Mis-sold mortgage claims

febmumof2

Hi Everyone

This is my first time posting, I've read lots of posts but never done one myself.

I had a phone call from a company saying that because I have taken out a mortgage via a mortgage broker/adviser I may be eligible to claim for the mis-selling of this mortgage because we were advised to self-certify and also take an interest only mortgage.

We have changed our mortgage (in our current home) twice in 10 years via the same broker. We were originally with Northern Rock and then switched to Santander who we are now with on an interest only & self certified mortgage.

The company that called said that the mortgage broker may have advised us to take out a mortgage that would pay him the most commission and not necessarily the one that was best for us. Plus he may have advised us to add any broker arrangement fees onto the mortgage. I've not been in the loft to drag our mortgage agreement out but I doubt very much that at the time of taking out the mortgage we would have been able to afford to pay the broker fee directly out of our own pocket.

Obviously I don't want to claim through this company (or any other for that matter) as I don't want to have to pay them 25% + VAT of the total value they may be able to claim.

When I made a claim for PPI I used a template from MSE website......and thank you very much, we were successful and won our claim just in time for a VERY Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

Has anyone else had an experience in claiming mis-sold mortgages etc. Is there a claim template on MSE or anywhere that you have found useful.

Thanks for reading my first post!! And for any advice/comments you might have.

Donna

magpiecottage

Simply having an interest-only mortgage does not amount to misselling. If you were not warned about the need to have a repayment vehicle in place that might amount to cause for complaint.

However, each year, your mortgage lender will have provided a statement including a warning using a standard paragraph specified by the lender. This means that if it is more than six years since the mortgage was taken out the adviser will almost certainly be entitled to timebar such a complaint.

A self certification mortgage MAY have been more expensive than a status loan. However, at one time, many lenders were foolish enough to lend on a self certification basis at no extra cost - so there would be no loss to redress.

You also need to consider whether the self-certification was truthful. If your told porkies on the application that could come back to bite you.

Lenders may pay a "procuration fee" - i.e. commission to a broker. That is quite lawful if either no fee is paid to the broker by the borrower or if the existence of the procuration fee (not necessarily the amount) is disclosed to the borrower. In reality, lenders have disclosed the amount paid to brokers in illustrations prior to mortgage offers and in the mortgage offer itself.

It is conceivable that the mortgage was not the cheapest available. However, mortgage products can change not just from day to day but from minute to minute. There may also be other reasons why the lowest headline rate might not be the best product for a particular borrower.

So proving a missale is likely to be difficult to do.

Remember too that if you ever need another mortgage you must now get professional advice. If you alienate your adviser with a complaint they are likely to be disinclined to deal with you again.

Remember, too, that professional advisers do actually talk to one another and may think twice about taking on somebody who is known to make unwarranted complaints.

Brokerwise

magpiecottage wrote: »

Simply having an interest-only mortgage does not amount to misselling. If you were not warned about the need to have a repayment vehicle in place that might amount to cause for complaint.

However, each year, your mortgage lender will have provided a statement including a warning using a standard paragraph specified by the lender. This means that if it is more than six years since the mortgage was taken out the adviser will almost certainly be entitled to timebar such a complaint.

A self certification mortgage MAY have been more expensive than a status loan. However, at one time, many lenders were foolish enough to lend on a self certification basis at no extra cost - so there would be no loss to redress.

You also need to consider whether the self-certification was truthful. If your told porkies on the application that could come back to bite you.

Lenders may pay a "procuration fee" - i.e. commission to a broker. That is quite lawful if either no fee is paid to the broker by the borrower or if the existence of the procuration fee (not necessarily the amount) is disclosed to the borrower. In reality, lenders have disclosed the amount paid to brokers in illustrations prior to mortgage offers and in the mortgage offer itself.

It is conceivable that the mortgage was not the cheapest available. However, mortgage products can change not just from day to day but from minute to minute. There may also be other reasons why the lowest headline rate might not be the best product for a particular borrower.

So proving a missale is likely to be difficult to do.

Remember too that if you ever need another mortgage you must now get professional advice. If you alienate your adviser with a complaint they are likely to be disinclined to deal with you again.

Remember, too, that professional advisers do actually talk to one another and may think twice about taking on somebody who is known to make unwarranted complaints.

This is the new big next thing according to some when the PPI work finally dries up. I have had several along the same lines already but with telephone recording and proof of sourcing, KFI documents etc they have been easy to bat off. I may with the next one I receive bill the client for my time and threaten them with criminal action for trying to commit fraud.

dunstonh

I had a phone call from a company saying that because I have taken out a mortgage via a mortgage broker/adviser I may be eligible to claim for the mis-selling of this mortgage because we were advised to self-certify and also take an interest only mortgage.

There are a few cold calling dodgy companies who go down this route. However, their reasons are often flawed and can also create trouble for you.
1 - there is nothing wrong with interest only. It is meant to be used with a repayment vehicle or other means but some used it by itself to allow them to get on the ladder. That is not wrong in itself as long as there was a plan.
2 - Self cert means you are certifying how much your income is. If you lied about this, then you will face the consequences. This can include the lender deciding to take legal action against you including repossession in the extreme but more likely (if you are upto date on payments) that they will just put you on the fraud register for all lenders to see.

The company that called said that the mortgage broker may have advised us to take out a mortgage that would pay him the most commission and not necessarily the one that was best for us.

If he used Santander and Northern Rock then that is clearly not the case. They were not big commission payers. None of the mainstream lenders were.

Plus he may have advised us to add any broker arrangement fees onto the mortgage.

Nothing wrong with that. Many people do it and its quite normal and allowed.

Has anyone else had an experience in claiming mis-sold mortgages etc. Is there a claim template on MSE or anywhere that you have found useful.

There is no template as there are very few successes. Most of these dodgy cold calling claims companies get you hooked with some reasons that sound plausible but are BS. Then come back to you a few months later saying you have a case but you have to pay £xxx for their solicitors to take it further. That is where they make their money.

Read the following article and the comments from the FOS:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/29/claims-firms-mortgage-mis-selling

addedvaluebob

There is some fairly scary messages putting put out here, repossession, if you told porkies, legal action, fraud register etc. None of this is ever going to happen, bank staff regularly committed frauds of varying degrees and I have never seen any off them go to jail. There are guidelines in place to deal with interest only mortgages in coming years and repossession is the last resort not the first

It is also not allowed to 'bill people for their time' when dealing with complaints that are justified or not

Whilst this sounds like the typical CMC trawling for mug punters before hitting them for an up front fee and disappearing it doesn't mean that mortgages were not mis-sold. We cannot judge unless we know all of an individuals circumstances when the loan was made.

dunstonh

bank staff regularly committed frauds of varying degrees and I have never seen any off them go to jail.

1 - this is nothing to do with a bank
2 - the OP would be admitting they committed mortgage fraud. There is a register used for that.
3 - Bank staff committing fraud will typically lose their job. With a bad reference, they effectively find employment difficult thereafter.

Whilst this sounds like the typical CMC trawling for mug punters before hitting them for an up front fee and disappearing

There are a number of past posts with people saying they have been cold called and told they were mis-sold and given similar spurious complaint reasons. In each of these where there has been follow up, the person has said the company came back to them looking for a fee at a later date to progress the complaint. Not one person has posted any success stories.

febmumof2

Thanks to everyone for your comments/advice. It's really helpful and highlighting:)

shortchanged_2

The biggest potential scandal here is that thousands of people who took out IO mortgages think they were mis-sold IO mortgages.

Whatever happened to self responsibility?

People wanted a house and a mortgage. In many cases houses that were in reality too expensive for them. Interest only made these seem affordable so now people are looking for compo as reality has set in.

If there is ever a raft of compo claims for IO mortgages then this world has gone mad.

Compo claims should be for true mis-selling e.g giving people products that they don't actually want or need. A mortgage doesn't come under this as people want them, it should be up to the individual taking it out to have some understanding of it, after all it is a huge amount of money being borrowed.

febmumof2

shortchanged wrote: »

Whatever happened to self responsibility?

Compo claims should be for true mis-selling e.g giving people products that they don't actually want or need. A mortgage doesn't come under this as people want them, it should be up to the individual taking it out to have some understanding of it, after all it is a huge amount of money being borrowed.

I completely agree with you shortchanged. When we took out the IO mortgage we fully understood that we would have to make provisions ourselves to repay the capital amount (which we are currently repaying). I suppose I was wondering if it may have been possible for a broker to have advised us to take out an IO mortgage at a rate that would earn him better commission and was not necessarily the best rate for us.

Thanks again for the comments

Brokerwise

It is also not allowed to 'bill people for their time' when dealing with complaints that are justified or not

Sorry, should have put it another way. If I can prove the client was deliberately trying to defraud my company, (which I can by the way on the last complaint I mentioned) my firm is well within its rights to take legal proceedings against this client to which I would then receive damages if found in my favour

saver861

Brokerwise wrote: »

It is also not allowed to 'bill people for their time' when dealing with complaints that are justified or not

Sorry, should have put it another way. If I can prove the client was deliberately trying to defraud my company, (which I can by the way on the last complaint I mentioned) my firm is well within its rights to take legal proceedings against this client to which I would then receive damages if found in my favour

You might indeed!

However, if I am a customer, uncertain of my position in the financial arena, I'm not likely to look to acquire the services of a professional that might end up suing me!!!

Perhaps you might wish to rethink your approach to these matters!