Repayment Mortgage Decision Reference 2023-0006

• Case Outcome: Rejected
• Subject Matter: Repayment Mortgage
• Reference: 2023-0006
• Date: 18 January 2023
• Finantial Sector: Banking
• Conducts Complained Of: Level of contact or communications re. Arrears,Dissatisfaction with customer service

Decision Ref:

2023-0006

Sector:

Banking

Product / Service:

Repayment Mortgage

Conduct(s) complained of:

Level of contact or communications re. Arrears

Dissatisfaction with customer service

Outcome:

Rejected

LEGALLY BINDING DECISION OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND PENSIONS OMBUDSMAN

The complaint concerns a mortgage loan.

The Complainants’ Case

The Complainants state that, on 4th June 2019, they received a letter from the Provider

stating that their mortgage loan was in arrears and requesting they “arrange correction of

the account”. The Complainants state that they held their mortgage with a different

provider, and upon an exchange of information with the Provider, they discovered that their

original lender had sold their mortgage to the Provider, without informing them.

The Complainants state that, not having received notice of the sale of the mortgage loan

prior to this correspondence, they had continued to make payments to the original lender

“with no issue”. The Complainants state that they proffered evidence of these payments to

the Provider, and that the Provider “acknowledged the error and agreed to correct our

account”.

The Complainants outline that the statements received from the Provider, reference arrears

and arrears payments, and they contend that “there were no arrears on that account when

bought by” the Provider, and that the account was in credit. The Complainants state that,

after allowing three months for the Provider to correct these errors, “ we stopped paying

into the account and advised [the Provider] we would recommence payment, once they

corrected the account”. The Complainants state that the Provider has not yet corrected the

errors.

The Complainants state that the Provider has attributed arrears charges to their account

during the time when the Complainants were making payments to the original lender. The

- 2 -

/Cont’d…

Complainants state that the charges were assigned to their account as a result of the

Provider’s actions, which are the cause of the account errors. The Complainants state that

they will not accept these arrears charges on the account, as doing so would be “an inference

that [they] accept the account went into arrears”, where they contend that the account was

not in arrears up until the time the Provider contacted them.

The Provider’s Case

The Provider states that ownership of the Complainants’ mortgage loan account transferred

to the Provider on 30th November 2018, with an arrears balance of €0 and a credit balance

of €2,439.64. The Provider sets out that correspondence was sent to the Complainants on

11th December 2018 informing them that the Provider was the new lender of record, as

communicated a week earlier to the Complainants in a letter sent by the original lender

dated 4th December 2018.

The Provider states that, after “a number of failed attempts to contact” the Complainants

by telephone on 4th May 2019 and 20th May 2019, the Provider contacted the Complainants

by email on 5th June 2019. The Provider says that the Complainants were informed that their

account was in arrears, they were furnished with correct payment details, and asked for

confirmation of payments made to the original lender.

The Provider states that on 5th June 2019, its Finance Department conducted a review of the

account and payment transfers from the original lender. It says that on completion of the

review, two payments from the original lender were confirmed for 28th February 2019 and

31st May 2019 and that no other payments were transferred from the original lender. The

Provider sets out that it requested that the Complainants contact the original lender directly

in relation to the payments said to have been made on 2nd September 2019, and that the

Provider raised a query with the original lender on 29th October 2019 and 14th November

2019.

The Provider states in the original lender’s response to its query, the original lender

confirmed eight payments made to the Complainants’ account so that, as of 18th November

2019, the Complainants’ account was displaying a credit balance of €886.89.

The Provider outlines that, while the terminology in its statements does reference arrears,

the amounts on the statement dated 2nd January 2020 were negative figures, which

indicated that the Complainants’ account was in credit.

The Provider states that it received no repayments from the Complainants from 2nd August

2019 and that, as a result, the account is in arrears. The Provider asserts that it contacted

the Complainants on 1st April 2020 to state that the Complainants’ account required “urgent

and immediate attention” and that repayments are expected under the terms of the Letter

of Loan Offer dated 4th October 2006. The Provider states that, as of 14th July 2020, there

was an outstanding arrears balance of €8,703.71.

The Complaint for Adjudication