Lowells default removal

Magicianix · 22 September 2021 at 10:51AM

Morning all,

Apologies if this is the wrong forum.

Last year we received a notice that my partner had defaulted on the final two payments of her loan from Ikea (totalling £80). We’d moved house and she had a load of direct debits for things that she cancelled, but hadn’t realised this was the Ikea one and deleted it in error (no excuse I know). Because we’d moved and she thought it had already been paid off she didn’t notify Ikano of the move, and thus we didn’t get any letters warning of non-payment.

In June last year Lowells got in touch to inform us that they’d taken on the debt from Ikano. They were charging the £80 of debt plus £100 for admin/interest. My partner immediately having realised her mistake paid the £80, but didn’t agree with having to pay £100. Eventually, Lowell got in touch and said:

“my manager has decided to close the account, your default will be removed from your credit file within 10 working days”.

Note the word removed, not marked as satisfied. My partner double checked with them to make sure this meant it would be removed and they said:

“I note the contents of your email and can confirm the default will be shown as “satisfied” on your credit file”.

Now, due to this being in the midst of lockdown one and us having other challenges then, we assumed that both of these meant removed and left it there.

Fast forward a year and a bit and we are looking to move home. HSBC who we are currently with immediately said they couldn’t port our mortgage due to the default. On review of the major credit agencies two are still showing the default as active/unsatisfied, and two as satisfied.

We’ve complained to Lowells, who offered us £50 for mistakenly saying they’d remove it.

Do we have a case here to get this removed, given Lowells offered us that? It’s the only black mark on either of our records, and whilst we can get a mortgage we’d prefer to stick with HSBC to avoid a hefty early repayment charge.

The £50 offer feels like a “please go away and leave us alone” sort of offer, but I want to know if we have a case before fighting this any more. Naturally as a bare minimum we need it marked as satisfied. Has anyone had a case like this before with Lowells or anyone else and successfully got it removed?

Cheers

Ben