It is important that if you think you have been mis-sold a mortgage that you do not keep quite about it. Over the past five years there has been millions of complaints about people who have been mis-sold endowment mortgages in the UK.
An endowment mortgage is a mixture of an interest-only mortgage and an investment policy. The borrower normally pays back the interest on the mortgage throughout the 20 or 25 year term, and then a monthly payment into the endowment policy, which is supposed to pay the mortgage off by the end of the term. However a lot of people were not made aware of the risks involved and that the mortgage could fall short.
If you feel that you have taken out a mortgage and further down the line you become aware of something that you did not know when you signed up to the mortgage that could mean that you may have been mis-sold the mortgage.
It is not being mis-sold a mortgage if you suddenly find that you can’t pay your mortgage payments or they go up because of a rise in interest rates.
It is vital that you read all the paperwork and small print that you are shown before you take out your mortgage as this will have a number of points in it that you may have not been aware of. If you sign to something then you can very rarely argue later on that you have been mis-sold the product.
See whether switching your mortgage could save you money: compare your current rate against a new deal to find your monthly saving, after any early repayment charge.
Try our Remortgage Savings Calculator free, here on this site →If however for example you were told to take out a sub-prime mortgage when you did not have any bad credit and this was not made known to you then you could have a case for being mis-sold a mortgage.
Who to Contact?
Your first port of call should be the person who sold you the mortgage in the first place. Hopefully if a mistake has been made they will see this and not want to take the matter any further and they can sort it out with you without having to involve a third party. However if this is unsuccessful and they are not very helpful then you should first go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This is an unbiased organisation which has been set up to help deal with complaints about the selling of financial products. It will be able to give you completely free advice and will fight your case for you. It is important that you go to this organization first and not a complaints management firm.
There are hundreds of claims management firms out there that are specifically targeted at people who believe they have mis-sold a mortgage. These companies will normally not charge you a fee to look into your case, but if they are successful in getting you compensation they will take a percentage of your win, which in some cases could be substantial. They will often advertise themselves as having a better success rate then going through the Financial Ombudsman Service, but this is not true in many cases.
When lending any money from a lender it is important that you read everything they give you, this is especially true with a mortgage, as you may be tied into paying the money back for a set period of time. Beware, lenders and brokers will fight their cause if accused of mis-selling, so it is vital that you know what you are signing up to. If you do feel that you have been mis-sold a mortgage though, make it known and if you are not happy with what the person who sold you it says, make sure to take it further to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.
I would like to find out if I have a claim for a mis-sold secured loan
I am not sure if it works the same as a mortgage,.
I took out a secured loan against my property in 2008, at the time I was 48 years old, I am 55 now the loan payments will go way past my retirement age
the loan was a 300 moonths loan.
this company is now seeking possession of my home because I am in arrears.
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