We don't take sides
We have published our Ombudsman decisions here. These stories will give you a sense of what happens when a formal decision is needed to resolve a complaint. This collection of decisions will grow over time.
If you want to know more about the types of complaints we see, read more on our statistics page. Or, if you want to know more about how we resolve complaints informally, click here to read our stories that show how we've been able to help people with different kinds of problems and complaints.
Ombudsman decisions
Read cases about buying property.Miss M found the flat of her dreams. The block it was in had limited parking but the Home Information Pack (HIP) said that it had its own designated space. She used a firm of solicitors to deal with the conveyancing for her. The purchase went smoothly but when she moved in Miss M realised that there was no space. Read more...
Read cases about civil litigation.
Mr B tried on numerous occasions to get his builders in to put right a long list of snagging problems with his new-build house. On paper, at least, the design was perfect – everything he and his family had hoped for. In practice, it was turning into a bit of a nightmare, with leaking pipes, doors that didn't close properly and kitchen tiles that just wouldn't stay put. In the end, Mr B gave up chasing the builder and decided to take him to court. Read more...
Read cases about criminal law.
After a raucous night out in a pub, Mr F found himself being arrested and charged with criminal damage and affray. Read more...
Read cases about employment law.
Miss E and a number of her colleagues decided to take their employer to court over a dispute about unequal pay. They chose a local firm of solicitors to represent them, who agreed to work for them 'no win no fee'. The solicitor needed some money as a fighting fund, so Miss E and her colleagues each paid him £50. Read more...
Read cases about family law.
Ms Y was embroiled in an especially contentious and protracted divorce. Her estranged husband was proving very difficult to pin down. Quite apart from being generally uncooperative, he was also going through bankruptcy proceedings, which complicated things no end. So Ms Y's solicitors had their work cut out keeping tabs on what the other side was up to. This wasn't much helped by the firm's rather tardy attention to a number of fairly important deadlines and details – filing the divorce petition on time, for example, and being very slow to keep Ms Y up to date with key developments. Read more...
Read cases about immigration and asylum.
Mr J applied to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) for a right to reside in the UK and used a firm of solicitors to handle the paperwork for him. But something went wrong. Key papers weren't delivered to UKBA on time for some reason, so Mr J's application missed an important deadline. As it turned out, this didn't affect the outcome of his bid to stay in the UK, but it was very worrying for him at the time. Read more...
Read cases about medical law.
Mrs B's plastic surgery didn't work out quite as well as everyone in the family had hoped. Something had clearly gone wrong. She was very upset, to say the least, and her husband was furious. So he mounted a medical negligence claim against the surgeon involved, on her behalf. Read more...
Read cases about personal injury.
Mr T worked an order picker. His job was to drive a special forklift truck along narrow aisles between mountainous stacks of goods. A vast computer system told his truck where to go and exactly what to pick. The only thing to think about was avoiding crashing into things. And staying safe was regularly drummed into employees at the warehouse. But this didn't count for much when Mr T's truck collided with a pile of crates that had toppled into his aisle one morning. Read more...
Read cases about wills and probate.
Mr R was living in Australia at the time of his mother's death in May 2009. Her will named him and other family members as beneficiaries. The will had been drawn up by a firm of solicitors acting for Mrs R senior, with her daughter in the UK - Mr R's sister - signing it as her mother's 'receiver'. But the firm had somehow messed up the instructions they'd given the daughter on how to complete the paperwork. They'd simply got it wrong, and this meant the will turned out to be invalid. So when it came to confirming and sorting out who should get what from the estate, the whole thing got stalled. Read more...