The fee is charged to the lender or the broker, depending on which party the complaint relates to, in addition to the standard £550 case fee – only after 25 cases have been submitted to FOS relating to the same firm.
A source confirmed to Mortgage Solutions that the not-for-profit organisation “has built up a considerable amount of money” by applying the fee which is intended to mitigate the cost of additional staff and systems required to handle the volume of complaints.
If the broker is an appointed representative of a network the network is responsible for paying the fee.
Sally Laker, managing director of Mortgage Intelligence, said: “If this is indeed the case and the fee is to be scrapped this is good news for us and all the other networks.”
Laker said that it is often the case that PPI complaints are “spurious”.
She added: “A lot of claims are labour intensive which is why a fee is charged but then it ends up resulting in a complaint which is not upheld. It is an expense for brokers and networks so if this does happen it is a good move by the ombudsman.”
Nick Baxter, independent chairman of the Professional Financial Claims Association, said: “Anything which reduces the overall cost of independent third party adjudication has to be welcomed.”
FOS declined to comment on the supplementary case fee ahead of the release of its budget later this week.
