Mortgage Problem

Colaboots

Hi

Coming to the end of our endowment mortgage next year (or so we thought) but have just found out that policy is only for half the value of our mortgage. Took out new mortgage with Abbey National in 1997 to finish in 2015 but Santander are now saying that as we listed details of our existing policy on our application form their policy was sold as a top up to this. I can state that this was never made clear to us - as far as we were concerned it was a brand new mortgage and nothing to do with the original one. Have never previously been aware of term top-up. Took case to Ombudsman who has decided in favour of Santander as the mortgage was taken out so long ago there is no proof of what we were told - they have a copy of our application and as this gives details of the policy that was in place when we made our application they have decided to favour Santander. After paying approx £600 each month for a number of years we can't believe that we will still owe approx £30,000. Any suggestions as to what
other action we can take?
Ann and Jim

Thrugelmir

What happened to the original endowment policy?

TrickyDicky101

What is your query/complaint? Is it that you thought this additional borrowing was on a repayment rather than interest only basis?

You could take the case to court but be aware that given the Ombudsman has already found against you, it won't be easy to persuade the court you are due any redress.

pjread

Thrugelmir is asking the right question here, what happened to the "old" endowment policy, isn't that also coming up for maturity to cover the 'other half'?

Colaboots

In reply - we got rid of our original endowment policy because we were not aware and were not told that it was needed in conjunction with our new mortgage. New mortgage was with a different lender. We knew that we taking out an endowment mortgage (as we were advised to) but our issue is that we were sold an inadequate endowment policy to cover our mortgage.


A and J

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Did the annual update/forecast not mention the figures involved ?


Presumably the current lender has also written to you over at least the last couple of years advising you that it is your responsibility to check that a repayment vehicle plan is in place and on target ?

TBagpuss

Presumably since 1997 you have been getting annual statements for the endowment which showed it's value and estimated maturity value, and annual mortgage statements showing what you owed, and, certainly over the past 7 or 8 yeas if not earlier, reminding you hat it is your responsibility to ensure you have an adequate payment vehicle in place.

Even if there is no longer a record of who said what when you took out the mortgage, it seems strange that you at no time in the intervening 17 years did you check any of your paperwork to make sure you were still on track.

You accept that the mortgage application documents showed the policy you already had, so even if the term top-up wasn't used, it would appear that at that time, you still has the policy and it was part of the mortgage application process - why wouldn't be taken into account? What would be the point of it being shown on the paperwork if it wasn't part of the repayment plan?

Bearing in mind that you have already had your a answer from the Ombudsman, I would suggest that you focus on working out how to pay the shortfall, rather than anything else.

Do you know whether your remaining policy is on track to pay out the amount you originally expected? Are you sure that the shortfall is only £30,000.

Colaboots

In response - we did not receive a lot of correspondence from our lender until about a year ago when we were asked how we were going to repay the shortfall. It was when we looked into this that we discovered the endowment policy was for only half the value of the mortgage.


We naively did not believe that we should continually be checking on our mortgage - as far as we aware we were making our monthly repayments and this was enough.


We know that there is no option but to pay the outstanding amount but just wondered if anyone else had a similar experience.

Thrugelmir

Colaboots wrote: »

We know that there is no option but to pay the outstanding amount but just wondered if anyone else had a similar experience.

With all due respect it's a self inflicted situation. As the annual endowment policy statement is very clear as to it's maturity value.

The Abbey did the right thing at the outset by merely selling you a top up policy. To argue otherwise doesn't hold water.

Foxy-Stoat_3

You have option[STRIKE]s[/STRIKE], sell the property and downsize.

NEXT !

amnblog

If you have already been to the Ombudsman and both they and Santander believe there is no case to answer - that is the end of that road.


Therefore you find yourself with more debt that you expected. You need to plan for this scenario and get some advice sooner rather than later.


It appears you will need to take another mortgage arrangement for a further period, when, or before, the current one ends, and that will need to be on a repayment basis.