ombudsman mortgage fees

brown1950

magpiecottage wrote: »

Why do you keep giving the usual claptrap about Barclays when the OP's dispute is with somebody else?

At the end of the day these mortgage arrears charges can be challenged
either via the FOS or via the Courts .I have shown to the OP what other
people are doing regarding these charges. It will be up to the OP to decide what further action they wish to take.
What is a fact is that people are taking Mortgage /Banks to court and are winning based on the Mortgage Co/Banks failure to attend court.

magpiecottage

You have no knowledge of the mortgage terms and conditions. It seems that those terms allow the lender to apply charges incurred in recovering arrears - and FOS ruled that £50 a month was reasonable in the first instance.

The lender had no power to charge the OP to take that to FOS because the Financial Markets and Services Act 2000 prohibits it from doing so unless the complaint is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious.

However, if the case goes to court, that provision in the Financial Services and Markets Act does not apply.

We know that the contract has provision for the lender to charge costs incurred in recovering arrears because, if it did not, FOS would have found in the OP's favour, saying that £50 a month was a reasonable figure in the absence of any more significant intervention.

If the OP goes to court and loses, it is possible that the lender could reasonably interpret the cost of representing itself in court as a cost reasonably incurred in recovering the arrears.

The argument would be the stronger for the fact that FOS had already ruled in its favour and, as I have previously pointed out, increases the likelihood of it winning.

So yes the OP can sue the lender if he wishes - but there are significant risks that he should first consider.

brown1950

magpiecottage wrote: »

You have no knowledge of the mortgage terms and conditions. It seems that those terms allow the lender to apply charges incurred in recovering arrears - and FOS ruled that £50 a month was reasonable in the first instance.

The lender had no power to charge the OP to take that to FOS because the Financial Markets and Services Act 2000 prohibits it from doing so unless the complaint is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious.

However, if the case goes to court, that provision in the Financial Services and Markets Act does not apply.

We know that the contract has provision for the lender to charge costs incurred in recovering arrears because, if it did not, FOS would have found in the OP's favour, saying that £50 a month was a reasonable figure in the absence of any more significant intervention.

If the OP goes to court and loses, it is possible that the lender could reasonably interpret the cost of representing itself in court as a cost reasonably incurred in recovering the arrears.

The argument would be the stronger for the fact that FOS had already ruled in its favour and, as I have previously pointed out, increases the likelihood of it winning.

So yes the OP can sue the lender if he wishes - but there are significant risks that he should first consider.

Thanks for your latest opinion. Other people might think otherwise so i think its best we leave the Courts decide if these arrears charges are
in accordance with english law. But i suspect this will not happen as the banks will settle out of court.

Thrugelmir

brown1950 wrote: »

But i suspect this will not happen as the banks will settle out of court.

I suspect that they will happily press ahead with a court case. Then the precedent will be set. Will require very deep pockets to undertake such a case.

brown1950

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I suspect that they will happily press ahead with a court case. Then the precedent will be set. Will require very deep pockets to undertake such a case.

Please can you explain further .
Are you talking about claims under £10,000 in the small claims court ?
If you are then obviously you have no knowledge of how precendents are set.
Remember Banks / Mortgage Companies do not want their mortgage arrear charges to be challenged in a higher court other than the Small Claims Court for fear of a precedent being set.

I still await answers to the following questions raised in my earlier posts:-


Why would Barclays PLC not want to defend their mortgage arrears fees in Court ?

If Barclays PLC think their mortgage arrears charges are acceptable then why do they not put this to be bed and defend them in Court ?

magpiecottage

Why do you keep banging on about Barclays when the OP is not a customer of Barclays?

brown1950

Why are such an argumentative person ?

I refer to Barclays just to show the OP it's possible to take a major Bank
to court on mortgage fee's ! and to show the OP that a major bank might
not show up at court to justify their fee's.

It is up to the OP to decide if he wants to take this further (ie) via the courts.

Thrugelmir

brown1950 wrote: »

Why are such an argumentative person ?

Forums are places to debate and discuss. Little point in holding fixed views that merely reinforce your viewpoint. When they aren't thought through thoroughly.

brown1950

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Forums are places to debate and discuss. Little point in holding fixed views that merely reinforce your viewpoint. When they aren't thought through thoroughly.

And what your opinion on mortgage arrears charges ?

magpiecottage

brown1950 wrote: »

And what your opinion on mortgage arrears charges ?

The fact is that if a borrower does not meet their mortgage payments when they promised to, there is a cost to that which must be met either by the borrower or the lender. If it is the latter, then those costs must be passed on to other customers.

So there is a conflict of interest - the borrower on one side and the lender's other customers on the other.

The lender has a statutory obligation to manage that conflict of interest fairly. If the bank is saying that the cost of managing the delinquent account should fall on that account holder, rather than those who are managing their accouts properly, that seems entirely correct.

Clearly, if the bank decides to add extra charges to make an additional profit for itself, that would be wrong. However, in this instance, FOS has looked at the charges and determined that the charges are a fair reflection of the cost.

This WILL be more than simply the cost of printing a letter and postage. There is a great deal of infrastructure behind anything in financial services, because of the compliance cost.

And whilst you are entitled to your opinion, if the OP does take his lender to court, I think it will be considerably less likely to be swayed by it than by that of the Financial Ombudsman Service.