George referred his complaint about his mortgage lender after the time limits had expired. He told us he’d found the business's final response letter intimidating and didn’t think he’d win his case.
What happened
George was unhappy his mortgage lender said 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 uphold 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 had left it after the deadline expired.
What we said
We asked George why he referred his complaint to us after the deadline.
George told us he’d found the business's final response letter intimidating and didn’t think he’d win his case. He thought the lender could apply the early repayment charge because he agreed to it, and that was likely to be the outcome. Later, he changed his mind and decided that he still wanted to pursue his complaint.
We didn’t agree the business’s final response letter was intimidating. It told George he had six months to contact us, and explained how he could do that if he felt that he had been treated unfairly.
We understood why he might have later changed his mind to contact us, but we didn’t agree this counted as exceptional circumstances for why he had contacted us late.