Mortgage overpayments claim companies - genuine or scam?

[curlywurly]

Hi has anyone got any avice on these mortgage interest overpayment claims companies. I've been advised by a company that i have been overcharged in intersst by upwards of £40k . I have been sent paperwork regrding a No win , no fee agreement which includes a credit agreement for a loan to cover protection insurance and a mortgage report, a fee which is paid by the opponent in the case of win or the insurance in the case of a loss. There is a grey area where if advised to go to court the agreement ends and a conditional fee agreement starts (of which there are no details) and if the client refuses advice they are effectively in breach of agreement and liable for the loan. Does anyone know of any evidence/ precedents of these types of cases being successful as i'm concerned it might be just a scam? I have looked up the solicitors and they are SRA registered but only set up in 2018 and i notice the SRA have closed down at least 1 other similar company from google searches. Has anyone any advice on this? Much appeciated. Thanks in advance :-)

[Guest]

Hey Curlywurly,

I thought I'd offer some help here.

If a CMC is telling you you're owed £40K and they've not investigated a claim for you; you've either misinterpreted what they said or they're straight up talking none-sense. I'm also a little confused by the 'credit agreement' they've sent you. Is it an insurance policy to cover legal costs?

CFAs aren't a scam, they're solid agreements but you should read them carefully if you're serious about entering one. They're exactly the same as a 'no win, no fee' agreement, but make sure you're clear on the differing terms. For example, the fees might be different and your termination rights could be vastly different. Many consumers don't read those and get a surprise when the CMC charges for their work after an agreement is cancelled outside the cooling off period.

Claims for mis-calculated interest aren't untested - but banks are normally quite proactive about refunding it and it's normally only pennies.

If you're referring to undisclosed commission, or mis-calculated interest in PPI refunds, both are legitimate and you might find it helpful to read the UK Supreme Court judgement on Plevin V Paragon for undisclosed commission. There's no precedent (that I'm aware of) for mis-calculated interest in PPI refunds, but it is absolutely legitimate and the FS industry has been penalised for it multiple times.

If you're wary of the business, do as much research as you can on them. Companies House can be a useful source of information, as can the Legal Ombudsman's complaints data for solicitor firms. Ultimately, if you don't trust them, don't use them. Based on what you've said about there being no info on the CFA, I wouldn't be confident with them.

Hope this helps.

[curlywurly]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the advice. I agreed for them to contact my old mortgage company to get details of my previous mortgages and they claim to investigated my records and found £40k of interest miscalculations, not to do with PPI.

The credit agreement is for the cost of a mortgage report, which i assume the solicitors is paying the CMC for an the cost fo the insurance. They havent come back to me yet with any details of the CFA.

That is my concern, that i will be left paing the £7k credit agreement and i just wondered if there are any preceents in this type of claim where people have won back such large sums on interest calculation. It seems a bit too good to be true.

Appreciate you taking the time to reply, mant thanks:-)

[Amethyst]

Might be worth asking your mortgage company whether they have received any contact/requests for information from any third party company on your behalf.

Can you give us the name of the company and solicitors ( pm is fine if you'd rather not post it up )

And they are asking for you to ( basically ) agree a £7k loan to pay for a 'mortgage report ' ? If you can send a picture ( redact personal info ) of the documents they have sent you that would be helpful too ( admin@legalbeagles.info )

If you really believe you have paid over £40k too much in interest on your mortgage I think a) you might have noticed ? b) you'd be making a complaint ( or at least looking into it ) yourself - rather than considering ( against your gut feeling ) spending £7k with some newly set up cmc and solicitors firm.

Too good to be true - Yes totally.

[monsal]

Hi

I know this is a slightly older thread, but I am quite keen for people to avoid falling into the marketing nonsense spoken by these companies. I am on the "other side" and deal with the submissions that these companies put in.
Generally, they submit a Subject Access Request which then means they will have access to every piece of personal information on your mortgage file. If you are comfortable with this information going to just about anywhere, then good luck!
They will tell you that you are entitled to £000's which is completely unfounded. In the past eighteen months, we have received just 1% of the SAR's come back as complaints.....all of which are complete rubbish.
If you feel that you have been overcharged, then contact your lender directly. There are many mortgage calculators available on line which will show how much you should be paying. I could go on and on about these companies. They are out to make money for themselves, its as simple as that. Check the Financial Ombudsman site for details on Upheld Complaints. The percentage is tiny and any compensation amounts are tiny in comparison to what is claimed by the CMC's

[Amethyst]

Absolutely agree with you.

Do you know much about the checks that are undertaken on legitimacy of LOA's before responding to the SAR ?

[monsal]

Indeed I do. I deal with these enquiries on a daily basis and work closely with others who do the same. I work in Data Protection and will be happy to contribute in any way that may be useful to this forum

[MIKE770]

trouble with this country is more call centres than physical workers as industries sold off to overseas, bring back the old days where people went to physical work and in all tense and purposes were happy to survive

[Amethyst]

Thank you - we have a number of consumers who do not believe they signed LOAs for a CMC to act on their behalf. When requesting copies of the LOAs from lenders and from the CMC in question the signatures applied to the LOA bears little relation to their actual signature, appear to have been digitally applied ( like when you sign for a parcel on a pda ) - they often received copies of the LOAs by post to sign and decided not to go ahead so retain the unsigned copies.Â*

So, the question really is are signatures on LOAs received by lenders from CMCs checked against the account holder records ?Â*

[monsal]

Some CMC's will submit a Subject Access Request with just an electronic signature. My company and all of those that I have a working relationship with, will not accept these signatures as being sufficient to provide information. In these cases and in line with guidance provided by the Information Commissioners Office, we will always request further ID as proof. I know of one company who receives only just over 10% of cases back where additional information has been requested, which suggests that consumers may not always be aware of exactly what they are signing up to.
You only have to have a casual look at some of the CMC's sites to see that there is no element of validating identity before some of these requests are submitted.
My company and all those that I know of will always check a LOA thoroughly before complying with a Subject Access Request. It is also becoming more common to also write to the Data Subject to confirm that a request has been received, before any information is provided to a CMC or third party.

[Amethyst]

Thank you that's interesting ( and a bit more reassuring ) to know, I have PM'd you with a specific issue I'd like your thoughts on.

A SAR response generally will include copies of signed applications/agreements ?

[monsal]

I have replied to the PM

Yes, the SAR will include anything that contains Personally Identifiable Information relating to the Data Subject. Anything signed should definitely come into this!

[MIKE770]

we are getting an insight from you thank you Monsal

[PeterCameron]

It is a common problem. I was young and inexperienced when I took my mortgage, so I got very bad mortgage conditions. After some years and speaking with my friends about their mortgages, I understood that I was overpaying it. I have used the services of a Mortgage Advisor in Derby to analyze my mortgage contract, and I was right. Luckily I was using the services of a professional, and he helped me remortgage. I was able to get better mortgage conditions, and I needed to pay the same sum of money but for a shorter period.