, text messages or letters.

Our aim is to resolve the complaint at the earliest opportunity. If we think that the service you provided was not reasonable, then we may ask you to make an offer, usually a financial award, to resolve the complaint. If you do not make an offer, or a reasonable offer, we may then write a formal decision.

Before we issue a written decision, we would normally speak to you and the consumer. You may also be asked to provide further evidence. Once we make a decision, we will inform you of the outcome in writing.

In most cases, if we decide there were shortcomings in the service you provided, we will direct you to pay compensation.

We will review the evidence that has been provided. If we need more information, we will ask you and the consumer for the specific evidence we need to make a decision.

We will use our Codes of Practice, legal principles, and common sense to decide whether you have acted fairly and reasonably in all the circumstances.

Remember we offer an alternative to the court process and do not make decisions on points of law. Any decision we make may therefore not always be the same as those reached in a court.

We may decide that the service you provided was reasonable. We will always explain our reasons for our decision to both you and the consumer.

If you or the consumer thinks we have made a fundamental mistake or there is new information that was unavailable before, you can (in some circumstances) ask us to review the decision. This provides an opportunity for us to look again at our decision. We could decide to vary or uphold our original decision.

After considering the matter, if we decide that the service you provided was unreasonable, we can instruct you do any one of the following:

• take steps to improve the way you work
• take steps to put matters right
• pay the consumer compensation
• limit your fees
• issue a formal apology

In most cases, where something has gone wrong, we will instruct you to pay compensation. The amount that is payable depends on the impact of any shortcoming on the consumer. Our awards tend to be hundreds rather than thousands of pounds. Most awards are for aggravation, distress and inconvenience caused to the consumer. We do not make awards to punish a business.

If you or the consumer thinks we have made a fundamental mistake or there is new information that was unavailable before, you can (in some circumstances) ask us to review the decision. This provides an opportunity for us to look again at our decision. We could decide to vary or uphold our original decision.

We recognise that it can be difficult or aggravating to receive a complaint about your service. However, we would encourage you to use the experience as an opportunity to reflect on your service. If we decide that your service is unreasonable, we will explain why. However, we would not usually provide specific advice on what you need to do to improve your service. In some circumstances, where it appears that there may be a systemic issue at your business, or a complaint raises serious concerns, we may issue a Best Practice letter. This will explain our concerns to provide you an opportunity to review your business practices.

In our decision, we will explain why we have awarded a particular level of compensation. Disagreeing with the compensation amount is not a reason for us to review our decision.

If you or the property business thinks we have made a fundamental mistake or there is new information that was unavailable before, you can (in some circumstances) ask us to review the decision. This provides an opportunity for us to look again at our decision. We could decide to vary or uphold our original decision.

If we have instructed you to pay compensation, we will ask the consumer whether they accept the level of compensation. If they accept the award, we ask the consumer to provide their bank details to you. If they do not accept the award, you do not have to take any further action and we will close our file. Payment should be made directly to the consumer within 28 days.

We will contact you to remind you to pay the award. If you still do not make payment, we may report you to our Compliance Committee. They can decide whether to expel you from our scheme and we may also report you to external organisations, such as Trading Standards. In extreme cases, a failure to pay an award could lead to a property business closing down.

If the consumer accepts our decision, they do so in full and final settlement of their complaint. We would not expect them to pursue the matter any further. However, if the consumer has rejected our decision, they are free to pursue their complaint through the courts.