Time limits for businesses

The 15-year long-stop doesn’t apply to complaints brought to our service. A customer usually needs to complain to you or to us within 6 years of the problem happening.

If they haven’t complained within 6 years, we can’t usually investigate the complaint. But we will be able to investigate if either:

• they made their complaint within 3 years of becoming aware that they had cause to complain
• they made their complaint within 3 years of when they should reasonably have become aware that they had cause to complain

We also may be able to consider a complaint if they have exceptional circumstances for the delay in complaining.

You have 15 days to consider complaints about:

• fraud and scams
• payment services – such as bank transfers or direct debits
• electronic money – for example, online money transfers, Apple Pay or travel money cards

For most other complaints, you have 8 weeks to consider a complaint.

For complaints about car finance, see our page for businesses on complaints about motor finance commission.

After these time limits have passed, you should send the customer either:

• a final response, or
• a response explaining why you’re not yet able to send a final response and when you expect to be able to.

If you’re not yet ready to send a final response, you should:

• tell your customer that they can bring their complaint to us
• give your customer a copy of our leaflet and our website address
• let your customer know whether you consent to waive the relevant time limits.

What the final response should say 

Your final response should mention that the customer has the right to refer their complaint to us in the next six months. You should also include:

• a copy of our leaflet, and
• our website address.

You should also state whether you agree to us looking into the complaint if it’s referred to us after the relevant time limit. If you say you agree, you can't change your mind later.

You can check the FCA handbook for the correct wording to use in your responses.

After a customer has received your final response, they have 6 months to refer their complaint to us. 

If they complain later than this, we usually won’t be able to help unless:

• the delay is due to exceptional circumstances, for example, they were seriously ill during the time when they should have referred the complaint and we’re satisfied this prevented them from referring it
• you didn’t send a valid final response
• you consent to waive the 6-month time limit.

If you don’t agree to us investigating a late complaint, we will:

• look into what's happened, and
• decide if we agree the complaint is out of time.

How to calculate when the 6-month time limit ends

The 6-month deadline starts from the date you send the final response. We then use calendar months to work out the end date.

So if you send a final response on 7 May, the customer has until 7 November to refer the complaint to us.

If you send a final response on 30 August, then the customer has until 28 February to complain to us because it’s not possible to have an end date of 30 February. 

We can consider complaints brought to us after the 6-month time limit if the consumer missed the deadline because of exceptional circumstances.

We would expect to see evidence that exceptional circumstances caused the delay. Examples of exceptional circumstances include:

• a period of serious ill health
• a bereavement at the time in question.

And we’ll need to be satisfied that these circumstances prevented the complaint from being referred.

Read examples of where we've had to consider whether exceptional circumstances caused customers to miss the six-month deadline for contacting us. 

• Consumer has a family bereavement in the six-month time limit 
• Consumer changes their mind about complaining to us
• A serious illness prevents a consumer from complaining on time

You can make an offer to proactively settle a complaint after we have started investigating.

You must make the offer within the time limits for it to count as proactively settled.

This means you need to make the offer within 14 calendar days of us telling you that we’ve started investigating.