Irresponsible lending & my credit file

Sparkle_Gemmum

Hello! New member here. I hope this is the right forum for some advice. 

About a year ago, the Ombudsman upheld an irresponsible lending complaint for me on a personal loan.

As part of the redress, the lender was instructed to:

• Remove all interest and set the loan to 0%

• Remove any negative entries from my credit file

• Put in place an affordable repayment plan

The lender did all of that and I’ve been paying under the new arrangement since.

The issue now is that I’m falling behind with the repayment plan. The lender has said they will start reporting missed payments to the credit reference agencies.

My question is: are they allowed to do this? Wouldn’t reporting missed payments now count as a new negative entry, when the Ombudsman specifically told them to remove negative data?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Emmia

I think you might want to think about this in two sections 

1. Post ombudsman - they put in place new arrangements, to assist you in relation to your debts. They didn't seek for the lender write off your debts, but they did seek for unfair references for past failure to pay to be removed from your file.

2. Now- you're not keeping up with the ombudsman's ruling, and again falling behind.  I think the lender should be able to record these new missed payments.


Whatever the rights and wrongs of the past lending why are you again struggling with repayments? Have you looked at your budget / spending to help get you back on track? You might want to pop over to the debt free wannabe board and post a statement of affairs (SOA) on a fresh thread.

Ayr_Rage

I concur with @Emmia and their point 2 above.

If the old "negative entries" were removed then as you are now defaulting on the amended payment plan the missed payment reporting is entirely valid.

Exodi

I agree with both the above points.

The Ombudsman sided with you that the loan was lended irresponsibly. Because of that they requested removal of the past markers related to the period of irresponsible lending and wiped the interest. I can't see for one minute that the intention was for you to be immune to negative entries in perpetuity with the lender.

To put it another way, if you took another loan with this lender in the future, of which they unquestionably lend responsibly, do you think you should be able to dust off this ruling to argue that they should again remove any expectation of interest? Do you think they are forever obliged to provide you interest free loans (and not record any non-payments)? Of course not.

Sparkle_Gemmum said:

My question is: are they allowed to do this? Wouldn’t reporting missed payments now count as a new negative entry, when the Ombudsman specifically told them to remove negative data?

They told them to remove the negative data at a certain point in time, not granting you permanent immunity from negative reporting.

fatbelly

Sparkle_Gemmum said:

Hello! New member here. I hope this is the right forum for some advice. 

About a year ago, the Ombudsman upheld an irresponsible lending complaint for me on a personal loan.

As part of the redress, the lender was instructed to:

• Remove all interest and set the loan to 0%

• Remove any negative entries from my credit file

• Put in place an affordable repayment plan

The lender did all of that and I’ve been paying under the new arrangement since.

The issue now is that I’m falling behind with the repayment plan. The lender has said they will start reporting missed payments to the credit reference agencies.

My question is: are they allowed to do this? Wouldn’t reporting missed payments now count as a new negative entry, when the Ombudsman specifically told them to remove negative data?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

I think the key here is the third bullet point. It has become, maybe always was, unaffordable

So you need a new arrangement and they should be helping you in that

The correct mark on your file would be Arrangement. Is that going to cause a problem?

Sparkle_Gemmum

thank you all. I appreciate all your comments and given me a lot to think about. 

fatbelly said:

I think the key here is the third bullet point. It has become, maybe always was, unaffordable

this bit. It's not affordable to me. so if they haven't agreed an affordable plan. so they maybe havent fulfilled the outcome as they should have done. 

MyRealNameToo

Sparkle_Gemmum said:

fatbelly said:

I think the key here is the third bullet point. It has become, maybe always was, unaffordable

this bit. It's not affordable to me. so if they haven't agreed an affordable plan. so they maybe havent fulfilled the outcome as they should have done. 

Was it affordable at the time it was agreed? The fact you are only raising now would suggest it was and something has changed at your end subsequently which means it's no longer affordable. 

Emmia

If you're struggling with your budget and the payments you previously agreed to, I really suggest you pop over to the Debt Free Wannabe board. There's no judgement and plenty of great advice there to assist you.

Presumably the ombudsman looked at your financial position in coming to a decision previously?

dumpster_fire2025

Sparkle_Gemmum said:

thank you all. I appreciate all your comments and given me a lot to think about. 

fatbelly said:

I think the key here is the third bullet point. It has become, maybe always was, unaffordable

this bit. It's not affordable to me. so if they haven't agreed an affordable plan. so they maybe havent fulfilled the outcome as they should have done. 

If it was affordable at the time it was agreed then there isn't an issue. Nobody is going to know with certainty that an agreement is going to remain affordable until its conclusion and I don't think the Ombudsman expected the lender to continually re-evaluate the agreement either.

If it wasn't affordable at the time it was agreed then you shouldn't have agreed to it.