irresponsible lending - Mental health

drayfus

Hi,
Bit of advice pls, my wife suffers from bipolar depression, during a particularly bad episode before she was diagnosed properly she walked into Halifax and got a 4.5K loan, 3 months later she went into Halifax again, got a 5.5K loan, during the time she was earning approx 10K a year, we were only banking with Halifax, so they could have checked and seen she was receiving sick pay, and that she was having difficulty making the payments on the first loan, she wasn't asked to provide her last 3 months payslips nor was she asked about the 1st loan at the time of applying for the second loan, both loans where completed and paid into her account within an hour of walking into the branch,
since then we remortgaged and borrowed more to clear the loans, this was 2001/2002,
do you think it s worth complaining and how should I word it? I remember how Ill my wife was at this time pre medication and cant believe anyone would have lent her money let alone 10K. any advice welcomed pls

oldhand

Others more knowledgeable than I will be along soon to help but I suspect upon trying to claim irresponsible lending the first question will be why did you not just hand the money straight back and prevent any problems?

Thrugelmir

drayfus wrote: »

this was 2001/2002,

Think you've left it rather late to start complaining.

YorkshireBoy

What was the purpose of the initial £4.5K loan?


What was the purpose of the second £5.5K loan?


Did you benefit from either? Did you even know at the time?...or has it only just come to light?

drayfus

hi,
there was no purpose, it was delusional behavior, I was not aware until after most of the second loan was spent, I got a loan to make the payments and keep us afloat and then remortgaged a bit later and cleared the loans, agreed its a bit late but I have nothing to lose by asking, no i did not benefit from either, if you haven't had any experience with mental illness in general or bipolar specifically its hard to explain, but following the low point most people associate with depression come a high that gives you massive confidence and every idea you have is the best idea ever, stephen frys documenty is pretty much spot on, as far as i know most of it was spend of random stuff, none of which she needed or in fact wanted,

jonesMUFCforever

Let's be honest here, any claim is futile and will fail.
The time to complain was when you had to remortgage not now.
By repaying the loans you are deemed to have accepted the situation.

dealer_wins

Assuming the person at the bank granting the loan wasnt a doctor, how could the bank know that the applicant suffers from depression?

Armorica

Banks aren't doctors. The statute of limitations is well passed. You arguably might have had a stronger case for the second loan than the first.

I'm not sure the bank could have seen she was received sick pay - they'll see the net payment to the account. Not the label or breakdown attached.

Morglin

I would imagine it's too late to complain, but a bank does see that it's a DWP payment, as they are headed as such.

However, in 2001-2002, banks were throwing loans at everyone that asked for one, regardless of ability to pay it back, which is partly how everything got into such a mess, globally.

Lin

magpiecottage

If you go here, you can look up Ombudsman decisions.

If you type in the word Rosemount into the search criteria, you will find that a decision was made on a case in June 2014 where it was argued that the adviser ought to have known that the consumer lacked capacity.

The Ombudsman summed up the stance he took:

"I must consider whether she in fact lacked capacity to make that
decision, and if so, whether that would have been apparent to Rosemount’s adviser. And on the evidence presented to me, I’m not persuaded of either of those things."

There are three points that strike me about the case in this thread that seem similar.

The first is that the OPs wife has bipolar disorder. My understanding of this condition is that the sufferer can fluctuate from one extreme to another. Whilst they might come across as irrational one one occasion, on another they might be quite lucid and give no indication of any problem. So the OP would need to persuade the Ombudsman that it is more likely than not that his wife presented herself to the bank in the former state.

This is likely to prove difficult.

The second point is that the complainant claimed that the borrower's supposed purpose for the loan was a fantasy. The Ombudsman took the view that the stated purposes were not ones which the adviser would have thought to be fantastic.

The third is that the condition had not been diagnosed and that it was therefore unreasonable to suppose that the adviser would have been alerted to the fact that she lacked capacity in those circumstances.

So I think a complaint of this nature is unlikely to be upheld.

battyboimatt

Sadly it is out of time limit for the Ombudsman to intervene

six years from the event the consumer is complaining about (or - if later - three years from when the consumer knew, or could reasonably have known, they had cause to complain).