List of Tracker Related Ombudsman Decisions

It is now June 1st. Not one poster has said on this forum that the Ombudsman has made either a preliminary or a final decision.for or against.

Mine, post final response, has been with the Ombudsman 2 years (since final response). This is a flipping joke.
 
Per their comment to you Brendan It is expected that there will be a publication today on H1 decisions. Hopefully it isn’t delayed and is released on time for the Sunday papers
 
Hi Dpd

Not one poster has said on this forum that the Ombudsman has made either a preliminary or a final decision.for or against.

I would expect that the Ombudsman will be publishing his decisions in the coming weeks. However, I am not expect that there will be any significant tracker related decisions. The whole process is very long and Thomas gives a good example

Mine was Feb 2017 and still not finalised!!

When the bank responds to the Ombudsman, consider very carefully if you need to respond. Typically what happens is the following.

Iteration 1 - Borrower complains, Ombudsman summarises it and puts it to the bank and the bank responds
Iteration 2 - Borrower responds, Ombudsman reviews and then submits to bank, and bank responds
Iteration 3 - Borrower makes a response to the bank's second response, Ombudsman reviews and then submits to bank,. The bank responds a third time.

Each iteration has three steps. The Ombudsman gives each step one month to respond. And often, the lender asks and is given an extension. So each iteration can take three months or more.

After all these iterations, the Ombudsman has to consider the huge file and make a preliminary decision.
The sides have 30 days in which to respond to that preliminary decision.
The Ombudsman then makes their final decision.

So I am not expecting that many, if any, decisions will be published in this round.

there is now conformation of a small number of Tracker Related Appeals to the Ombudsman. 10 Ulster Bank customers that appealed the level of compensation to the independent appeals panel only to be be rejected followed on with an Appeal to the Ombudsman. Of these ten, the Ombudsman sided with the customer on five occasions. A whopping 50% of Ombudsman appeals were upheld. I’ve long expected this was going to be the case with the appeals panel decisions and it’s great to hear decisions are now coming through. All these decisions will be published in July.

I found that astonishing. Ulster Bank is behind all the other lenders in their dealings. The Appeals Panel was late to be set up.

I suspect that there might be some misunderstanding here.

Brendan
 
That makes sense. It is a long process but my experience is that while cumbersome it’s thorough.

The UB one was unusual so it could have been a misunderstanding. There have been no posters here mentioning UB decisions.
 
I'm not sure that it was a misunderstanding. The Finance Committee were very specific in querying UB on this when they appeared before them.

The UB panel was late to be set up but as I understand it there were a few customers who went to appeals straight away, and their appeals were adjudicated within 6 months. If that was the case then it's possible that they'd already proceeded through the FSPO system by early 2019.

The key wording from the quote that the FSPO made is 'The FSPO proposes to publish all decisions (including tracker complaint decisions) issued between January and June 2019 in July 2019.' Proposes...

Edited to add: The absence of posters mentioning decisions is not an indicator of the decisions not existing. For example, there are hundreds of UB customers in the appeals process with a tiny fraction of them posting here on UB. Financial awards/decisions/situations are highly personal and it's not a surprise to me that the vast majority of customers don't discuss them in public.
 
I just checked the timeline on another case I have been told about. It's much worse than I thought.

It took the lender almost three months to respond to the questions from the Ombudsman. The borrower responded within a week. And it took a further three months for the bank to issue its second response. So 100 working days from the bank where it should have been 40.

Brendan
 
It took the lender almost three months to respond to the questions from the Ombudsman. The borrower responded within a week. And it took a further three months for the bank to issue its second response. So 100 working days from the bank where it should have been 40.

This is similar to my previous experience with the Ombudsman. It's also similar to my experience with the Appeals process (still ongoing). It appears that the FSPO is powerless to compel the Bank to respond in a timely manner. I believe that the Ombudsman should be simply progressing to the next stage when the Bank take far too long and giving the benefit to the complainant. That would serve to soften the Banks' cough.
 
I just checked the timeline on another case I have been told about. It's much worse than I thought.

It took the lender almost three months to respond to the questions from the Ombudsman. The borrower responded within a week. And it took a further three months for the bank to issue its second response. So 100 working days from the bank where it should have been 40.

Brendan

Things may have changed since I went to the FSPO in 2012 but at that time it took 26 months from start to finish with the bank nearly always late back on their submissions. Before agreeing to mediation I asked a case worker in the office of a time frame if the bank didn't agree to go to mediation (and they didn't) and they estimated 5 months at the time but the reality was very different, with one period in particular where there was no update for six months.

Up until the most recent submission to the Ulster Bank's Upper Appeals panel, to be fair, things have run according to the proposed timeline which I had requested from them. Things have currently slowed but they can't tell me why that is the case. I would say I have done everything in my power (basically dropped all else to get it done) to turn submissions around within a few days at the most in order to speed the process up but each time the bank have taken the full of the time allotted to them & again have often exceeded this parameter. I agree too that there should be a penalty or it should be considered a non submission if the Bank aren't back on time - as I've said to various parties through the various stages, I'm not a professional, I've a full time job, no staff and the stresses and strains of normal life to contend with while making submissions - This is the Bank's job - it's not good enough on their part aside from blatent disrespect to the complainent and the process itself
 
One of the problems faced by the banks is the sheer volume of complaints and appeals.

While you have a full time job nota bene, this is the only case you are progressing. You know it inside out. When UB responds to you, you can respond to them within a few days.

The Ombudsman faces the same issue. They must be swamped with tracker cases and all the other cases as well.

So I think we will just have to live with the fact that the Ombudsman process will take a year or so after mediation.

The only way to speed it up is for the Ombudsman to say after the first exchange: "I have read the complaint and the response from the bank. I now understand the issue. While you may make further submissions, it will only slow down the process. So don't make a further submission unless you really think it's necessary."

And I have seen a lot of complaints put together very badly. It would be hard for the Ombudsman to figure out what the borrower is arguing.

Brendan
 
One of the problems faced by the banks is the sheer volume of complaints and appeals.

While you have a full time job nota bene, this is the only case you are progressing. You know it inside out. When UB responds to you, you can respond to them within a few days.

The Ombudsman faces the same issue. They must be swamped with tracker cases and all the other cases as well.

So I think we will just have to live with the fact that the Ombudsman process will take a year or so after mediation.

The only way to speed it up is for the Ombudsman to say after the first exchange: "I have read the complaint and the response from the bank. I now understand the issue. While you may make further submissions, it will only slow down the process. So don't make a further submission unless you really think it's necessary."

And I have seen a lot of complaints put together very badly. It would be hard for the Ombudsman to figure out what the borrower is arguing.

Brendan

That's true Brendan but it has still taken up huge chunks of time and while I have sympathy on volume for the FSPO and can understand the delays and restrictions a bit more there - the banks are making plenty of money again - time for them to hire the staff to deal with it in an appropriate time frame

I would say two things though which maybe I should have said for balance above, the timeline provided by the appeals panel certainly did help with the wait up until the last submission - and to be fair to them, in my own case, they were able to stick to it - I think the uncertainty is a big element in the frustration of the process - again may not be possible for a large volume but I definitely found it useful in the spring.

Secondly while I will be the first to say I found the FSPO process torturous I will say that the length of time gave me more thinking time and I do think this ultimately helped me to remember aspects or come up with new strategies which did help too

Still a tough wait though ;-)
 
the banks are making plenty of money again - time for them to hire the staff to deal with it in an appropriate time frame

Hi nb

I was speaking to someone working in an area not related to trackers. He told me that with full employment in Ireland, it's impossible to attract and retain staff for "mass processing operations.". He used some expression like that. They get a lot of queries which must be responded to individually. It takes them a long time to train people and the good people tend to go on to better things. He said it must be very difficult for the banks to deal with the arrears cases. It's not nice work and so good people move on very quickly.

The trackers would be more complicated.

Brendan
 
Given that we move into October tomorrow it is a possibility that there will be no details of H1 2019 decisions provided and it may be just all of 2019 released together.

Also I haven’t read here or elsewhere of any decisions being made. It could be that, given the volume of cases, the ombudsman could be working though the cases for the next few years (unless they can batch some cohorts together). It would be great if we heard some decisions this year just to keep us sane!

My case has been in “Active Adjudication” with no further comments from me or the bank since Jan 2019. I was told on July 10th 2019 that they were drafting preliminary findings. I asked the FSPO when H1 2019 findings would be published but I got no response.
 
No just sitting with them. My last comment back was in late 2018. I didn’t engage in comment ping pong.

In April 2019 the FSPO asked for all correspondence between the bank and the panel (which rejected my appeal). This was information that had already been sent to the FSPO months before this in mid 2018 so they received the exact same pack again.
 
This really is so disappointing and very disheartening. I understand that the FSPO is out the door but this ordeal has gone on far too long for some folk.
 
Today I am 13 months since the case was handed over from the investigation team to the adjudication team for a decision. There must be something going on in the background but what I’ve no idea. Absolutely no comments on progress from the Ombudsman and they sidestepped their last planned committee appearance. I know I’ll be delighted if they eventually find in my favor but the whole process is torture
 
Has anybody progressed any further with the FSPO @Dpdp01050842 have you had any joy?
I have a complaint lodged with the FSPO since Oct '19 but haven't even been allocated a Dispute Resolution Officer yet.
 
Nothing, 17 months since investigation finished. My expectation is it will be in the next 4-12 weeks at which point I won’t be able to comment for 15 + 35 days. I hope I’ll be able to summarise at some point during the summer.
 
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