What Are Mortgage Claims?
Interest Only Mortgage
If you were only paying the interest each month, then the advisor should have made you aware how you would repay your loan when it finished.
If your broker or lender didn’t discuss this with you or give you examples of the cost of a Capital and Repayment compared to the lower costs of Interest Only, then this would be an example of mis-selling.
Furthermore, was it explained to you that you may have to switch to a Repayment mortgage rather than relying on rising house prices? If not, then this could also constitute mis-selling.
Debt consolidation
If you were looking to consolidate your debts, were you advised that it would be cheaper for you to put all your loans, credit cards and finance onto your mortgage?
If not, you could be exchanging short term debts for a long term debt by adding it to your mortgage.
Did the adviser explain to you that although you would be lowering your monthly outgoings initially, you may well be lengthening the term of your debt and vastly increasing the amount of interest that you would be paying?
If not, this could be constituted as mis-selling.
Running past retirement
Is your mortgage due to run past your retirement age? Was this pointed out to you?
Did your broker or lender discuss how you would meet your repayments once you were retired?
A good example of this would be if someone takes a mortgage out for 20 years at the age of 50.
The average age of retirement is at 65, which means there will be 5 years left to pay.
If at the time of agreement, the adviser didn’t take into consideration whether the customer could afford to make the payments after the age of 65, then the customer may have been mis-sold.
Self Certification
Were you asked to provide evidence of your income, for example, payslips or audited accounts that could prove your income?
If not, were you encouraged to take out what is known as a ‘Self Cert’ or ‘Fast Track’ mortgage, where you didn’t need to prove your income?
These products paid far higher commissions and were very popular among some brokers for that very reason.
If this applied to you, you may have been mis-sold.
High broker fees
Did you pay unreasonably high fees to the broker or advisor that arranged your mortgage?
Were you made aware what the fees would be?
Were they added to your loan without you knowing so that you’re now paying interest on them every month?
If any of the above applies to you then you may have a case of mis-selling.
Our mortgage claims experts are on hand to take your call.
