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

Hello Yours is by far the best angle to approach NRAM. Just wondered what the reply was from NRAM. If they bothered to reply at all?

Hi thereJust wondered if you had made any progress with your complaint to NRAM? The charges you listed are almost identical to mine! Did you ever hear back from NRAM? I also wrote a letter of complaint about the charges making matters worse for me; the next thing I knew, they wrote to me threatening eviction?

Would I be ok starting a small claims case with the info I have or would I need to try and work the interest out first?

 

Has anyone ever started a small claims case against a bank or mortgage lender before that can give me some pointers?

 

Thnaks for your reply

 

tbqfh

Hi,

 

I was one of the original posts on this forum. Came off a fixed deal linked to Base Rate and went on to SVR which doubled mortgage overnight. Couldn't move my mortgage as too high LTV and NRAM won;t offer new deal, so as someone put it, we're in this unhappy marriage.

 

Took complaint to NRAM, which stated I had no grounds for complaint over a year ago. I advised them in writing afterward that I therefore was applying an arbitrary rate of interest the same as they had - they want to charge me 4.75 SVR; so I stated that a fairer market norm was 3.83%, I had never missed a payment (still haven't) and that I wasn;t prepared to pay for the mistakes of their crappy business model. I cancelled the direct debit with my bank and every month I pay them £800 on my debit card instead of what they want. Arrears accrue.

 

About 10 times a month they ring me and we have a chat although most of the time I ignore their calls now - can be grinding at times, but take heart from the fact that you know the case history and that the person on the other end of the phone is generally clueless - to be fair to them, some do try really hard to be helpful. Every time, I advise them that we are in dispute and that until that dispute is resolved, I shall pay the amount I feel is appropriate, and not what they feel. They've advised that arrears will reach a limit where they consider court action - I await that day and would welcome it, but based on the differential that's about 5 years away!

 

There's about 350,000 to 400,000 of us at NRAM, with around 300,000 or potentially less as mortgage account holders. NRAM is repaying the government at a rapid rate because you and me are paying uncompetitive / penal rates of interest because we can't move to another provider and therefore NRAM has us by the short and curlies. In 2011, they made £790m profit - that's around £2,500 (over £200 a month) in pure profit from every one of us. If you consider how much operating costs NRAM has because of its bureacratic make-up and extensive collection costs, then I think you'll find that profit figure is a whole lot higher than £2,500. We're being ripped off hook, line and sinker.

 

I am about to finally write to FOS on my complaints - been meaning to do this for over a year and no doubt they'll try the 6 month rule on me. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

For anyone receiving calls or being hassled by them, don't let them get to you. Come on to this forum and discuss issues with fellow strugglers. How I choose to deal with NRAM might not be right for you and while I may just be saving up problems for the future, I will not have these crooks dictate my life. Liberate yourself and take control! Better still, do it in numbers and maybe they'll listen.

Hello thereJust wondering how you have been getting along? I too don't believe that I should be paying for Northern Rock 'bad' management with a SVR of 4.79%. I have just been taken to court by NRAM for a few thousand pounds arrears. Even though I was paying the full contractual amount. It back fired on them as the Judge went in my favour and lowered the amount I have to pay each month. Only 14 years and 5 months to go.......

Just a quick update on this.

 

I've had my 'fixed-sum loan agreement' looked at by a couple of legal advisors. All agree this has several points to argue and are looking into whether anyone has actually taken NR to court over this to mark against any such existing test case.

 

Interestingly, all of the advisors I've spoken to claim they have had "an influx" of people questioning the legality of these agreements so it could be the case that many people are considering legal action against NR.

 

If you have one of these Together Mortgages with NR, I'd really like to hear from you - whether you have already looked into raising a complaint or not.

Hello to youI have a together mortgage and my 5 year fixed rate of 5.89% ended January 2012. I am now on the SVR of 4.79%. I am happy to be included with this complaint. Excellent news!