Fraudulently remortgaged 23 March 2021 at 5:16AM in Mortgages & endowments 2 replies 391 views

MandieMc

Good morning. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me please? Many years ago The Natwest over valued (by over £400,000) mine and my Husband's home. This then gave my Husband the opportunity to remortgage our home, fraudulently signing my signature at least 4 times!! I found all this out in 2015 and have been trying to get to the bottom of it since then! But The Natwest WON'T take any responsibility and say they didn't do anything wrong!! New Year's Eve just gone, my Husband passed away and now I'm liable for all the debt. Can anyone PLEASE help??? Thank you 

K_S

@mandiemc Sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, this form of mortgage fraud isn't uncommon. I've seen far too many case-studies presented by compliance which showed how easy it is for one half of a couple to take on joint debt related to an ongoing mortgage or a joint property that they own.

My compliance requires that I speak to both applicants at least once and use other appropriate measures to ensure that both applicants are fully aware before putting in a joint application being handled by one half.

Did you complain formally to NatWest or the broker that handled the remortgage? If it was a capital raise (remortgage or further advance) there should have been an advice element to it so that would be the starting point.

MWT

MandieMc said:

But The Natwest WON'T take any responsibility and say they didn't do anything wrong!! New Year's Eve just gone, my Husband passed away and now I'm liable for all the debt. Can anyone PLEASE help??? Thank you 

Sorry to hear that you have found yourself in this position...

It is entirely possible though that NatWest didn't do anything wrong, but as K_S said, you need to unravel the chain of advice and that should take you to the an entity that was either complicit in the fraud or negligent in allowing it to happen.

Signatures should have been witnessed for example, who claimed to have witnessed your signatures?

On the valuation, what is the property currently worth? £400k is a large error on a small property, or a matter of opinion on a very large property...

Can you also say when the mortgage was taken out and the type of mortgage? ...that will have some bearing on the regulations in place at the time and who might have been involved in the fraud...