Hi Everyone Hot off the press from yesterday, Northern Rock will have to repay £270 million pounds to loan customers with Together mortgages because of mistakes in the paperwork and annual statements. Go to the BBC news web site as I am still unable to post any links. Customers who took out personal loans of less than £25,000 will receive an average of £1,775 each. Bank staff failed to include key details on annual statements about loans, including the original amount which had been borrowed. The bank is writing to all customers who have been affected but they still have to find a solution for those people who may have had their loans repossessed who couldn't keep up the loan or mortgage payments. That could open up a complete can of worms for them. As I said before, it is a good idea to revisit all your mortgage paperwork with an SAR. I finally obtained a copy of my deed from Land Registry at a cost of £11 and the charge is still in the name of Northern Rock PLC and not NRAM. However, I am still pursuing them for the overvaluation, for which I have now expert witness evidence of overvaluation. There has also been a lot of debate on CAG about securitisation. A South African website called new era dot org (again I can't post the link) is championing mortgagors with securitised mortgages and they highlighted a recent South African court case which may have considerable implications regarding the ownership of the debt once it has been securitised. A house that was literally hours away from being sold on auction, was turned around and the South African bank Standard Bank abandoned the whole thing, including their judgment. The day before the mortgagee, Mr Michael Plumstead was about to watch his family home being auctioned, an urgent application was brought before the Port Elizabeth High Court. Among other things, Mr Plumstead (the Applicant) stated the following: “15. It is the Applicant’s intention to settle the arrears with the lawful holder of this debt.” The auction was temporarily suspended by the Court… but then suddenly the bank backed down. The entire case was removed and the bank agreed to pay all legal costs. I'm afraid English courts have always been on the side of the mortgagee (i.e NRAM) regarding the ownership of a securitised debt. Paragon Finance Plc v Pender & Anor [2005] EWCA Civ 760 (27 June 2005) refers. However, if the mortgagee has received payment for the debt from the security trustee who doesn't have to register their interest in the mortgage on the land registry and the mortgagor defaults, then that trustee would have had a credit default swap insurance which would settle the debt if the default occurs. So when a repossession occurs on a securitised debt, it could be argued that no debt actually exists. So, quite simply, there can be no legal case for repossession because all parties have been settled. In law, this would be referred to as de minimis non curat lex. (A mere trifle) Obviously this would have to be challenged in English Law to set a precedent but it is yet another avenue that could be considered. The other problem is that your lender does not have to tell you that your mortgage has been securitised, although such securitisations are still subject to the Data Protection Act which I am pursuing to establish if my mortgage was in fact securitised with Granite (Northern Rock's Special Purpose Vehicle for securitisation). I'll keep everyone posted about my continuing dispute.

UKAR have to be very careful about calling in loans as many old Northern Rock Together and Flexible mortgages had a covenant put on the title deeds when they made the charge, that required the mortgage company to give an obligation to make further advances, (subject to the criteria being reached). They get out of it if you don't meet their criteria but the fact that NRAM no longer offer mortgages means that they cannot meet that obligation in any event. It is worth getting copies of your legal documentation and you can get the land registry entries for your property on line for a fee of about £30. In combination I believe the T&C's are a good way to challenge them. The FSA have recently fined Bank Of Scotland for changing mortgage terms and conditions and ordered them to make goodwill payments to their customers as a result.

Hi Tuttle I know that the FSA are now looking into mortgage mis-selling in more detail particularly interest only mortgages. I have now received my SAR and curiously there are no copies of the originally signed mortgage deed ( which has to be signed by both parties) or a copy of the original terms and conditions. From my original documentation I have found two lots of different T&C's relating to the mortgage. Neither is their any copy of the deed of transfer between Northern Rock and NRAM. and the number of tariff changes I have had over the years is unbelievable. I can request a copy of the legal documentation for a fee of £35 which I am going to do, but this is yet another area where I believe there are options to contest the agreement in addition to the overvaluation. What information do you have where we could mount a combined legal challenge?

Hi joecase I'm sorry I've not been on this forum for a while as I have been dealing with ppi issues. However, I can find plenty of references to the Forster v Outred & Co transcript but also feel that the Nykredit Mortgage Bank PLC v Edward Erdman Group.would be relevant which has a clear statement regarding the Forster case. This can be found on the parliament uk web site although I am not able to post the link on the forum. Needless to say. NRAM rejected my argument indicating that they cannot be held responsible for the reduced value of my property. I have a dilemma in that I may have to take proceedings against the solicitor who completed the mortgage for me, although it was Northern Rock that appointed these solicitors for me and it was Northern Rock who arranged the valuation of the property. I requested an SAR from NRAM under the Data Protection Act which has another 4 days before the 40 day time limit is up and all I have received is my annual mortgage statement from them and a copy of the original agreement to date. I've since had a retrospective valuation of my property this month by a professional surveyor at my own expense, which confirms that the property had been overvalued by £25000 in October 2006 and that I am in negative equity by some £40000. I am waiting for the SAR period to expire before proceeding to court and I still have a lot of my original documentation relating to the mortgage. I will let you know what happens next when there is something to report. To everyone else, particularly those who are going through the throws of repossession is to consider challenging it on the basis of Northern Rocks negligence and a lack of duty of care as outlined in these High Court cases. A lot of these Northern Rock valuations were undertaken by what was known as 'drive by' valuations at the time, which have been proved inaccurate, particularly when these types of valuations were used to assess council tax bands which have been successfully challenged over the years. Remember, all NRAM want to do is to get these mortgages off their books and get whatever return they can from repossessions and judging by all the other comments on this forum, there are many of us who are caught in a negative equity trap which no one has yet challenged.

I've subscribed to this fantastic site now for many years and the advice has been overwhelmingly useful, especially for my PPI claims. However, I have been consistently looking at ways to fight my Northern Rock (NRAM) mortgage. Its is, not I am told a Together mortgage, although, it was described as this in correspondence, when I first took the mortgage out in October 2006. However I am supposed to be getting the loyalty interest rate after 7 years and should have been able to move this mortgage on if I ever moved house. The crux of the problem is that the property was overvalued at £200,000 and they provided me with an interest only re-mortgage of £194,000 which I used for debt consolidation. I have been keeping the mortgage payments up to date but now I've been made redundant and life is going to be more difficult. But I have been looking at the law of tort around this issue and found a court case. I refer you to the high court judgement, ‘Forster v Outred & Co [1982] 1 WLR 86’, in which, the plaintiff successfully struck out their mortgage, because she suffered actual damage upon entering into a burdensome mortgage agreement where she suffered actual economic loss. The judgement concluded that any detriment, liability or loss capable of assessment in money terms includes liabilities which may arise on a contingency, particularly a contingency over which the plaintiff had no control. I sent a letter back in January 2012 to NRAM with the following statement: "I have suffered actual economic loss as a result of the overvaluation of my property which secured this mortgage, for which I hold NRAM responsible for, in view of the fact that they undertook the valuation and appointed the solicitors concerned to complete this mortgage. I suffered an economic loss resulting from the overvaluation over which I clearly had no control, but for which NRAM should have provided a duty of care. I therefore feel that this agreement should be corrected to take into consideration the losses that I have sustained for which I had no control over." To date, I have received no reply from them and after finally contacting them on the phone yesterday, I am now told that a letter is on its way to me but they couldn't divulge the contents. I therefore wait with baited breath and keep you all informed of the reply

If the loan agreement had been agreed online but there was no signatory documentation to back it up would it still be unenforceable? Also if the credit company has admitted PPI mis selling and paid compensation, is the agreement still enforceable