Recourse on poor mortgage advice?

Karlos1544

Hi everyone, i really hope someone can help.

Around 15 years ago my father passed away suddenly and my mother went to her Mortgage lender to pay off the joint mortgage. During that face to face meeting, the bank convinced her to pay only some of the mortgage off and leave a balance, i don't know exactly how they justified that advice.
This resulted in here paying interest (~7%!) on a mortgage balance for a period when she didn't actually need to.
This makes me feel quite ill when i think about it. At the time i was too young to know what was going on, but on the surface it seems like my mum was advised to act in the interest of the bank and not herself, the meeting was a matter of days/weeks after my dad had died.

My question is, could there be any value in attempting to confront the bank about this, either personally or through a claims company? I know its s tricky one but any advice most gratefully received!
Thanks
K

[Deleted User]

That advice was often given, to make future borrowing easier and sometimes for deeds storage. There may have been an ERC she wanted to avoid. Or perhaps she wanted to keep some money back.

What is it you want to confront the bank about precisely? There's no wrong doing from what you've said and she could of course have paid it off at any time (subject to ERCs).

Whatever you do, if you do make a complaint, don't pay a claims company to post it for you. Just buy a stamp from the post office or other outlet

davidmcn

And was 7% necessarily a poor rate at the time? Rates were higher 15 years ago.

Karlos1544

I would confront them about administering poor financial advice and/or mis-selling. I realise that its hard to prove and its a long time ago, that's why i mentioned a claims company. I posted here to see if anyone had any experience of the above scenario.
Thanks for your input zx81

Karlos1544

we were paying market rate at the time, the issue is we shouldn't have been paying anything.

JimmyTheWig

Karlos1544 wrote: »

the bank convinced her to pay only some of the mortgage off and leave a balance, i don't know exactly how they justified that advice.

You need to know how they justified the advice. Only then will you know if it was poor advice or not. If you don't know, does your mum know? Does your mum have paperwork that says?
If not, you could try asking the bank if they still have the paperwork that justifies it.

If no-one knows what the justification was at the time, it will be hard for you to prove that it was poor advice.

JimmyTheWig

How much was left in there, out of interest?
Was it on an interest-only basis, so she paid the interest each month?

Karlos1544

If not, you could try asking the bank if they still have the paperwork that justifies it.

There is some ambiguity around the details of the advice given the timing after my fathers death.

Thanks Jimmy, that sounds sensible, presumably a letter to the bank asking for this information would suffice? Do they know if they have an obligation to produce this information? I suspect not as its over 6 years ago.

davidmcn

Bear in mind it's your mother who needs to pursue this, they're not going to talk to you (unless you have e.g. power of attorney for her).

Karlos1544

she will be persuing it, yes, thank you.
its was interest only and the balance left was roughly 25k, which was left in there for a long time, which is of course indefensible but that's not what i m challenging.

getmore4less

What did she do with the £25k?