Taking a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service

The Financial Ombudsman Service settles disputes between consumers and financial businesses when the business has already said no, or has gone quiet. It is free for consumers¹ and describes itself as "a free, informal alternative to the courts with a duty to resolve financial complaints based on what we think is fair and reasonable"². Well over one million people contact it every year, and its final decisions are legally binding on the business if the consumer accepts them³.

This page covers the practical route: complaining to the business first and waiting up to eight weeks, referring the complaint within six months of the final response, what evidence to send, how an investigator and then an ombudsman decide the case, the compensation limit of up to £455,000 plus interest for complaints referred on or after 1 April 2026, and what accepting or rejecting a final decision means for your right to go to court.

What the Financial Ombudsman Service does and what it costs

The Financial Ombudsman Service exists to resolve complaints that a consumer and a financial business cannot settle between themselves. Its stated purpose is to be a free, informal alternative to the courts, deciding cases on what it thinks is fair and reasonable rather than purely on legal technicality². It is free for consumers¹, and its own consumer material repeats that "Our service is free and easy to use"⁷. The cost of running the service is met by the financial businesses it covers, not by the people who complain.

The scale is large. Well over one million people contact the service each year³. In a single quarter, April to June 2026, it received 8,900 new complaints about current accounts alone, and car and motorcycle insurance complaints rose to 4,100, up from 2,800 in the same period in 2025⁸.

What the ombudsman produces is a decision, not just an opinion. A final decision is legally binding on the business if the consumer accepts it³. If the consumer rejects it, nothing is binding and other routes, such as court, remain open. That structure, free to use, binding only on acceptance, is what makes the service different from both a court claim and a firm's own complaints process. For the background on the service itself, see the Financial Ombudsman Service: what it does and who can use it, and for how the ombudsman compares with the scheme that pays out when a firm has failed, see FSCS vs Financial Ombudsman Service.

Who can complain and what the ombudsman covers

Consumers are the main users, but not the only ones. The service also considers complaints from microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises⁹. It operates under the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015, which require it to publish activity information⁹. If a firm refuses an application, the rules require it to tell the consumer in writing and free of charge of the reason if lawful, and to advise on the complaint procedure and the right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁰.

The range of financial products covered is broad:

• Banking and payments: current accounts, savings accounts, direct debits, money transfers, electronic payment platforms, cheques and banker's drafts, with complaint issues including account closures, disputed transactions, IT failures and problems with switching services¹¹.
• Credit and lending: payday loans, affordability of lending, the quality of goods bought or hired on credit, and other types of lending including mortgages¹².
• Investments and savings: including endowments¹³ and ISAs, where a complaint can be brought, for example, if an adviser or investment company made an admin error or delayed a transfer or payment into the account¹⁴.
• Mortgages: including complaints from borrowers in financial difficulty, where the ombudsman can be approached if the business does not reply within eight weeks or the borrower is unhappy with its response¹⁵, and interest-only mortgage complaints¹⁶.
• Insurance: including travel, home and motor cover.
• Fraud and scams: complaints about how a financial business dealt with a scam involving unauthorised payments, stolen details or identity theft¹⁷.
• Specialist areas: gambling-related harm¹⁸, complaints about credit unions¹⁹, and complaints about electronic money, also known as e-money, digital currency or digital cash²⁰.

Some government-linked schemes also route to the ombudsman. The Help to Buy: Equity Loan complaints process states that if more than eight weeks have passed without a final response, or the borrower remains dissatisfied, they can write to the Financial Ombudsman Service at Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR²¹.

Not everything succeeds. The ombudsman states it will not uphold a complaint based only on the theories of sovereign citizens and the Freemen on the Land movement, noting that while the arguments sound legal, they have never succeeded in court¹⁵. From 1 October 2026, new powers also allow it to dismiss complaints that are better resolved elsewhere, or where there is no financial loss, material distress or inconvenience⁸.

Complain to the business first: eight weeks for a final response

The ombudsman is not the first stage of a complaint. Its standard wording across many product pages is that a formal complaint must first be made to the company involved, and that:

Financial Ombudsman Service⁴

The same rule appears for logbook loans, home insurance, goods and services bought on credit and other products²².

The eight weeks run from the date the business receives the complaint. Two things can happen at the end of them:

1. The business sends a final response letter, and you are unhappy with it. You can refer the complaint to the ombudsman.
2. The business sends nothing at all. After eight weeks you can refer the complaint anyway, without a final response.

Some products have tighter deadlines than the general eight weeks. For complaints about regular payments, the business must look into things and get back to you within 15 days, either with a response or to explain why it cannot yet give one, and must then send a response within 35 days²³. For mortgage lenders, the ombudsman notes they have to give a final response within a specified time limit¹⁶.

The first stage, complaining to the firm itself, is covered in more detail in how to complain to a financial firm, and the eight-week rule specifically in the eight-week rule: when you can go to the ombudsman. If you are complaining about a bank or building society, see complaining about a bank or building society.

Six months from the final response to refer your complaint

Once the business has sent its final response, a clock starts. MoneyHelper's guidance is that you have six months to take your complaint to the free Financial Ombudsman Service if you are still unhappy or have had no response in time⁵. The ombudsman itself states it more precisely: "You will need to make a complaint to us within 6 months from the date on your final response"²⁴. Its PPI guidance says the same, that the referral needs to happen within six months of the business's response²⁵, and the Help to Buy: Equity Loan process likewise requires referral within six months of the date on the final response²¹.

Missing the six months can end the complaint before it starts, so the date on the final response letter matters more than the date you read it. The detailed rules on all the ombudsman's time limits, including the six-year and three-year limits that apply to when the events themselves happened, are in Financial Ombudsman time limits.

How to refer your complaint

Referring a complaint is designed to be done directly. The ombudsman offers an online complaint checker: answer a few questions on its website and it will let you know whether it thinks it can help and what to do next²⁶. The formal step is to fill in its complaint form²⁷.

You do not need to pay anyone to do this for you. The ombudsman states: "You don't need to pay anyone to represent you, for example, a lawyer or claims management company (CMC)"²⁴. If you are considering using AI to help complete the form, the ombudsman asks you to read its guidelines on using AI before you start²⁷. Its guidelines are:

• avoid entering personal information you would not want shared, such as health or banking information
• only use AI to help you organise information or put it clearly
• check the resulting text carefully²⁴

What evidence to send depends on the complaint, and the ombudsman's own product pages give useful examples:

• Money sent abroad: evidence that the money was sent, such as a screenshot showing when the money left your account, or details of any other banks involved²⁸.
• Mortgage mis-selling: the fact-find (the lender's summary of your circumstances at the time), the application form, the offer and any illustrations¹⁶.
• Valuations and surveys: the report or survey itself, the mortgage application form, information the lender gave about types of inspection, the lender's instructions to the surveyor, and builders' reports and estimates for repairs²⁹.
• Unaffordable lending: the application form and pre-contract documents, the credit file results obtained at the time, income information and documents used to verify it such as payslips or bank statements, income and expenditure checks, and a statement of account with payment history; for overdrafts, current account statements and the dates reviews were or should have been carried out³⁰.
• Property damage claims: expert reports and photos of the damage³¹.

The ombudsman also advises using the Financial Conduct Authority's Firm Checker to confirm a firm is authorised, which helps avoid scams¹¹. If your dispute is with a trader rather than a financial business, a different route applies: see which ombudsman? Choosing the right scheme and alternative dispute resolution.

How the ombudsman investigates and decides

A referred complaint is assigned to an investigator, who gives an assessment of the case, and the client must accept or reject that view by a deadline³². The investigation looks at the facts and evidence from both the business and the customer, and the ombudsman then sets out its findings, explaining its decision and what needs to be done to put things right¹². At the end, it tells the consumer whether it thinks the business treated them fairly, and explains how it reached that decision¹³.

The investigator's view is not the end. If one or both sides disagree with it, they can ask for the complaint to be referred to an ombudsman, who takes a fresh look at the case and can include new evidence².

Decisions are not made on gut feeling. The ombudsman bases them on relevant law and regulations, the regulator's rules, guidance and standards, industry codes of practice and, where appropriate, good industry practice²⁷. It follows the Financial Conduct Authority's Dispute Resolution Rules (DISP)³⁴, and takes into account how the business tried to settle the complaint³⁵. For older events, it applies the regulatory and legal standards that applied at the time of the event being complained about, not today's rules retrospectively³⁶. Its general redress approach is that the customer is put back in the position they would have been in if the problem had not happened³⁴.

The core questions in most cases are simple: "Did the business do everything it was required to do? And if they didn't, has their customer lost out as a result?"³⁰. If the business fell short but the customer lost nothing, the outcome may be an explanation rather than money. If the customer did lose out, the ombudsman tells the business to put things right, and may also tell it to pay compensation for distress or inconvenience¹⁷.

Published final decisions are searchable: a database holds all the final decisions published since 1 April 2013³⁶, so it is possible to read how similar cases were decided before referring your own.

Compensation limit: up to £455,000 plus interest

The maximum the ombudsman can require a business to pay depends on when the complaint was referred and when the events happened⁶:

All figures are from the ombudsman's own compensation guidance⁶. The ombudsman can indicate that it would be fair for the business to pay more than the limit, but the business does not have to pay more than the limit⁶.

Interest is added to awards for the time you were deprived of money. For complaints referred before 1 January 2026, the ombudsman typically asked businesses to use 8% simple a year⁶, a rate it had applied historically as a standard³⁷. From 1 January 2026, for complaints submitted from that date onwards, it changed the rate to a time-weighted average of the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point, calculated on a simple basis, taking into account the base rate at the end of each day³⁷. The new rate generally applies from when you were unreasonably deprived of the money to the payment deadline date the ombudsman sets³⁷. The ombudsman plans to review the rate at least every two years, and its caseworkers keep discretion to apply a different rate where that is suitable, proportionate and justifiable³⁷. Interest awarded for being deprived of money because the business delayed payment can be paid on top of the limit⁶.

A worked example shows how redress is built up. In one piece of ombudsman guidance on mis-sold PPI alongside a loan sold on to a third party, the total redress was £2,995, including interest of £555³⁸. In a published case study about advice given by an independent financial adviser, the ombudsman told the firm to pay the resulting compensation, up to the applicable maximum of £160,000 for that complaint³⁹.

For distress and inconvenience, the ombudsman's own pages state different figures for different contexts: up to £1,500 in one⁴⁰, up to £300 in another⁴¹, and up to £5,000 in a third⁴². These are not competing general limits but context-specific amounts on the ombudsman's own pages; the figure that matters is the one for the type of complaint brought.

Tax treatment depends on what the money is for. In some cases the law requires the business to deduct income tax at the basic rate from compensation, whether or not you are a taxpayer⁶. If the ombudsman says a business needs to pay interest on an award, the business deducts income tax at the basic rate before paying, pays it directly to HMRC and gives you a tax deduction certificate⁶. For compensation for investment or pensions loss, the business will not deduct capital gains tax for you⁶. The ombudsman also notes that although it tells businesses how to calculate compensation, it will not usually check the calculations the business makes⁶. How much the ombudsman can award overall is covered in more detail in how much compensation the Financial Ombudsman can award.

Accepting a final decision and your right to go to court

A final decision ends the process, and the choice of what to do with it belongs entirely to the consumer. The ombudsman's easy-read leaflet puts it plainly: "If you aren't happy with our final answer, we can't help you anymore. But you can take your complaint to court if you want"⁴³. Its governance pages confirm that consumers can still go to court if they do not want to accept the decision¹.

Acceptance, however, closes other doors. If you accept an award made in a final decision, it is unlikely you will be able to take the business to court for more compensation later⁶. The decision becomes legally binding on the business, which usually has 28 calendar days from the date the ombudsman informs it of your acceptance to pay⁶.

There is no appeal within the system. The ombudsman states that if either side is unhappy with the decision, they cannot appeal an ombudsman's final decision to another ombudsman². Disagreement alone is not a ground; the alternative is court.

Two timing points matter before you decide. Court time limits exist and continue to run while the ombudsman handles your case, so a long ombudsman process can eat into the period you would have to issue a claim⁶. And if the business misses the payment deadline after you accept, the interest rate for late payment is usually 8% simple a year⁶. What to do when you disagree with a decision is covered in what to do if you disagree with an ombudsman decision, and the court route in ombudsman or small claims court, small claims court in England and Wales, the simple procedure in Scotland and small claims in Northern Ireland.

Scams, repossessions and other common situations

Scams and refused refunds. If a bank refuses to refund money lost to a scam, the Payment Systems Regulator's guidance is that if you are unhappy with the response, you can take the matter further by referring it to the Financial Ombudsman Service⁴⁴. The ombudsman covers complaints about how a financial business dealt with a scam involving unauthorised payments, stolen details or identity theft¹⁷, and the remedies it can require include refunding payments you did not authorise, refunding charges and interest the bank applied, compensating you for money lost, and paying compensation for distress or inconvenience²³. The wider background is in scams and fraud.

Repossession. The ombudsman states it can help even after a house has been repossessed¹⁶. In interest-only mortgage complaints it decides whether you received advice and whether it was suitable, including advice about a repayment plan, and it expects lenders to respond fairly and constructively to concerns about paying off the capital even if no advice was given and the mortgage was not mis-sold¹⁶. Its principle is that repossession is always a last resort¹⁵. It can also look at early repayment charges after repossession, and might tell the lender to refund the charge if appropriate forbearance was not offered beforehand⁴⁵.

Businesses that do not pay. A final decision is legally binding if accepted³⁷, and the business usually has 28 calendar days to pay⁶. Where a redress scheme is involved, the ombudsman states that if it finds the business has not applied the redress scheme's rules correctly, it will set out what the business needs to do next⁴⁶.

Mortgage arrears and charges. Complaints the ombudsman handles include lenders applying unfair charges such as arrears fees, legal costs and field agent visit fees, refusing concessions such as a temporary switch to interest-only or a term extension, unfairly attempting repossession, refusing to help when the borrower cannot afford payments, and harassing borrowers about arrears³⁶.

Mortgage underfunding. Where a mortgage was underfunded, the ombudsman looks at how the repayment mistake came about and who is responsible, whether the information provided about repayments was adequate, whether the customer could reasonably have known they were not paying enough, whether they could have sorted the problem sooner, and whether the lender or broker could have picked up on it at the time³³. If the lender made the mistake and the customer could not have known, it generally tells the lender to rework the account as if the correct payments had been made, possibly writing off the extra money; if a broker or third party was responsible, it can tell them to pay the money to the mortgage account instead; if the customer made the mistake, it is unlikely to tell the lender to write the money off but will encourage a fair repayment plan³³.

Branch closures and reduced service. The ombudsman would not generally consider it unreasonable for a bank to make a commercial decision to close a branch, but it does consider whether the firm acted fairly, provided appropriate support and communication, and took account of the customer's needs³. Complaints about reduced in-person services often concern access to cash withdrawals, services only available face to face such as removing a security block or depositing cash, and access limited to specific branches³. Those needing complex or sensitive account support, including people who lack digital skills, those with power of attorney, and those experiencing bereavement or financial difficulty, are likely to be more affected³.

If the firm has failed. The ombudsman resolves disputes with living businesses. Where a firm has stopped trading, compensation generally comes from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme instead; see how to claim compensation from the FSCS and what the FSCS does not cover.