Thanks for the interest. I'm still contesting the Financial Ombudsman's provisional decision against me at the moment citing the unfair contract/penalty aspects etc, based on Supersleuth's invaluable advice. I really don't want to give up even if it takes me another year, so any ideas that anyone has will be very gratefully received, especially if I have to take this to court.

I've read the useful info here on ERC cases. Mine is a bit different and I'd appreciate other's views. My saga in brief: I had a 2 yr fixed rate mortgage (around £100K)ending Jan 09. For work reasons I needed to move last year and in mid March 2008 checked with the lender (a major building society) that my mortgage was portable. It was, as long as I bought another property within 6mths of redeeming the mortgage. The lender advertised itself at that time as a major provider of shared ownership mortgages. I went back to them in mid April having found a buyer for my (non-shared ownership) property and paid a deposit on a new shared ownership property. They then told me that they were no longer providing shared ownership mortgages (from 31st March 2008) and would not transfer my mortgage. I had the choice between losing my buyer and around £2K of fees and costs incurred to withdraw from the purchase (gaining nothing), or £4k of ERCs to proceed. Having got nowhere with the lender's complaints procedure, I proceeded with the purchase, incurred the ERCs and referred the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, having advised the lender that this is what I would do. The FO did not find in my favour, essentially on the basis that the mortgage agreement I entered into was for portability to a suitable product, but the lender no longer provided a suitable product.This was not their fault as the government had ended their agreement for the particular shared ownership scheme with the lender. Would I have good grounds to take this to court on the basis that (i) the lender imposed a unfair penalty on me by effectively forcing me into early redemption and therefore that (ii) any breach of the mortgage contract was theirs, since they had a suitable product when I took out the mortgage (i.e. when agreeing the terms)? They could have transferred my normal mortgage on the new property (this is what I now have with Abbey, who have no particular scheme)for shared ownership) but chose not to. So my argument is that I did not end the mortgage agreement, they did. Any advice will be much appreciated.

I've read the useful info here on ERC cases. Mine is a bit different and I wonder if anyone can advise please> My saga in brief: I had a 2 yr fixed rate mortgage (around £100K)ending Jan 09. For work reasons I needed to move last year and in mid March 2008 checked with the lender that my mortgage was portable. It was, as long as I bought another property within 6mths of redeeming the mortgage. The lender advertised itself at that time as a major provider of shared ownership mortgages. I went back to them in mid April having found a buyer for my (non-shared ownership) property and paid a deposit on a new shared ownership property. They then told me that they were no longer providing shared ownership mortgages (from 31st March 2008) and would not transfer my mortgage. I had the choice between losing my buyer and around £2K of fees and costs incurred to withdraw from the purchase (gaining nothing), or £4k of ERCs. Having got nowhere with their complaints procedure, I proceeded with the purchase, incurred the ERCs and referred the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, having advised the lender that this is what I would do. The FO did not find in my favour, essentially on the basis that the mortgage agreement I entered into was for portability to a suitable product, but the lender no longer provided a suitable product. Would I have good grounds to take this to court on the basis that (i) the lender imposed a unfair penalty on me and that (ii) any breach of the mortgage contract was theirs, since they had a suitable product when I took out the mortgage? They could have given me a normal mortgage on the new property (this is what I now have with Abbey, who have no problem with shared ownership property without any particular scheme) but chose not to. So my argument is that I did not end the mortgage agreement, but they forced the position. Any advice much appreciated.