Divorce Loans - FOS have found "unfair business practises" and pressure selling by solicitors....

BrokeyMcBrokeface

Two recent FOS decisions have found "mis-selling", "unfair business practises", failure to check affordability, in excoriating decisions which look a lot like those made against payday lenders.  It is not enough to say "a solicitor would never..." because clearly these solicitors DID.... Nor is it enough to say the solicitors were regulated by the SRA so they were all above board, because multiple SRA regulated solicitors are closed down year after year.  But it is true to say that every solicitor's client SHOULD be able to "trust them to the ends of the earth". Pressure selling high interest loans and charging fees for doing so is not in client best interests.

Check the Financial Ombudsman Service Website if you are worried about one of these loans, and get a complaint into the LOS and the FOS.  They weren't just being sold for divorce, but also for other legal services.

[Deleted User]

Why not post the case details or a link without the https:// so it can go through the newby filter?

I have looked through decisions from the last year that were upheld and mention divorce and only 1 included both of those (DRN5132754) which was upheld in a large part due to fraud from the law firm but yes also, in part, affordability. This isn't anything like payday loans

BrokeyMcBrokeface

Since the FOS decisions, and the decision related to my complaint is now up on the FOS website, it does not relate to fraud by the solicitors, who were so called 'magic circle' firms and very well known in family law, it relates to the fact that the loans were UNFAIR AND UNAFFORDABLE - these loans were only available via family lawyers, so YES, family lawyers were, for close to a decade, referring vulnerable clients to loans which were, on their face, in breach of the CCA 1974 and were unfair and unaffordable.   A number of other FOS investigations into Novitas loans, by the were halted because Novitas rushed to refund the client, and stop the investigation, in one case they refunded £150k to the client, this was for all interest and charges on the unfair and unaffordable loan, and the entire sum of a 'living expenses loan' - these 'living expenses loans' have never been investigated, but it is questionable why family lawyers were encouraging their clients to take 'living expenses loans' at 18-33% interest with Novitas, the funds being paid not to the client, but the the solicitors client account, and then divied out, on the whim of the family lawyer, to the client...  

I have also got a number of upheld complaints against the law firm, following a lengthy investigation by the Legal Ombudsman.  As lawyers will be aware,  but consumers less so, Legal Ombudsman Decisions are NOT published except for in very short form, so the only information on the LEO website about the firm's conduct in this respect is the name of the firm, the amount they were ordered to pay (including refund of fees, and compensation) and a brief description stating that the award related to poor advice, poor costs advice and poor service....

This very brief description of the firm's conduct will be deleted from the LEO site 12 months after it is first posted,  so other victims will not be able to see that there have been substantial findings against the firm, by the LEO, after that period.   The sum awarded was one of the highest ever to be awarded by the LEO, but it in no way compensates me for the distress, and harm that continues to this day as a consequence of the unfair and unaffordable litigation funding agreement - nor does it refund the £575 payment they received from Novitas for getting me to sign that contract.