The TMB, Challenor Investments and a Mis-sold Mortgage

Wutang_2

just been on the phone to the 'Fraud Squad' - apparently they are after a Cash Pig born in 74 - thats all the info they have,

Foul mouth apparently and skint.

Dan_1976

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

windym_2

Cashpig74 wrote: »

At the end of the day, ........... and no one else need worry about it. Cashpig.

I think you can safely assume this to be the case.

silvercar

I have documments that fill and entire black sack realting to this from all sources, and Im pretty certain that I wont end up in jail or have my flat charged on my other negative property. The worst outcome would be that the FOS can find nothing wrong with the mortgage or the banks administration of it. I will have a flat that I will have to sit on.

No, the worst outcome is that the FOS don't find in your favour, the mortgage company find out from the investigation that the price on application was inflated and call in some or all of the loan.

do you have legal insurance? It is often an extra on your home insurance. If you do it could do no harm to take independent legal advice.

AverageJoe_4

Hi guys, Ive been reading a few posts here cos I'm always interested in the slightly controversial !! Sorry !!

But here you are saying about the mortgage company finding out it was over inflated prices on the price application etc....

I think the OP said that the mortgage provider valued it in the first place and out of the two, surveys they decided to take the higher one.... and the provider would have sent the surveyor to the site and discussed things with the vendor as it was a site (plot) at the time and therefore he would have been aware of the marketed price.

The OP here said the the provider lent the money against the valuers opinion on a survey so I dont get how this could come back to haunt the OP. He's not the one setting the price, valuing the plot or sanctioning the lending. It would have been all the mortgage company's decision making.

HelpWhereIcan

Nice to see that Cashpig appears to have calmed down somewhat and has started making more considered posts ... in lower case of all things!!!

I actually find myself having more sympathy with him just because he (in his last couple of posts on this thread) now almost comes across as a reasonable person.

OK, now to try and answer his points in a way he may find more acceptable

Cashpig74 wrote: »

1 - I am not claiming that the bank has been fraudulent against me. I am complaining that they have been neglagent (I have sought legal advice and this is the gerenal stance)

If you are claiming this because they allowed you to borrow £150,000 by remortgaging you out of a closed bridge on day 1 then I suspect that you will not be successful.

This is because the use of bridging finance to provide the full below market value purchase price on completion with a remortgage based on the market value being used to repay the closed bridge is not fraudulent or illegal and it is up to the lender whether they accept this type of arrangement or not.

There is the possibility that the broker and solicitor (and possibly valuer) lied to TMB about the way the purchase was structured but, as people have tried to tell you, that would mean that TMB were defrauded not negligent.

Cashpig74 wrote: »

2 - The bank is NOT part of the fraud investigation.

TMB are likely to be one of a number of lenders who will be handing their files on this company to the police. Do not underestimate their desire to uncover whether or not the borrowers were part of the fraud. That is the reason people are cautioning you about the way you talk about this and what you admit to knwoing or not knowing.

Cashpig74 wrote: »

3 - If the mortgage was sanctioned via a neglagence, I will look to have y losses redressed.

This is very unlikely. I know exactly what you will say about there being more than one valuation but again that is common and something that borrowers often insisted on when the surveyor valued a property at less than they were expecting.

Just as many lenders now do audit valuations to ensure there is less over-valuing going on, they also allow ‘second opinions’ if people are not happy with the first valuation.

The use of a second valuation does not make them negligent as it is common practice and would normally have only been at the insistence of the borrower via their broker. Lenders’ staff very rarely instruct a second valuation off their own bat.

Cashpig74 wrote: »

4 - I have NOT played a fraudulent part in obtaining a mortgage. I filled in paperwork honestly and correctly and was guided by the professional at the time, as you would expect - I do not buy houses everday or work in the finance industry. I am joe average woth regards to this.

OK. Let’s assume that you nothing of what was going on (and I’m more willing to accept this than you may think). You have to admit that it was naive in the extreme to take everything you were being told on face value. The insistence that you use their own connections only was sign enough, but the figures should have prompted you to take more care and do your own research – as you have advised other people to do, you have to protect yourself in any transaction.

Cashpig74 wrote: »

5 - If there is any wrong-doing on the paperwork, then it has been tampered with after I signed it. This does not make me a guilty of fraud.
Fraud = to intentionally decieve with the sole purpose of obtaining money.

Quite possibly, but there would have been many occasions that would have given you the opportunity to spot what was going on such as signing the documents I mentioned (not least the stamp duty return) and that would make you unusual in not bothering to look at any of the documents and contracts involved such as your sale agreement, mortgage offer, stamp duty return, mortgage application etc etc.

You have to be prepared to be able to answer these points satisfactorily and in a calm and rational way. You have to be prepared to accept that people will have questions about your part in this - most people who did the same as you would have known exactly what was going on. Swearing and screaming at a judge will not help them see your point any more than it made members of this forum do so.

AverageJoe wrote: »

I think the OP said that the mortgage provider valued it in the first place and out of the two, surveys they decided to take the higher one.... and the provider would have sent the surveyor to the site and discussed things with the vendor as it was a site (plot) at the time and therefore he would have been aware of the marketed price.

As I explained above, having more than one valuation is not that unusual. Valuing is a matter of opinion not an exact science and new build/investment properties were often the subject of differences of opinion even in a good market.

Lenders would be inundated with complaints if they only took the first valuation and accepted no appeals – you only have to do a quick search of this forum to see how many people have been unhappy with a surveyor’s opinion and want to know how to appeal it. Using a second valuation is how it is appealed.

The lender would have relied on the surveyors both being regulated by RICS and being professional and honest.

But you are right, it would be unusual for the surveyor to be unaware of the marketing price and mortgage applications ask for the details of any discount or incentive being offered so the lender can directly ask the surveyor for their opinion of them and the affect it has on the substance of the deal.

If they are not fully disclosed it is fraud or negligence but a fraud or negligence that is perpetrated against the lender by any 3 of the broker, solicitor, surveyor and customer.

Normally they act as a check against eachother to uncover any irregularities. For the lender not to find out normally takes collusion on the part of the professionals involved (broker, surveyor, solicitor) and is normally for the financial benefit of and at the behest of the borrower, developer (OR BOTH).

AverageJoe wrote: »

The OP here said the the provider lent the money against the valuers opinion on a survey so I dont get how this could come back to haunt the OP. He's not the one setting the price, valuing the plot or sanctioning the lending. It would have been all the mortgage company's decision making.

The mortgage company would never have knowingly loaned 100% of the property’s true market value. To do so would require the participation of the underwriter who sanctioned it and that would be fraud on the part of one employee (defrauding their employer) and not institutional negligence on the part of TMB.

Cashpig’s best course of action would be to pursue Challenor, the broker, surveyor, solicitor etc for their part in it in order to recoup his losses but he appears to prefer to believe that he will get money from the lender.

AverageJoe_4

As far as I can make out, he said that he wasn't aware there was a lower valuation first made - the OP didnt instruct a 2nd valuation, its seemed that the bank did.

It is not beyond possibility that a bank wants to secure buesiness but the vauation comes in low (by low I mean lower than what they want it to be) and ignores it in favour of a "better" one that fits.

He mentioned that another valuation was done on it 6 months later and it matched the original first undisclosed low one. So its valued lower, ignored, a higher one fits the bill, the mortgage is given, it's valued again and it drops back down to where it started. If this was a few years ago like he said, then it was still a rising market..(ish)..

I think the OP has a major point to be fair. This is not goos practise and he said something about the bridging facility paperwork being asked to sign 6 months after the event??? and sent back undated.??

Good luck cahspig.. I think you got mugged.

I bought my first place and had no idea what or how but when you talk to solicitors and estate agents and banks and brokers etc... you expect them to tell you what the case is and act in your best interests. You dont know or think that they could be defrauding you - being told that the investment company arranges everything for you is not an alert sign unless you are in the business of buying and selling property.. Its like a package holiday deal, pay upfront and everything is taken care, insurance, flights, food accomm etc... if it goes wrong, you feel stupid but its not fair to say that you should have seen it coming at the time.

HelpWhereIcan

AverageJoe wrote: »

As far as I can make out, he said that he wasn't aware there was a lower valuation first made - the OP didnt instruct a 2nd valuation, its seemed that the bank did.

But the bank would have done so believing that the broker was asking for it to be done on their client's behalf, at the insistence and request of the customer.

AverageJoe wrote: »

It is not beyond possibility that a bank wants to secure buesiness but the vauation comes in low (by low I mean lower than what they want it to be) and ignores it in favour of a "better" one that fits.

Sorry, but unless a rogue employee was involved it is. I have never known this to happen in 15 years and I have dealt with TMB. I have known lenders instruct a physical valuation after a desk top one came in low but that is to get 'eyes on' it and have a human do the valuation rather than a computer.

Now if there was a packager involved who really wanted to secure the business it would make more sense.

Whatever way, TMB have been defrauded not negligent.

AverageJoe wrote: »

He mentioned that another valuation was done on it 6 months later and it matched the original first undisclosed low one. So its valued lower, ignored, a higher one fits the bill, the mortgage is given, it's valued again and it drops back down to where it started. If this was a few years ago like he said, then it was still a rising market..(ish)..

Again, that is why [strike]Cashpig[/strike] you should be looking to pursue the broker, developer, surveyor and solicitor not the lender.

Again, the use of a second valuation as an appeal is not unusual or negligent. TMB have been defrauded by the broker etc taking advantage of the appeals that are available to get a ‘friendly’ valuation taken into account.

Again, if a packager was involved ...

AverageJoe wrote: »

I think the OP has a major point to be fair. This is not goos practise and he said something about the bridging facility paperwork being asked to sign 6 months after the event??? and sent back undated.??

Again, sent to him by TMB? No. Sent to him by the broker or solicitor.

TMB do not offer bridging finance and never have done. The bridging finance would have been arranged with a seperate company by the broker and registered by the solicitor. TMB had no part in that (and to quote CGNAO) that is 100% guaranteed.

I don’t doubt that someone has been defrauded but if it is Cashpig he needs to be looking to the people who defrauded him not trying to pin a claim for negligence on the lender who was also defrauded.

AverageJoe wrote: »

I bought my first place and had no idea what or how but when you talk to solicitors and estate agents and banks and brokers etc... you expect them to tell you what the case is and act in your best interests. You dont know or think that they could be defrauding you

Possibly. But you also do your own homework and trust your instincts – especially with an investment. If it seems to be too good to be true ...

AverageJoe wrote: »

- being told that the investment company arranges everything for you is not an alert sign unless you are in the business of buying and selling property.. Its like a package holiday deal, pay upfront and everything is taken care, insurance, flights, food accomm etc... if it goes wrong, you feel stupid but its not fair to say that you should have seen it coming at the time.

a bit more like the travel agent telling you that to get a holiday you have to take their finance and that under no circumstances could you use your card or arrange your own loan.

If you were told that you would know something was up and would want to look into why they were making use of their products compulsory rather than a service they make available to you and what effect that had on the value of the deal as a whole.

AverageJoe_4

Its a grey area I think. It is not cut and dried otherwise the FOS would have said the same thing.

Mr_E_Man_2

Cashpig74 wrote: »

I have documments that fill and entire black sack realting to this from all sources,

Cashpig.

Do you have a paper skip near you where you can dump them?