Difficulty repaying bank error in my favour

Gravelrash_2

JuicyJesus wrote: »

The FOS case studies are not precedent and shouldn't be treated as such, they take every case on its merits. What you want is their technical guidance on complaints regarding misapplied credits http://www.financialombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/wrong-account-payments.htm

Thank you! That is brilliant.

I still think the case studies provide a useful way of seeing how the FOS apply their own guidlines to real world scenarios, but that article really does contain all the information anyone might need.

To summarise the contents of the technical guidance as it applies to the recipient of a bank error in their favour:

The general legal position is that someone who is given money by mistake should say what has happened and pay it back.

Where there is no reason why the consumer should not be asked to pay back the money, the FOS expects the financial business to allow them to do so in a way that does not cause them financial hardship.

The consumer may sometimes not have noticed that they had received money by mistake – perhaps because the amount did not stand out from other transactions in their account - and so the consumer may have spent some or all of the money.
The decision the FOS make in these situations is intended to provide a fair outcome reflecting the individual facts and circumstances. The outcome might include one or more of the following:
1. the consumer must pay the financial business back all the money, but should be allowed to do so by interest-free instalments over time;
2. the consumer should receive compensation for the upset and inconvenience caused to them by the financial business’s mistake;
3. the consumer is not required to pay the financial business back some of the money;
4. the consumer is not required to pay the financial business back any of the money.