Do you have a complaint?

At The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation plc (AMC), our aim is to provide you with the highest level of customer service.

If you do experience a problem, we will always seek to resolve it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Approach your usual point of contact

The first step is for you to approach your usual point of contact. If you are uncertain who this is, then please telephone 02077 143660 and we will be able to put your call through to an appropriate person.

Please provide us with the following information when you contact us:

your name and address
full details of your complaint
your mortgage identification number
photocopies of any paperwork supporting your complaint (please keep your original copies).

We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days and keep in contact until all enquiries are completed.

We would always aim to resolve your complaint at this stage. However, if you are not satisfied with the response you receive, your complaint will be referred to an appropriate manager or department for further investigation.

Eligibility for the Financial Ombudsman Service

AMC customers may have the right to take their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), free of charge. The Financial Ombudsman Service is a service set up by Parliament to resolve complaints between financial businesses and their customers. They can consider complaints from individuals, certain small businesses and charities. If you have a complaint and we haven’t issued our response within eight weeks from the date you first raised your complaint, or if you’re dissatisfied with our response, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service for an independent review. The Financial Ombudsman Service will only consider your complaint once you’ve tried to resolve it with us, so please take up your concerns with us first and we’ll do all we can to help.

If the events which gave rise to your complaint occurred prior to 1 April 2014 (before which date AMC’s lending agreements were exempt from the Consumer Credit Act and AMC was not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) or after 31 March 2016, when AMC ceased to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, AMC does not consider it likely that the FOS will be able to consider these matters, but this is a matter for the FOS to decide.

If you do decide to refer your complaint to the FOS you must do so within six months of receiving AMC’s final response letter. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the FOS will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if the FOS believes that the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.

In order to refer a complaint to the FOS you must meet the eligibility criteria. The FOS may consider complaints from:

a private individual
a micro-enterprise which has a group annual turnover and/or balance sheet of up to €2 million (sterling equivalent) and fewer than 10 staff
a small business which has a group annual turnover of up to £6.5 million and fewer than 50 staff or a balance sheet of less than £5 million
a guarantor that has provided a guarantee or security in respect of an obligation of a micro-enterprise or small business
a charity which has an annual income of less than £6.5 million
a trustee of a trust which has a net asset value of less than £5 million.

For further information

Visit the Financial Ombudsman Service website at: financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
Telephone: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123 – calls to this number are charged at the same rate as 01 or 02 numbers on mobile phone tariffs. These numbers may not be available from outside the UK – so please call us from abroad on +44 20 7964 0500
Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Write to: Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR.

Raising a complaint with us will not affect any rights you may have to pursue the issues through formal (legal) proceedings.

Our promise to you

Our aim is to offer excellent service, but sometimes things can go wrong. If you need to complain, we promise:

to do our best to put things right as soon as we can
to give you the contact details of the person or team dealing with your complaint
to give your complaint our full attention and commit to resolving the issue for you no matter how you choose to tell us about it, whether it’s by phone, online or in writing.

If you have a complaint, we’d like to talk to you about it as soon as possible. The majority of complaints are resolved there and then.

How we’ll handle your complaint

We will do all we can to resolve your complaint on the same day
When this is not going to be the case, we will provide an acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days unless other arrangements are agreed with you in advance.
After that, we will regularly update you on progress as advised in our acknowledgement until we have completed our investigations and issued our final response.
Our final response will address all of your concerns, and confirm whether the complaint is being upheld or rejected.