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To confirm that you are in a position to bring your complaint to us, please complete the checklist below.
Please note, by continuing to submit a complaint you are agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy.
When we refer to "business", we mean whoever your complaint is against.
This form can take at least 30 minutes to complete.
To complete the form, you will need to provide:
Check the list of businesses registered with The Property Ombudsman.
If the business you want to complain about is not registered with us then we cannot consider the complaint. You may wish to check with the Property Redress Scheme to see if they can consider the complaint. Alternatively, check if the business has a complaints process. This may direct you to the organisation you can escalate the complaint to.
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View guidance on our Terms of Reference.
Please be aware each separate complaint must be raised. If any part of your complaint has not been raised with the business, we will not be able to consider it.
However, you do not need to raise each incident of the same complaint.
We operate a Terms of Reference to ensure that we provide a fair and impartial service to both agents and consumers. As part of our Scheme’s Terms of Reference we can only consider complaints whereby we are satisfied that the matters being brought to The Property Ombudsman for investigation have all been raised with the business previously, as part of your formal complaint.
For example: If you are a tenant and you are complaining about your holding deposit and the referencing process carried out by the Letting Agent, all of these points would need to have been raised within your formal complaint. Before The Property Ombudsman can accept and consider all of your complaint the business has to be given the opportunity to address the concerns raised as part of their internal complaints procedure.
If there are points raised on your submission that have not been raised as part of your formal complaint, we will not be able to consider these elements.
A business can end the complaints process by sending you their final response. This will clearly state that the complaints process has been completed and you should now send your complaint to us. The final response may also just say the business will not respond further, we can normally accept this.
It appears that you may not have competed the internal complaints process. Therefore we cannot consider the complaints. Please click on this link for guidance on completing the complaints process with the business. If you are still unsure please contact our enquiries line for further guidance.
Any complaint issues you raise as part of your formal complaint to the business must be made within 12 months of the issue occurring. We cannot consider a complaint if the issue occurred more than 12 months before you made the complaint.
If you are not happy with the response provided in the business’s final viewpoint letter and you want to refer the matter to TPO you must do so within 12 months from the date of the business’s letter.
Under the Ombudsman’s Terms of Reference, we cannot consider any part of a complaint that a court has ruled on.
If legal action is started and a court date is set within three months, we will pause the review until the court makes a decision. You may request a court adjournment, citing your attempt to resolve the dispute through alternative means.
If the court proceeds and issues a judgment, you must provide a copy of it. We will review this, along with the evidence submitted to the court, to decide whether we can continue considering your complaint.
A goodwill offer – sometimes referred to as a GWO - is where the business has made an offer (monetary or not) to resolve the complaint.
Businesses will often state whether accepting their offer will be in full and final settlement of the complaint.
Please can you provide information about any goodwill offer that you have received, the amount and whether you’ve accepted it or not. If not, why not.
If you have accepted it and the business has stated that the offer was in full and final settlement, and it has now been paid; TPO will not be able to investigate the matter any further, as the Ombudsman will consider the matter settled.
It the offer was not made in full and final settlement and you have accepted it, we will consider any amount already paid by the agent as part of any award we make. For example if you have accepted a £200 goodwill offer, not in full and final settlement, and we award £500 in compensation we will only instruct the agent to pay £300. As £200 of the award has already been paid.
We will require proof of Power of Attorney or a Letter of Authority (link here) to be completed for one of the following:
1. You are referring your complaint to this office on behalf of someone else.
2. You wish us to communicate with someone on your behalf.
This will ensure that we can communicate to the appropriate party regarding the case.
We require a completed "Letter of Authority" to be able to accept your complaint.
Please use this link (Letter of Authority) to download a blank one, and then return to this complaint form once it has been completed.
Thank you, with the information provided it appears that we can process your complaint.
This is the person who will be our point of contact.
Please note that the acknowledgement of the form will be sent by email. Please let us know if you would prefer future contact in a different way.
Please provide details of the specific complaint you wish to raise against the business.
Try to summarise your complaint in one sentence as the details will be contained in your complaint letter(s) and any response, e.g. delays to repairs, delay to completion of sale.
Please note that we have limited powers and may not be able to provide or direct the desired resolution.
Proof of initial complaint: Provide a copy of the email or letter you sent to the business to initiate their internal complaints process.
Proof of final response: If the business has referred you to The Property Ombudsman, provide a copy of their final response (email or letter). If more than 8 weeks have passed since your initial complaint, submit the latest communication with the business.
Proof you chased the agent: If the business has not responded to you after 15 working days please provide a copy of the email or letter you sent to the business to chase their progress.
At this stage, we require the proofs of initial complaint(s) and the final/ last response(s) from the business.
At this stage, we require the proofs of initial complaint(s) and your last "chaser" communication to the business.
At this stage, we require the proof of initial complaint(s) to the business.
If you feel there is further evidence to be submitted, please upload it above.
Apart from the initial complaint we don't require additional evidence at this point. We will ask for it when required. However if you feel there is further evidence to be submitted, please upload it above.
WARNING: At this stage not all sections of the complaint have been completed (which is why you are seeing this warning message).
If all questions have not been answered the "Declarations" button (which is required for the complaint to be accepted) will not be displayed.
Please press "Return to form to make changes" and complete all sections.
Please Note: Pressing "Submit" with this warning message showing will mean your complaint will NOT be processed.
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