Have You Lost Money Through Poor Mortgage Advice?
If you think that you might have lost money through poor mortgage advice from a broker or a bank, with hundreds of years of practical experience in the world of banking and finance, Beat the Banks are here to help.
Since 31 October 2004 and “M Day,” the sale and advice surrounding residential mortgages in Britain has been subject to regulation – Firstly by the FSA and now the FCA. This means that if your broker or lender didn’t follow these rules and procedures, then you could be eligible for compensation.
Potential claims for poor mortgage advice cover three specific areas –
1. Excessive fees when re-mortgaging, meaning that rather than saving money, you were left out of pocket.
2. You may have been recommended by your broker or lender when re-mortgaging to consolidate some or all of your existing debt such as credit cards, store cards, bank loans and car finance.
3. Finally, you may have been given advice or encouraged by your broker to re-mortgage your home to specifically invest in other assets.
Mortgages are complex products and problems can often be hidden for many years before you are aware they exist. If you are concerned that you may have suffered financial loss as a result of poor mortgage advice, then Beat the Banks can help you recover compensation for your loss. To start your claim now, you can complete our contact form and we will be in touch, or call our team now on 01382 200474. If you live locally to our office in Dundee, you can even pop in for a chat. Remember, we can normally recover any missing paperwork on your behalf.
It’s probably hard to believe now, but up until 31 October 2004, there was no formal regulation surrounding the sale and advice of residential mortgages. Lenders and brokers, instead, followed a voluntary code called The Mortgage Code Compliance Board (MCCB).
Known as M Day, the then FSA (the forerunner to the present FCA) brought the industry kicking and screaming into the world of regulation. Mortgage advisors not only needed to be suitably qualified, but they needed to provide customers with a raft of information to make sure they properly understood the advice given, who they were regulated by and precisely the terms of the mortgage quote that was being recommended to them via a Key Facts Illustration (KFI).
High broker fee, lender and associated fees, such as solicitor fees, survey costs and even penalties with your existing lender, may have meant that rather than benefitting by switching from one lender to another for a seemingly lesser rate, you were actually left out of pocket.
For example, advice from a broker to move a £50,000 residential mortgage on a fixed rate of 4% with your existing lender to 3% with another seems, on the face of it, sound advice, with an interest saving over two years of £1,000. But, some brokers charged standard broker fees of anything up to £999 or even more. All lenders charge a deeds release fee when you leave them too. This can be anything up to £250.
Lenders also normally charge an arrangement or product fee and some even legal and survey fees. Some or or all of these could mean that instead of saving money the advice to move meant being significantly out of pocket.
Although it might have felt you were making an immediate saving because your monthly payments were much lower, borrowing more on your mortgage to clear debts normally means repaying this extra amount over a much longer period and, as a result, paying more interest.
Consolidating debt may also have put your house at risk by taking previously unsecured debt and adding it to your mortgage, especially if you were suffering financial difficulties at the time. It may have been better and more suitable to explore other options like making arrangements with your creditors, or, for example, a formal Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) where the interest on debts is written off subject to the capital being repaid over a reasonable period of time. Possibly, even a Trust Deed or Sequestration should have been considered.
For example, off-plan or Buy to Let property abroad and in the U.K. or any type of unregulated investment scheme, like storage pods, carbon credits, various green energy schemes, airport parking, foreign plantations or guaranteed return property opportunities in the U.K. or overseas. (New Paragraph) Releasing money from your own home to put into other schemes or investments is rarely a good idea as you still have to repay your increased mortgage if they fail to provide the promised returns. This can leave you with much bigger monthly payments to service and even put your home at risk.
