Mortgage Prisoners - Landmark Mortgages

[shimeld]

Hi.

I have posted regarding Northern Rock on this forum before and now we are writing to Lankdmark, the successors of NRAM, (Northern Rock), in regard to them having placed us in a position where we are now "Mortgage Prisoners".

There has been quite a lot of coverage of this subject online and in the press and like in our case the company cannot provide us with an alternative product since they no longer lend money or so they have told us. Neither can they provide a fixed rate mortgage.

Also we are now in the position that interest rates are rising in line with the BOE base rate but they never come down. Surely this is wrong.

Is anyone else in the same situation?

I'll keep you all posted of the reply to our letter.

[Ruby]

Hi I am in the same situation as you. My payments went down slightly for a while last year in line with the BOE interest rate fall but has since gone up again. I believe their attitude to 'customers' such as us is suck it up or leave.

I will be interested to hear what they have to say for themselves.

[shimeld]

Hi Just an Update from Landmark.

We wrote to them on 4th July about our locked situation and they came back on August 6th saying they had not completed inquiries and it was only last week Sept 3rd when they gave their final reply.

Please see the letter we sent attached called "Landmark Mortgage Redacted"., in which we laid out our complaint. Landmark Mortgage Redacted.docx

The reply they finally gave is attached as " Landmark Reply.PDF "

They have not dealt with our actual complaint and we know that they rejected our previous complaints regarding other matters however they are avoiding what we are actually complaining about i.e, we are Mortgage Prisoners and offering no solution to our situation.

What do we do from here?

Please help us.

[Amethyst]

Sorry, this may be a silly question, but are you unable to remortgage with a different lender ? I'm not sure why you feel you are mortgage prisoners. 4.79% isn't a terrible rate ( Santanders SVR is 4.99% I believe atm) and you are making overpayments to reduce the term ( and thus interest paid ) and presumably aren't being penalised for that with any early repayment penalties etc ?
I've probably entirely missed the point.

Did they provide a copy of the agreement and the key facts documents from when you took out the mortgage with NRAM? Did you do it direct or via a broker and have you obtained all the info/documents via a Subject Access Request ?

It seems that is their final response and you should take the complaint on to the Ombudsman now.


https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...age-prisoners/ - assume that's the kind of article the mortgage prisoners term comes from... so unable to move due to affordability criteria etc?

Was the whole mortgage for the house or were you reconciling other unsecured debts into the mortgage ( using the equity to pay other stuff off etc ) ?

[shimeld]

Hi Amethyst.

Thanks for your speedy response. We visited a mortgage advisor a few years ago with a view to switching lenders however we were both 64 years old then with me in a low paid job and my wife the major breadwinner. She advised us that while we could apply for mortgages elsewhere we were both likely to be refused due to our ages, financial position and length of term. Even if we were successful we would end up with another 25 year mortgage that would be more than we are paying now so we are put in a difficult position the same as other mortgage prisoners mentioned in the press and media.

While we are overpaying in an attempt to clear it faster it's crippling us and now my wife is on a three day working week. Both of us are now 66 and my wife is suffering some health problems and the job I do is crippling me physically. At this rate we won't properly retire until we are in our mid to late seventies. We only missed one payment around 2001 and that was due to a clerical error on their part, otherwise we are bang up to date.

We just about manage but if my wife had to give up work we would be in a mess.

The rate is not bad as you say but when they put it up they never reduce it again when the base rate goes down or at least not back to were it was.

We have all of our data since we requested a SAR a while ago. Yes we got the original NR mortgage through a broker who has since gone out of business however we re mortgaged with them directly ourselves when I was setting up a business.

All we want is for them to recognize that by the mortgage being sold to an American equity firm who don't lend money they have put us in a very restrictive position and for them to reduce the interest so we have a chance to pay it off sooner sine it wasn't us that sold NR mortgage book to the equity firm.

Kind regards

[Ruby]

Perhaps things have changed (I have lived at the same address for over two decades!). When hubby and I were looking for a mortgage at the time we could not get one that took us over the 65 year retirement age. Has the criteria changed in that respect?

I can understand where Shimeld is coming from with respect that due to the nationalisation of NRAM we cannot borrow extra (for example for home improvements) or go to a fixed rate without moving banks. Although NRAM encourage their customers to leave them, if you do, all mortgage companies front load their interest in the first few years so you don't necessarily get a better deal.

[shimeld]

Perhaps things have changed (I have lived at the same address for over two decades!). When hubby and I were looking for a mortgage at the time we could not get one that took us over the 65 year retirement age. Has the criteria changed in that respect?

I can understand where Shimeld is coming from with respect that due to the nationalisation of NRAM we cannot borrow extra (for example for home improvements) or go to a fixed rate without moving banks. Although NRAM encourage their customers to leave them, if you do, all mortgage companies front load their interest in the first few years so you don't necessarily get a better deal.

I suggest you look on today's BBC Panorama regarding Landmark/Serberus. It's that high interest that's killing people. :-)

[pt2537]

I suggest you look on today's BBC Panorama regarding Landmark/Serberus. It's that high interest that's killing people. :-)

been having fun with NRAM for a long long time, cant say much on here but if you follow my blogs youll have seen they are a company that i deal with a lot lol

[shimeld]

In reply to and with respect to above comments we are both 66 yrs. old so we cannot get a mortgage that is cheaper than what we are paying and, in some cases, considerably more. Examples range from 4.19 to 5 percent.

We could get one from Barclays at 3.19 percent if we were under 65. In most cases we could make savings through fixed rate but we would eventually hit the same wall later in our 70's when we might not be in a position to afford it.

Like others in last night's BBC Panorama program since Cerberus/Lankmark bought the loan book they have not provided any loans despite promises to Government that they would. So, we have been paying over the odds for the mortgage for around 10 years and we ironically, we were not in a position to re-mortgage earlier.

This leaves us in a dilemma as to what should we do, push for compensation for the years Landmark have been in control so we could use the money to pay a chunk off the mortgage?

Alternatively, I can only think that we were mis-sold when they knew that we would be over 65 still paying a mortgage.


Any suggestions would be greatfully accepted. :-)

[shimeld]

Sorry, this may be a silly question, but are you unable to remortgage with a different lender ? I'm not sure why you feel you are mortgage prisoners. 4.79% isn't a terrible rate ( Santanders SVR is 4.99% I believe atm) and you are making overpayments to reduce the term ( and thus interest paid ) and presumably aren't being penalised for that with any early repayment penalties etc ?
I've probably entirely missed the point.

Did they provide a copy of the agreement and the key facts documents from when you took out the mortgage with NRAM? Did you do it direct or via a broker and have you obtained all the info/documents via a Subject Access Request ?

It seems that is their final response and you should take the complaint on to the Ombudsman now.


https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...age-prisoners/ - assume that's the kind of article the mortgage prisoners term comes from... so unable to move due to affordability criteria etc?

Was the whole mortgage for the house or were you reconciling other unsecured debts into the mortgage ( using the equity to pay other stuff off etc ) ?

Hi Again Amethyst.

We took out the mortgage to use the extra to pay off a business partner. See later posts.:-)

[jport]

There are a group of us all in the same boat, mortgage prisoners with NRAM. Please join our group on facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/3241...?ref=bookmarks Mortgage Prisoners UK

[jport]

There are over 400 of us NRAM Mortgage prisoners. Its not as easy as remortgaging, as NRAM is not a lending bank. We are stuck on high SVR's through no fault of our own. If anyone is affected, please join our facebook group. We are all in the same boat, and some have some terrible stories to share. Our plight was highlighted on Panorama https://www.facebook.com/groups/3241...?ref=bookmarks

[touslesmemes]

There are also an endless number of companies claiming they will help you to pay off your mortgage and get rebate, Cityworth mortgage for example. cityworth reviews (these or whatever you will find on the internet) tell a different story. These days it's so hard not to get fooled.

[ALawrence]

I've joined the mortgage prisoner legal action - Harcus Parker are taking a class action against NRAM/Landmark mortgages, I was trapped for 10 years, old escaping when I sold my business and took a regular job for 2 years.

[LRose]

I realise this post was years ago but I'm in the same situation now. Because there is an unsecured loan also with landmark and they are inaccurately reporting the debt on that to the credit agency, I can't get a mortgage elsewhere but they have doubled my mortgage. I'm so stressed.