Information for firms on motor finance complaints 

• We expect your firm to respond to consumer queries in line with your existing policies. You can refer customers to our consumer webpage for more information on how the rules affect them.
• If customers have already made a complaint to your firm, you should keep them informed of the progress in resolving their complaint.
• In line with the customer support outcome under the Consumer Duty, you should respond promptly to queries from customers on whether their motor finance agreements included a DCA, as this may help them decide if they should make a complaint.
• You must update the information you publish for consumers on how you handle complaints, for example, information on your website. This is to make sure consumers are informed of the changes to the time limits.

• For DCA complaints received between 17 November 2023 and 25 September 2024 inclusive, we’ve paused the 8-week time limit for sending a final response to the complainant for 37 weeks. This means that, during this period, you don’t have to send final responses to DCA complainants. 
• Your written acknowledgement to complainants of any DCA complaint, must include an explanation of the pause to the time limits for dealing with their complaint. You must also tell them why the time limits have been paused (see from 2.21 of PS24/1 (PDF) 'Keeping complainants informed about complaint handling time limits').  
• If you’ve already sent a written acknowledgement of a DCA complaint, you must promptly write to the complainant again and tell them about the pause and the reason for it. 
• In cases where you can easily identify that the DCA isn’t a relevant consideration, we encourage you to provide a final response (ie within 8 weeks). Examples of where it might be appropriate for you to provide a final response while the pause is in place include:  
  • where a consumer who’s previously complained about commission, and received a final response, wishes to raise a different complaint
  • where it’s possible to resolve the complaint without having to consider whether the DCA element of the agreement was fair or not

• You must write to complainants who were sent a final response to a DCA complaint between 12 July 2023 and 10 January 2024 inclusive. You must explain that they now have 15 (rather than 6) months from the date of your final response to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.
• If you send a final response to a DCA complaint between 11 January 2024 and 20 November 2024 inclusive, you must give complainants 15 months to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

• Under our general rules on record retention, you must arrange for orderly records to be kept of your business. This includes all services and transactions you’ve undertaken. You should retain records for as long as they’re relevant for the purposes for which they were made.  
• Lenders and credit brokers must maintain and preserve any records that are, or could be, relevant to the handling of complaints or civil claims relating to agreements with DCAs entered into before 28 January 2021. This is regardless of whether the customer has complained or not. This requirement applies until 11 January 2025, 1 year from when the rule came into force. (See point 2.38 of PS24/1 (PDF)).
• If you fail to keep documents or records relating to DCA complaints, you must still investigate the complaint fairly.

• We’re appointing a skilled person to review historical motor finance commission arrangements and sales across several firms. All firms participating in this work have now been informed.
• We may carry out further sampling of other firms if needed.
• Our review will include sales involving discretionary commission arrangements made from 6 April 2007 to 28 January 2021. We are looking at sales from 6 April 2007 because the Financial Ombudsman cannot generally look at complaints about this type of consumer credit before this date. 
   

• If you choose to provide a final response to a DCA complainant, or make an offer of redress during the pause, you must comply with the usual requirements in DISP. This includes the complaint resolution rules in DISP 1.4 that cover investigating, assessing and resolving complaints, and co-operating with the Financial Ombudsman.

• Some consumers may have complained before 17 November 2023. If you didn’t send a customer a final response by 11 January 2024, but you sent them a written holding response informing them that they may now refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, these complaints won’t be captured by our rules.
• A written holding response doesn’t start the time a complainant has to refer a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman for the purposes of DISP 2.8.2R(1). We’ve said that consumers who wish to wait and give you more time to provide them with a final response before referring their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman can do so (see 2.29 of PS24/1 (PDF)).
• If the 8 weeks expired before the pause started and the complaint is referred to the Financial Ombudsman, you should cooperate with the Financial Ombudsman in the usual way, as required by DISP.

• The Financial Ombudsman will continue to investigate and determine complaints that have been correctly referred to it based on what it considers to be fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the complaint. If you receive a request from the Financial Ombudsman, you should cooperate with it in the usual way, as required by DISP.
• If you receive a final decision from the Financial Ombudsman that's accepted by the consumer, we expect you to pay any award by the date given in the decision.

• If a complaint is about a regulated credit agreement for motor finance but a broker wasn’t acting under a DCA, then it won’t fall within the pause introduced on 11 January 2024. The usual DISP rules will apply to these complaints.
• Similarly, the usual DISP rules will also apply to complaints about regulated credit agreements for other types of finance, even if DCAs were involved. For example, regulated finance agreements for towed caravans.
• The Financial Ombudsman will continue to investigate and determine complaints not covered by the pause based on what it considers to be fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the complaint. Firms should cooperate with the Financial Ombudsman in the usual way, as required by DISP.

• On 12 April 2024, we wrote to motor finance lenders and brokers reminding them of the need to maintain adequate financial resources at all times. This includes to cover any additional operational costs from increased complaints and, where applicable, to meet the costs of resolving those complaints.
• In June 2020, we published our framework document (FG20/1) on the role of financial resources in minimising harms, and practices firms can adopt when assessing adequate financial resources. This should prove helpful in your ongoing assessment of whether your firm is maintaining adequate financial resources.

• The changes we’ve made don't change our expectations of firms in relation to the Consumer Duty.
• You should be critically assessing your firm's customer service performance and anticipating increased customer contact. We expect you to be operationally prepared and properly resourcing your customer facing functions to meet increased demand.

We’re carrying out enhanced monitoring of firms at the gateway to prevent firms and individuals from attempting to avoid potential redress liabilities or otherwise facilitate phoenixing.

We will do so by:

• carefully scrutinising the rationale for new firm or individual applications, changes in control or cancellations in this market
• ensuring the applicant has adequately considered, investigated these matters and calculated any potential redress liabilities
• establishing that applicants have provided a reasonable way to pay any potential redress that the firm anticipates may be owed in the future
• checking applicants have paid any unsettled or unexpired liabilities
• requesting verifiable evidence that the applicant has discharged, satisfied, or resolved all complaints, where we receive a request to cancel
• checking the applicant has taken all reasonable steps to mitigate the risk of an adverse effect of cancellation on customers

Where, in our view, firms have taken inadequate steps to address these issues, we may ask firms to take further action. Examples of such action may include obtaining professional indemnity insurance to cover potential future claims, conducting a customer contact exercise, seeking assurance from third parties involved in business transfer scenarios, and reviewing high risk business and paying of redress where necessary.

Firms sometimes enter into deed polls when they are confident in the quality of the service they previously provided. Under a deed poll the applicant agrees to take responsibility for past services into the new firm.

Applicants that do not act appropriately will be subject to significant additional scrutiny, with the potential for their application to be refused.