Record number of mortgage complaints
14/05/2014
The Financial Ombudsman has received a record number of complaints about mortgages and claimed that a rising number of people are in “debt denial”.
The service received 13,659 complaints about mortgages and secured loans in the past 12 months, an increase of 5.63% year-on-year. This is despite home repossessions dropping recently.
Additionally, about 40% of these complaints were from home owners who are struggling to make their mortgage repayments.
This has led to fears about the effect of interest rates potentially increasing from the record low of 0.5% the Bank of England has currently set it at.
Unrealistic appeals
Tony Boorman, the Chief Financial Ombudsman said that there have been a number of homeowners who have made “unrealistic” appeals by asking for debts to be written off or interest to be suspended indefinitely.
It is for this reason that the Ombudsman has rejected around two thirds of these complaints.
Mr Boormam also said that whilst many of these cases are “heart-breaking to deal with,” they could “potentially have been avoided” if help was sought out sooner.
He stressed that if you are struggling to make your mortgage repayment, you should seek out help sooner rather than later.
However, he also added that lenders need to play their part in helping home owners get out of debt by being “more creative”.
Need financial advice?
If you need to ask a financial question then please contact our financial advisers online or over the phone to get help with your query.
Share this..
Related stories
Eco-friendly mortgage on the market
Yorkshire Building Society has just launched its Home Energy Efficiency loan, which offers discounts to existing customers who want to 'go green'.Homeowners can borrow between £1,000 and £15,000 to add eco-friendly improvements to their property.As a discount for the environmentally-friendly, Yorkshire is offering a 1.5 per cent cut in its Standard Variable Rate, which means that borrowers will...
Read MoreHalifax issues new mortgage tracker
Halifax has issued a new set of mortgage tracker options to the market but the increased margins on this product have attracted great concern from government and consumer groups. Halifax, owned by HBOS, was one of the mortgage lenders who withdrew their mortgage trackers from the market ahead of the last interest-rate reduction, another move which also attracted much disdain.
The ne...
When will the government hammer UK mortgage providers?
Today's revelation that fixed rates in the UK mortgage sector have been increasing over the last six months, at a time in UK base rates have remained at 0.5%, is causing concern within consumer and government circles. Despite the fact that the UK government, in tandem with the FSA (Financial Services Authority), has been attacking the UK mortgage sector for opportunistic profit margins increases t...
Read MoreUK mortgage rates moving down
Despite the fact that the Bank of England's monetary policy committee decided to leave UK base rates unchanged, we have seen a number of UK mortgage providers reduce their rates. Indeed we saw Nationwide reduce its fixed rate by 0.31% and tracker rate by 0.2%, Northern Rock reduce its tracker mortgage by 0.5% and its fixed rate by 0.3% with Alliance & Leicester also following suit with a 0.4% trac...
Read MoreWill the New Year has seen an increase in mortgage funding liquidity?
As foreign exchange markets continue to price in a further reduction in UK base rates there are growing hopes that the UK mortgage industry will see an improvement in liquidity in the New Year. However, we have seen many false promises over the last few months from both the government and the mortgage providers in the UK so nothing should be taken for granted. So is it time to lock yourself into a...
Read More