What will the Furniture & Home Improvement Ombudsman do?

Upon completing our Application Form and reading our Consumer Guide you will be asked to agree to us contacting the business about your complaint and obtaining information from them. For more information on how we process your personal information, please see our Privacy Policy.

When we receive your Application Form and the business’s response, we will pass your file to one of our Ombudsman who will undertake an initial case review – largely based on the documents and information sent to us by both parties, but we may make other enquiries.

We use an informal process of conciliation and assess all evidence provided by both parties. We will contact you and the business to enable the complaint to be resolved quickly and informally. Initially we may be able to make a decision on the validity of a claim, recommend or uphold an offer which has already been made prior to our involvement or negotiate a settlement.

Where agreement cannot be reached or, in our opinion, there is insufficient evidence to allow for an initial decision, we may then formally adjudicate. All of our decisions and adjudications are binding on the business.

This includes our view on the validity of the complaint and any action that should be taken to resolve it. Any award that we may make in your favour is to compensate you for any loss you may have suffered and which we feel is appropriate in your particular case.