Tracker Mortgage Decision Reference 2025-0201

• Case Outcome: Rejected
• Year: 2025
• Reference: 2025-0201
• Date: 18 December 2025
• Subject Matter: Tracker Mortgage
• Finantial Sector: Banking
• Conducts Complained Of: Failure to offer a tracker rate at point of sale,Failure to provide product/service information

Decision Ref:

2025-0201

Sector:

Banking

Product / Service:

Tracker Mortgage

Conduct(s) complained of:

Failure to offer a tracker rate at point of sale

Failure to provide product/service information

Outcome:

Rejected

LEGALLY BINDING DECISION

OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AND PENSIONS OMBUDSMAN

Background

This complaint relates to two mortgage loan accounts held by the Complainant with the

Provider. The mortgage loan accounts the subject of this complaint were secured on the

Complainant’s private dwelling house.

The Letter of Approval dated 05 July 2005 in respect of the mortgage loan account ending

5083 provided for a mortgage loan in the amount of €420,000.00 (four hundred and twenty

thousand Euro) repayable over a term of 35 years.

The Letter of Approval dated 27 September 2006 in respect of the mortgage loan account

ending 8453 provided for a mortgage loan in the amount of €453,000.00 (four hundred and

fifty-three thousand Euro) repayable over a term of 35 years.

Mortgage loan account ending 5083 was redeemed from the proceeds of mortgage loan

account ending 8453.

The Complainant’s Case

The Complainant submits that his mortgage loan account ending 5083 commenced on 05

July 2005 on a tracker interest rate comprising the ECB rate plus a margin of 1.10%. The

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/Cont’d…

Complainant asserts that when he applied for a top-up mortgage loan in the sum of

€50,000.00 (fifty thousand Euro) in August 2006, to build an extension onto his property,

the Provider “churned” his original mortgage loan account ending 5083, to a new equity

release loan operating on a variable interest rate under mortgage loan account ending

8453 which resulted in him losing his original tracker rate of ECB + 1.10% in the process.

The Complainant asserts that the correct course of action that should have been taken by

the Provider in August 2006 was for the “equity release” mortgage loan account ending

8453 to be arranged as a separate top-up loan to his original tracker mortgage loan

account ending 5083. The Complainant explains that the only part “that strictly was an

Equity Release was the Top up” was the amount of €50,000.00 (fifty thousand Euro).

The Complainant details that when the new mortgage loan account ending 8453 was set

up, he was “unaware [he would] be losing this valuable tracker and wasn’t advised to get

legal advice.”

The Complainant is seeking the following:

(a) A tracker interest rate of ECB + 1.10% to be applied to mortgage loan account

ending 8453;

(b) A refund of overpaid interest from August 2007 to present; and

(c) Appropriate compensation.

The Provider’s Case

The Provider submits that it issued a Letter of Approval in relation to mortgage loan

account ending 5083 to the Complainant on 05 July 2005 for a loan amount of

€420,000.00 (four hundred and twenty thousand Euro) repayable over a term of 35 years.

The Provider submits that the interest rate offered was a tracker interest rate of 3.10%

(ECB + 1.10%).

The Provider submits that mortgage loan account ending 5083 was drawn down by the

Complainant on 08 August 2005 in the sum of €420,000.00 (four hundred and twenty

thousand Euro).

The Provider submits that on 25 August 2006, the Complainant completed an Application

for Credit Form for a loan amount of €50,000.00 (fifty thousand Euro). The Provider states

that the type of finance requested in the application form was an “equity release variable

rate secured personal loan.”