Ombudsman Services - The Truth Is Worse Than You Imagine. (63)

Dear Reader,

   Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public inquiry

    into the RICS and its appointed company Ombudsman Services:Property.

    A private redress scheme with A Broken Solution: 

To the EU Justice Sub-Committee:

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up (63)

63) Ombudsman Services - The Truth Is Worse Than You Imagine.

Dear Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws,

The transcript of the Foreign Secretary's utterances at a recent Tory lunch reveal that at one point he stated;

"...so not really having full freedom on our trade policy, our tariffs schedules, and not having freedom with our regulatory framework, in the lunar pull of the EU."

He appears to be unaware of the lunar pull of The RICS whose website tells us that they operate throughout Europe and increasingly in Russia.

RICS is planetary. 

Yet their response to the Grenfell Atrocity has been to insist upon, "less prescription."

RICS, we are told, "is the world's leading professional body for qualifications, and standards in land, property infrastructure and construction" and, "Having a regulatory model that holds the profession to our globally recognised standards is vital to inspire confidence among clients and the public."  (www.rics.org/uk/regulation1)

And yet neither their then Global Director of RICS Regulation( and Ombudsman Services Board member) nor its RICS approved CEO and Chief Ombudsman could between them persuade their RICS Members and (Un)Regulated Firms to a) keep and maintain a proper Case File or b) improve the quality of their surveys or valuations.

So when a survey and/or valuation goes badly wrong not having a properly and professionally maintained Case File - or evidence - comes in very handy indeed especially when a RICS surveyor then passes their bewildered client over to their approved Ombudsman to administer an illogical Final Decision on their behalf. After all it's what they pay their fees for. A Final Decision from which there is no return.

This is all the more remarkable if you consider the Director of Regulation at The RICS (and OS Board Member) believed the Government should amend the Estate Agents Act 1979 because,

"Property sales and lettings are too important to be left to those unwilling to demonstrate high professional and ethical standards."

Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, where are high professional and ethical standards kept filed when the Director of Regulation at The RICs cannot enforce a rule that his RICS Members and (Un)Regulated Firms keep and maintain a professional Case File?

Monk and Partners only started keeping a Case File when we had entered their misleadingly named Complaints Handling Procedure. It then became very detailed indeed. We asked both them and their Ombudsman why there was no record of; the dates of visits to our home, who from the Firm came, what was discussed and what was discovered, what agreements were reached.

Both declined to reply.

Gillian Fleming, the then Property Ombudsman, said it wasn't her job to routinely ask her fee-paying Members questions on such matters. Although she declined to answer our questions about this - integrity? professionalism? a duty of care? - she did say not to do so wasn't a refusal.

We were greatly comforted by this. Heaven and its orbiting planets forbid that a Property Ombudsman would refuse to answer a complainant's question.

EU regulators must shaking their heads in disbelief.

Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, how is the consumer being protected when RICS the regulator cannot enforce something a basic as the maintenance of a professional Case File?

Then there is this from someone who once worked for Ombudsman Services:

(Visitor) 2013-06-22 @15:43.39

Hi

I used to work for 'OS.@ The truth is worse than you imagine. For starters 90% of, 'the ombudsman's final decisions' are never actually seen by the ombudsman whose name is on the letter. They're not seen by the ombudsman at all. They are written by the VERY SAME 'investigating officer who wrote the original report. The IO just cuts and pastes the ombudsman's signature on the letter and sends it out. Only 10% of the final decisions are, 'checked' by the ombudsman for, 'quality' purpose. This is a new process OS has introduced. Up until maybe 2011 the ombudsman reviewed all final decisions. This was very time consuming hence massive delays. The regulators - RICS for surveyors, Ofcom for communications, Ofgem for energy basically told OS it had to buck its ideas up. It had a new director of communications. Her idea was basically get the investigators writing final decisions and sending them out unchecked.

The executive team at OServices are all slapping each others' backs as a result of the scheme! They have cut the backlog entirely ((unsurprisingl!) plus the IO salary is about a 3rd of an ombudsman so they are making a tidy saving as well!

Before I left they even had a celebratory meeting to brag about how well they'd done in cutting down the backlog and how the executives had all done an amazing job and RICS/Ofcom/Ofgem were really happy...Doubt they know the truth."

Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, how does ANY of this meet the EU Directive's requirements for the running of ADR schemes and how does it protect the consumer?

 

It seems that the ombudsmen of this Broken Solution - like the Foreign Secretary - are orbiting a different planet. Both apparently unsackable.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

The Ombudsmans61percent campaign is at: www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent.