Possible negligence from my mortgage broker

RyanWills94

payless said:

Thanks for the update. I assume Openwork has declined the claim . You say it has been passed to the FCA, again I assume by yourself Ryan..  did you not get information that if not happy the compliant needs to go to FOS Financial Ombudsman Service, as the FCA do not consider complaints, they do consider conduct issues but would be surprised if this fell under that category 

Yeah, I passed it over. The broker has said to the complaints handler that he never said what he said... me and my solicitor laughed when we read the response as I have the voice recordings to say otherwise. I really think they’ve damaged their reputation here. The complaint response is quite long but what I have done is, highlighted all their discrepancies and sent it to the FCA with evidence to support each point I’m making. Just to give you a few of many; the broker said I contacted Leeds in the first instance in 2019 to find out if I can staircase to be told there was fees so I only called him for his view and reassurance (no calls were conducted to the lenders and a subject access request and call logs prove that) so that’s one lie. The second lie and the main lie, he said he called Leeds on the Friday in 2020 on the back of a conversations that took place in 2020 a year from our original conversation. He said he called to find out if I could purchase the rest with no fees, and then called me back to correct his mistake (my voice recordings and phone audits show that I called the broker on the Monday explaining his error, he was so surprised and his said in his own words “no it’s not right, they’ve given you incorrect information, you won’t be able to purchase the rest as a new application it’s impossible they will treat it as additional borrowing). So he’s lied and said he called off his own back to be sure and acted ethical, phone recordings say otherwise. Me and my solicitor believe that the broker thinks I’m bluffing with the voice recordings. I requested permission off the broker to share these recordings and that’s been granted so the FCA have them... there was many more lies as well that I’ve highlighted and shown evidence. This is principle now, it’s not about compensation I couldn’t care less, I’ve managed to purchase the rest now, it’s now a matter of the broker being caught lying and potentially ruining his own reputation to try and save his back. (He’s also had his FCA license taken off him in 2019 for other things) when I search his name it comes up on the FCA website. 

RyanWills94

I stand corrected I do apologies, I mean the financial ombudsman have now received the complaint, I get confused between the two sometimes 

ACG

Our industry does not have the best of reputations, so its nice to out the people who are dragging it down. 

RyanWills94

Still waiting, look forward to updating you, they must be taking is serious.... can’t imagine it will be too much longer 

RyanWills94

Well, I’m glad to say it’s been upheld! Compensation is yet to be agreed but I received a call from the case handler explaining he will be upholding the complaint and liaising with the business directly and put his report forward. At this point I am over the moon and compensation is a bonus. All I wanted was to prove that the business were incorrect and I wanted to prove their response was full of lies, at the beginning I was concerned about compensation but I’ve since purchased the rest of the property so it don’t really matter, it’s the principle now and I am glad I was right to take it to the FOS to prove the mortgage advisor miss informed me and then continued to lie! Very happy to say the least, shame on the broker lying when I had all the evidence including phones calls, silly man aye! Just thought I’d update you lot and that’s it really, done and dusted! 

ACG

Nice one for following it through. 
Our industry does not have the best of reputations (although I think it is improving), its frustrating when people do things to pull it back down. 

K_S

@RyanWills94 Pleased for you that your complaint had a positive oucome and well done for seeing it through. As a part of it for many years, I am proud of what the mortgage intermediary market does to support borrowers and I'm truly sorry that you had the experience that you did. Hopefully, that does not out you off using brokers forever.

Slightly tangentially, the whole saga is good illustration of the wide definition of what can be construed as advice. Often when communicating with forumites on threads and sometimes in PMs, I can sense their frustration that I don't simply name a couple of lenders that may lend to them and my overuse of fuzzy words like may, consider, potentially, etc. when discussing particulars in their question. Understandably, they don't always appreciate how careful (as an identified mortgage broker) we have to be to ensure that we aren't giving advice, even in settings such as these.

RyanWills94

ACG said:

Nice one for following it through. 
Our industry does not have the best of reputations (although I think it is improving), its frustrating when people do things to pull it back down. 

Thanks, it took a while but I got the outcome I wanted. The reason why I followed it through is because there was no need to lie, if my broker just took it on the chin and acknowledged he was wrong and apologised there would have been no need for me to take it any further. 

RyanWills94

K_S said:

@RyanWills94 Pleased for you that your complaint had a positive oucome and well done for seeing it through. As a part of it for many years, I am proud of what the mortgage intermediary market does to support borrowers and I'm truly sorry that you had the experience that you did. Hopefully, that does not out you off using brokers forever.

Slightly tangentially, the whole saga is good illustration of the wide definition of what can be construed as advice. Often when communicating with forumites on threads and sometimes in PMs, I can sense their frustration that I don't simply name a couple of lenders that may lend to them and my overuse of fuzzy words like may, consider, potentially, etc. when discussing particulars in their question. Understandably, they don't always appreciate how careful (as an identified mortgage broker) we have to be to ensure that we aren't giving advice, even in settings such as these.

It won’t put me off, I’ve got a new broker and I’m happy with everything she had done during our remortgage. Just glad to put this to bed at last, not sure why the broker would take the risk and lie but at least it’s over with now

getmore4less

K_S said:

@RyanWills94 Pleased for you that your complaint had a positive oucome and well done for seeing it through. As a part of it for many years, I am proud of what the mortgage intermediary market does to support borrowers and I'm truly sorry that you had the experience that you did. Hopefully, that does not out you off using brokers forever.

Slightly tangentially, the whole saga is good illustration of the wide definition of what can be construed as advice. Often when communicating with forumites on threads and sometimes in PMs, I can sense their frustration that I don't simply name a couple of lenders that may lend to them and my overuse of fuzzy words like may, consider, potentially, etc. when discussing particulars in their question. Understandably, they don't always appreciate how careful (as an identified mortgage broker) we have to be to ensure that we aren't giving advice, even in settings such as these.

It's a difficult position to be in once you out yourself.
Avoid advice and soliciting.

Also a shame that some parts of the industry are becoming more secretive and a lot less transparent especially with retentions.