The 8-Week Final Response Letter: Drafting for the Ombudsman, Not Just the Client

Two readers, one letter

DISP 1.6 gives the firm eight weeks to send a final response. The client has to be able to understand it. The adjudicator will treat it as the firm’s case. Letters written only as conversation, or as an apology for the experience of complaining, regularly concede a COBS breach the file does not contain.

DISP 1.4 and DISP 1.6 set what the letter must do: investigate, explain the outcome, and signpost the Ombudsman. PRIN 2A.5 requires the explanation to be intelligible. Neither rule requires the firm to admit a failing in order to sound fair.

What a dual-purpose letter contains

The allegation, stated narrowly

Each head of complaint is written out in the complainant’s own terms, then answered. A letter that blends “the investment fell” with “the advice was unsuitable” and “the platform was slow” into one apology cannot later separate those claims.

The chronology

Dates, documents and what the client was told. The chronology is the defence. Adjectives are not.

The rule, in plain words

The relevant COBS or DISP provision is explained in ordinary language, then applied to those dates. The client can follow it. The adjudicator can see that the firm applied the rule in force at the time, rather than a later standard.

What is not admitted

Sympathy for delay, cost or worry is not a concession that the advice was unsuitable. Where the firm accepts an administrative failing, the letter says so, and it says what that failing was. It does not borrow the complainant’s legal characterisation.

Summary

The final response is the firm’s first and best submission. Drafted for both readers, it explains the outcome in plain English and leaves the adjudicator nothing to reinterpret.