George sent us a complaint about his mortgage lender after the time limit had expired. He’d found the lender’s response letter intimidating.
What happened
George was unhappy that his mortgage lender told him he would need to pay an early repayment charge to end his fixed-rate mortgage early.
George complained to the mortgage lender, but it didn’t accept his complaint. In its final response letter, it said that George had six months from the date of the letter to complain to our service. But he left it until after the deadline to bring his complaint to us.
What we said
When we asked George why he had sent his complaint to us after the deadline, he told us the business’s response letter had made him feel uncomfortable. He’d found it intimidating and didn’t think he’d win his case.
Later, he changed his mind and decided he still wanted to complain. We reviewed the lender’s final response letter and didn’t think it was intimidating. It clearly stated that George had six months to contact us and explained how to do that.
We understood why he might have later changed his mind about contacting us. However, we didn’t agree that this circumstance was exceptional enough to justify him contacting us after the deadline.
We concluded that George had contacted us too late and we couldn’t look into his complaint about his lender.