Engage Credit - Mis Sold Mortgage - Mortgage Audit Bureau

brunty248

This mortgage has been passed from pillar to post
I have arrears on the mortgage due to unaffordability and not got any repayment plan at the end of the mortgage. There is a possibility my sons will buy the property if they can get a mortgage
I have around £150.000 equity in the property but the I have never been able to move mortgages due to my affordability never covering the original amount and also my aunt being in retirement with just here oap pension and still named on the mortgage even though I have paperwork from the underwriter saying her income was never taken into account.

dunstonh

Most of these mortgage claims were bogus anyway.    Some of the examples posted here were given made up compensation figures that were greater than the amount of the mortgage or the mortgage payments made to date.      Some of the claims companies admitted that they have not had a single successful case despite signing up thousands of people.    But they didn't need to.  The claims companies were making money just by getting people signed up as they would mug investors in litigation to pay the claims company as an investment to cover costs but then take a cut of the redress when it became payable.  In the meantime, the directors would draw the investors money but string along the mug consumer.  In some cases, the mug consumer was encouraged to pay some fees as well.  And some solicitors were mugged into buying the client data only to find out afterwards that is was all rubbish.

The mortgage audit from the solicitors showed that the mortgage company was around £23,000 overcharged in fee and also the whole mis-spelling claim was worth around £158,000 

These figures were almost certainly bogus though.  They were doing the rounds for many years but no success stories and the firms involved with these types of claims keep shutting down.

I have taken it to the financial ombudsman in 2013, who at first ruled for me, then another ombudsman overruled it, it is now back again with the ombudsman complaining about the mortgage company not answering this ten page audit.

The adjudicators are generally lower skilled staff members who are fine with the easy stuff but struggle with complicated stuff.   Its not uncommon for their decisions to be overruled by an ombudsman when it comes to complicated things.   The adjudicator ruling is not final.  However, the ombudsman is.

There is no requirement for the firm to answer the 10 page audit.

  I got the final result from the ombudsperson service; they advised me to take it to court within three years (2019).

To be clear, the ombudsman would not advise you to take it to court.  They would would say there is nothing they can do and that the courts are the next option for you if you still disagree.  They certainly wouldn't advise you to take it to court.

If you can give us the DRN number of the FOS response then we can look it up (it is published and public domain but with your personal info removed).  That will give us the FOS position.

 I will not let this go while I am still breathing.

Have you not considered that you have been mugged by the claims company and there is nothing here?   

ACG

Im just going to backup Dunston on this...
- There is no requirement for Engage (or anyone) to answer your questions. 
- The firm you have engaged I am guessing charged you some money. There was no reason for you to go via another company, you could have put your complaint together yourself. You have lost any money you paid them - this is a well known money making scheme by these claims companies and I reckon they have lead you on to get you to part with more and more money. 
- Back in 2007 self cert mortgages were still a thing, there was no requirement to assess affordability in the same way there is now. Are you sure you did not have a self cert mortgage? 
- Interest only mortgages were also fine back in 2007 (I became a broker in 2011 and it was around then they were tightening up on them). 

You say it was not affordable, but why did you not decide what was the case at the time? (I dont need an answer btw, just sort of pointing out what I think is a pretty important question). If it was affordable at the time, then how can you blame the broker? If it was not affordable then why would you proceed? (Sorry if that sounds like I am blaming you, its not supposed to. I am just trying to look at it from both sides). 

In any event, you have had you response from the ombudsman, I dont think it can go back to them. So that leads you to court. I cant see how you would win from what you have said. 

Wonka_2

dunstonh said:

Have you not considered that you have been mugged by the claims company and there is nothing here?   

And this says in a sentence what I'd spent a while trying to compose more 'nicely'

Bluntly speaking, unless you find a genuine, bona-fide outfit who believe you have a case and can prove their credentials (and I'd bet a reasonable sum of money that you won't) then I'd be forgetting the past and focussing on the future i.e.

Will the sons genuinely purchase and do they have the means to within the timescales - and if they do then where do you (and Aunt) live ?

Without knowing your income and where in the country you are then £150k equity would go some way towards an alternative property and unless the arrears are reducing then delaying any move is only likely to make the situation worse.

As a sense check re the equity have any of the previous companies involved got a second (or more) charge on the property over and above your outstanding mortgage amount ?

MWT

ACG said:

- Back in 2007 self cert mortgages were still a thing, there was no requirement to assess affordability in the same way there is now. Are you sure you did not have a self cert mortgage? 
- Interest only mortgages were also fine back in 2007 (I became a broker in 2011 and it was around then they were tightening up on them). 

This is where it all started to go wrong for many people, self-certified mortgages put the responsibility firmly on the borrower with regard to affordability.

dunstonh said:

Have you not considered that you have been mugged by the claims company and there is nothing here?   

... and this has been going on for many years now as well, agents finding clients and channelling them to a law firm which goes bust a while later after charging the client fees for reports or opinions or perhaps selling them an insurance policy...

The reports look impressive but actually are of no value at all, but when they suggest there is a claim and a large sum to be recovered, they help those who feel they should have a case to justify continuing to fund the 'legal' work...

Often when they go bust there will be another firm helpfully reaching out to help you continue the process for another cycle of fees, reports etc. and sending in a long list of questions that they know the recipient is not obliged to respond to just let them spin it out until yet another law firm goes under...

Rinse & repeat...

Start at the beginning with that one simple question, was this a self-certified mortgage?

If it was then evidence around 'affordability' is irrelevant, and a claim based on that is going nowhere.

ACG

MWT said:

ACG said:

- Back in 2007 self cert mortgages were still a thing, there was no requirement to assess affordability in the same way there is now. Are you sure you did not have a self cert mortgage? 
- Interest only mortgages were also fine back in 2007 (I became a broker in 2011 and it was around then they were tightening up on them). 

This is where it all started to go wrong for many people, self-certified mortgages put the responsibility firmly on the borrower with regard to affordability.

I think it is a bit more complicated than that. 
Look at all of the people who are stuck  with mortgages with companies like MAS5, GE money etc, they cant get a new mortgage despite evidencing they can pay a mortgage at a higher interest rate. Some of those are clearly dodgy people but others may not be. With AML checks much better now, it feels like there should be a sort of self cert mortgage out there, to help the non dodgy people. 

MWT

ACG said:

MWT said:

ACG said:

- Back in 2007 self cert mortgages were still a thing, there was no requirement to assess affordability in the same way there is now. Are you sure you did not have a self cert mortgage? 
- Interest only mortgages were also fine back in 2007 (I became a broker in 2011 and it was around then they were tightening up on them). 

This is where it all started to go wrong for many people, self-certified mortgages put the responsibility firmly on the borrower with regard to affordability.

I think it is a bit more complicated than that. 
Look at all of the people who are stuck  with mortgages with companies like MAS5, GE money etc, they cant get a new mortgage despite evidencing they can pay a mortgage at a higher interest rate. Some of those are clearly dodgy people but others may not be. With AML checks much better now, it feels like there should be a sort of self cert mortgage out there, to help the non dodgy people. 

I certainly wasn't implying that all those who self-certified were 'dodgy' but knowing a good few people who went down that path, the motivation was the ability to access a level of funding that was hard to get otherwise and no real questions asked about how it would all get repaid.

It was very different from what it had been like in the '80's, and for many who used it to wisely it was a great way to get into property.

Sadly though the bubble burst and the ability to remortgage was pulled out from under them as you have said, then people looked around for someone to blame for the situation they now found themselves in...

ACG

No suggestion you were dont worry, I wasnt putting words into your mouth. There is a reason why they are called liar loans though. I dont doubt a good percentage are dodgy. 

But it was allowed - rightly or wrongly. To leave those people hung out to dry now seems harsh. Especially as it wont be the dodgy ones on those rates anymore. They will likely have started to declare their incomes to get away from those products. The people who are left are probably more likely to be the ones who have had a change in circumstances... But I think we are digressing haha. 

dunstonh

ACG said:

No suggestion you were dont worry, I wasnt putting words into your mouth. There is a reason why they are called liar loans though. I dont doubt a good percentage are dodgy. 

But it was allowed - rightly or wrongly. To leave those people hung out to dry now seems harsh. Especially as it wont be the dodgy ones on those rates anymore. They will likely have started to declare their incomes to get away from those products. The people who are left are probably more likely to be the ones who have had a change in circumstances... But I think we are digressing haha. 

There was a FOS case that upheld a complaint but it was telling in the response.  It made the financial press at the time.

Basically, the complaint was upheld but the FOS stated that redress would only be payable if the property was sold at market price (cant remember if it was 12 or 24 months) and the person ended up in a loss position.   It was effectively treated as renting vs mortgage.   The tone of the FOS response reading between the lines was that there was a wrongdoing on affordability but the person complaining was likely going to gain financially from it due to property price increases and awarding them redress when they are financially better off would be unfair.

I cant find the complaint response now as the FOS filters are rubbish.

brunty248

Hi all
Thank you for all your comments
I didn't go to a claims company nor did I pay any money out to investigate any of this.
I started around 2012-2013 with a complaint into the company that put the whole thing together - HL Partnership Ltd, these are stillgoingon today. The answer I got from them had so many floors in it that once I was looking at why we were given such a large momortgage realised that they had added over £30,000 more than was needed so I started to dig, and I am still digging today
I needed around 110,000 to clear my existing repayment mortgage, and 2nd charge mortgage and consolidate some debts, all these would have been paid havef about 5 years ago now if I had been refused. They added my aunt's name, who was in her 70s at the time and only on a old age pension (they wrote in the notes that they only put her name on for joint ownership, and her income was never used). This has stopped me over the years from changing my mortgage. Also, they used in their notes that the reason they had given me the additional money was because I had applied to do an extension. They said they had proof that I was building it but the truth was the extension with the planning permission was built in 2004 and not waiting to be built in 2007. So this was my first complaint back in 0212=2013.
Next was my ombudsman complaint, The adjudicator asked HL Partnership for certain copies of paperwork that should of been followed by a certain date and because they refused to produce the information (probably because it was never done), she awarded us the claim.
Then the ombudsman oversaw the adjudicator and basically repeated the same crap that H L Partnership put forward, 1 about the extension so said it was obvious that they had just read their reply and believed it and repeated it, the other thing that the ombudsman pulled up a credit report which he said I apparently owed over £30,000 and this also was why I needed a larger mortgage, yet again this was also in the report by H L Partnership, but the truth of the matter is that the report they were both looking at was for 2010 and not the credit report submitted in 2007 in which I owed next to nothing.  Ombudsmen are meant to look at both sides equally but this ombudsman is obviously because he has made the same assumptions as the booker only looked and believed them, if he had read my side and done some digging he would of seen none of the above was true. Totally a one-sided decision.

Can anyone tell me about limitations, if I first put my complaint in in 2012-2013 and was awarded limitation surely there isn't a time scale on how long that complaint can go on if I have a time list of companies that have let me down over the years.