Can We All Do Something Meaningful About Starting A 'class Action' Against Lenders ?

[ryde]

I personally had an excellent experience with the FOS despite others criticising the system,litigation was suspended pending their decision(in fact the lender suggested this but it was not this shower here but a proper high st lender) the process took about 15 months due to the fos caseload and they brokered a great deal with the lender who would not listen to my proposals directly.So a great deal,could not speak more highly of the service.

[eagleforms]

Ryde, I am heartened by your experience because all I keep getting are letters from the Adjudicator saying that his investigations are continuing. Let's hope that Rocket gets a good hearing from the FOS because she clearly deserves a change of luck and to have some peace of mind. Please let us know how you get on, Rocket. Please look after youself and your son and also, please contact Ell-en as has been suggested here. She is very experienced and will be able to give you a lot of support.

[rocket1]

What on earth has happened to my post 77 which has just vanished. I certainly didn't edit it out of existence ?

 

any ideas anyone.

 

Obviously it was there because eagleforms responded to it and their post 78 shows that.

[rocket1]

HERE IS THE FIRST PART OF MY POST 77 WHICH MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHED.

 

A quick update which should interest you all.

 

Today, I filed an official complaint with the Financial Ombudsman's office about me being mis-sold a mortgage three years ago by SPML, and more particularly the broker, who was a subsidiary company of the credit card people, Capital One. I will describe details of this mis-selling later, when I have more time. It would appear to be a very strong case; we'll see.

 

This is how fighting back against these dishonest lenders works.

 

- You could choose to spend huge amounts of money employing a lawyer to take a lender or broker to court (or be part of a class action, which will still cost all that money which has to be found from somewhere).

 

- it appears no one will get legal aid because in the very own words of the CAB person I saw today 'The Government have destroyed the legal aid system. Even we at the CAB really struggle to find a legal aid lawyer to use'.

 

Lawyers no longer want to do any legal aid work as the Government refuses to pay them properly. So, legal aid is completely withering away.

 

 

- BUT There is a different and much, much easier route, and I really would like you all to pay attention carefully.

 

If you believe you have a case for mis-selling or similar - any appropriate case of complaint against either a lender or broker, what you do is this.

 

- First of all you write a letter of complaint, setting out the nature of your complaint, to the lender or broker and ask them to respond back.

 

- if there is no response (most likely) or you are not satisfied with the response (which is most likely to just be a fob off if you do get any response at all) then you telephone the Financial Ombudsman, or write setting out the nature of the complaint you have against the broker or lender.

 

The Ombudsman will then liaise with you in a totally non-legal and informal manner to obtain as much information as is necessary for the Ombudsman to investigate your side of the story.

 

The rest of this post to follow when I find out what has been going on with it being deleted.

[rocket1]

Nope, its been deleted again

 

Can anyone tell me why ?

[eagleforms]

Rocket, it's very strange but my post 68 has also been wiped out. Can't remember what it said, but I am sure that it didn't need to edited, just like yours didn't. If I remember it was about your complaint to the FOS. What was contentious about that? If the mods have been at work, please tell us why.

[ryde]

ROCKET IS THIS THE MISSING POST?

cannot see whats contentious as its just an opinion?

eagleforms

the ombudsman took about 18 months with my complaint because apparently theyre flooded out,that was over 2 years ago so the wait is probably more now.

Even if the complaint cannot be fully resolved a compromise is usually brokered with the fos as the mediator,that was my experience.

your posts which I have via email notification just got autobotted as soon as I put them up.!!!!

Edited March 9, 2010 by ryde

[eagleforms]

Thanks Ryde. can't think why they have been autobotted. Perhaps a mod can tell us.

[ryde]

ROCKET

is the similar post on the spml thread edited?

Have just tried to find it,apparently yes.

Edited March 9, 2010 by ryde

[rocket1]

ryde,

 

it appears so

 

And in your post 85 there is no link that you appear to have put in - meaning that has been removed. Or if you copied the whole post then that too has been removed.

[rocket1]

10

 

Evidence in Support of Application Notice N244

 

During the whole of 2009 I was becoming increasingly ill with extreme stress, clinically diagnosed by my GP who referred me to a consultant psychiatrist for appropriate treatment. A principal feature of untreated extreme clinical stress is increasingly inability to function in any meaningful way.

 

This meant that although I believed I was able to process my considerable amount of paperwork and bring my mortgage issues under control to the satisfaction of the lender so that no eviction would take place; it was impossible owing to my increasing illness. This state of illness also included physical exhaustion on quite an extreme scale as a result of failed abdominal surgery three years ago to deal with a pre-cancerous condition of my oesophagus.

 

Medication designed to reduce signal traffic between synapses and therefore mechanically reduce the process of stress has resulted in me now returning to a normal state of function and able to process paperwork previously unable to be dealt with.

 

If this had take place timeously in the normal course of events more than a year ago, no repossession proceedings would have been brought in the first place. And when they were brought, the fact I was accepted for inclusion in the government backed ‘Mortgage Rescue Scheme’ would have ( as it did for a time) have stopped the lender proceeding with repossession leading to eviction.

 

I am in receipt of pension credit benefit as a lone parent bringing up a child alone and unaided and was and am also legally entitled to receipt of mortgage interest relief which would pay the current monthly mortgage payments in full. This application has been part processed and my state of illness has prevented me from progressing it further to its conclusion.

 

I contracted a very severe kidney infection/ and or influenza (my doctor thinks possibly both) on February 19th which resulted in me being entirely incapacitated and bedridden with a high temperature for about seven days and part incapacitated for a further seven days, making a total of fourteen days of virtually total incompetence during which time I was unaware of any eviction notice until Tuesday March 2nd.

 

This temporary illness was so severe my doctor was obliged to visit me at home, during which time he advised that I be taken to hospital as my condition was so severe as to warrant hospitalisation. I was obliged to decline as there was no one else to look after my eleven year old son.

 

My son is also now ill and cannot attend school which means that whilst I am now recovering adequately enough from my recent illness, much of my time is taken up with attending to the needs of a very ill eleven year old boy.

 

This inevitably has to take precedence over anything else, thus further making it difficult to timeously deal with an eviction date that is so close as to exclude any possibility of dealing with it in the short time allotted before the eviction date of March 15th.

 

It is the case that I have been a victim of the mis-selling in the sub-prime mortgage market since 1999 owing to my desperate attempts to survive and keep a roof over the heads of three children and my increasingly mentally ill partner and mother of my son who began to suffer from schizophrenia when our son was born eleven years ago.

 

Her illness, as is typically the case, destroyed every aspect of normal life, employment, income etc, and made me an easy victim of unscrupulous lenders and brokers in the sub-prime mortgage industry.

I have now initiated a formal complaint (number 9320194) concerning my existing mortgage lender, SPML, with the Financial Ombudsman Service concerning the mis-selling of my current mortgage with lender SPML.

 

A number of issues arise, the most relevant may perhaps be the simple fact that both the lender (SPML) and the broker ( a subsidiary of Capital One) were both expressly repeatedly informed by me that I was currently unemployed, a lone parent on State benefits, re-mortgaging only because I was being re-possessed by previous lender Birmingham Midshires, whose broker had informed me he ‘ specialised in getting mortgages for people with no employment who were on State Benefits’.

 

I will, in due course , also be formally lodging a complaint about the mis-selling of this mortgage.

 

In total, I have been milked of about £700 000 of equity over a ten year period, owing to the activities of mortgage lenders who all appear to pursue the same agenda of using the process of ‘conversion’ to illegally deprive property owners of their equity.

 

With all this in mind I would respectfully request the court to suspend the warrant of eviction to allow me the necessary time to progress the mortgage rescue scheme application and also the monthly interest payments which, combined, will provide no valid reason for eviction and will take the mortgage away from a lender who is a subsidiary of Lehmans Bros, notorious for financial malpractices, currently winding down its business in the full and certain knowledge that it is insolvent and, I am led to believe, treading illegally and without authority to repossess any property on which it originally initiated mortgages on.

 

Curiously, the SPML annual report ending November 2008 states that SPML mortgages have been bundled into separate subsidiary companies described by SPML as ‘Special Purpose Vehicles’ which, in turn, are wholly owned by charitable trusts.

 

As the Charity Commission instructs me that charities or charitable trusts have to have a clear public benefit and ‘charitable purpose’ it would appear, on the face of this information, that SPML are engaged in criminal activity and have no legal entitlement to use my mortgage loan for this purpose as it represents a process of ‘conversion’ of my equity which is illegal by both virtue of comprising the act of ‘ conversion’ and also by virtue of being a criminal act under the legislation concerning charities and charitable trusts.

And that they (SPML) have no jurisdiction over my mortgage as it has been sold without my knowledge or consent with the sole intention and expectation that the said mortgage would be terminated for the benefit of investors within approximately two years instead of the full term; and that SPML have no legal right to seek repossession, not least because of various legislation, which I need time time to collate and cannot include in this summary attached to my application for stay of eviction.

 

I therefore seek an order of the court that:

 

- eviction be stayed pending the outcome of the financial Ombudsman enquiry.

- and eviction be stayed in any case to allow me time to properly assemble my case and collate the necessary evidence and obtain proper legal representation to be properly able to obtain justice in a matter which has been so far markedly unjust.

- and eviction be further stayed in any event to allow me time to complete the Government ‘mortgage rescue scheme’ which will entirely remove my mortgage from a rapacious and unprincipled lender, operating on the fringes of the law in order to unlawfully ‘convert’ the equity of borrowers to their own wrongful ownership in defiance of financial regulations as robustly described by the Treasury Select Committee reporting in late 2009.

 

- and that eviction be stayed until such time as the temporary illness of my son and myself is removed as eviction at this time is highly likely to result in pneumonia in either my son or myself as influenza is well known to be a dangerous killer - particularly of the young - as secondary infections such as pneumonia commonly take hold and kill victims of influenza and that currently, any trivial physical activity (as advised by the doctor) by either my son or myself ensures an instant further relapse of this illness, thus guaranteeing that the process of eviction will make this illness worse and potentially unnecessarily endanger the health of either my son or myself.

 

- and that eviction be further stayed because there has been no opportunity whatever in the time since I became aware of the notice of eviction in just five days time for me to do anything at all about providing alternative accommodation for my ill son or to even register with my local council as putatively homeless and in urgent need of bed and breakfast accommodation by the council.

 

- and eviction be further stayed on the grounds that two recent telephone calls between the Lender SPML and me which I have recorded on tape, and which I can supply a transcript of, clearly indicate the lender is in breach of its legally defined fiduciary duty as described by legislation, by virtue of insisting on repossession and eviction with complete disregard as to other more appropriate solutions, and that the lender is unnecessarily pursuing eviction when alternative solutions exist. This is in clear breach of financial regulations.

[ryde]

ryde,

 

it appears so

 

And in your post 85 there is no link that you appear to have put in - meaning that has been removed. Or if you copied the whole post then that too has been removed.

 

copied your whole post and it wouldn't let me post it.

Think capstone may have took over the whole site.

[ryde]

rocket

edited your post all references to specific parties removed.

Be careful of libel you cannot post unproven accusations only proven facts.

SEE THE GUIDE.

EG you cannot say the lender stole your money or home or words to that effect.

edited version on spml thread.

[IdaInFife]

A quick update which should interest you all.

 

Today, I filed an official complaint with the Financial Ombudsman's office about me being mis-sold a mortgage three years ago by SPML, and more particularly the broker, who was a subsidiary company of the credit card people, Capital One. I will describe details of this mis-selling later, when I have more time. It would appear to be a very strong case; we'll see.

 

This is how fighting back against these dishonest lenders works.

 

- You could choose to spend huge amounts of money employing a lawyer to take a lender or broker to court (or be part of a class action, which will still cost all that money which has to be found from somewhere).

 

- it appears no one will get legal aid because in the very own words of the CAB person I saw today 'The Government have destroyed the legal aid system. Even we at the CAB really struggle to find a legal aid lawyer to use'.

 

Lawyers no longer want to do any legal aid work as the Government refuses to pay them properly. So, legal aid is completely withering away.

 

 

- BUT There is a different and much, much easier route, and I really would like you all to pay attention carefully.

 

If you believe you have a case for mis-selling or similar - any appropriate case of complaint against either a lender or broker, what you do is this.

 

- First of all you write a letter of complaint, setting out the nature of your complaint, to the lender or broker and ask them to respond back.

 

- if there is no response (most likely) or you are not satisfied with the response (which is most likely to just be a fob off if you do get any response at all) then you telephone the Financial Ombudsman, or write setting out the nature of the complaint you have against the broker or lender.

 

The Ombudsman will then liaise with you in a totally non-legal and informal manner to obtain as much information as is necessary for the Ombudsman to investigate your side of the story.

 

It is less onerous in terms of providing the sort of cast iron evidence needed for a court. In short, it is a much easier process to build a case, it would seem. But I'm sure there is a down side of one sort or another.

 

The Ombudsman will also investigate the lender's or broker's side of the story and weigh the balance of probability to decide whether a broker or lender has 'ripped you off' in some way or otherwise misbehaved.

 

- If the Ombudsman decides your complaint is correct and you are right and finds in your favour, the Ombudsman then considers any losses you have incurred, including losses for damages such as stress etc as well as money losses from the lending process and rip off penalty fees and Early Redemption penalties etc.

 

- The Ombudsman then arrives at a figure and tells the lender or broker who has acted wrongly to pay you what the Ombudsman tells them to pay you up to the maximum figure of £100 000 per separate complaint. So three separate complaints about three sub-prime mortgages in a row could mean you get £300 000. £100 000 for each mortgage complained successfully about.

 

There is no problem about extracting the money because the law says that any decision by the Ombudsman telling a financial organisation to cough up to right a wrong the ombudsman thinks they have committed, is binding in law and the financial organisation has no choice but the pay up or be put out of business. The Ombudsman is a compensation service to compensate people wronged by financial organisations. That's their own words.

 

So, when I asked everyone to write down their mortgage experiences, this is what that is for. If you don't write down those mortgage experiences, then it will not be possible to pick out of the narrative what points of law to complain to the Ombudsman about.

 

What we now need to do is to list all the common mistakes brokers and lenders make which leaves them open to complaints of mis-selling and other types of complaint.

 

We need to list all those causes and examples of mis-selling etc.

 

It will be helpful if we all have access to reading other people's stories to see examples of where mis-selling has taken place and is upheld by the Ombudsman. As I said previously, there should be no problem about anyone writing up their stories, because they should be completely anonymised - easy enough to do.

 

 

this is post 77 - can you see it?

 

there was aprobelem yesterday/today with the site and some posts only showed when in the edit function

 

 

can you confirm this is ok now on this thread

 

rocket you have said you contacted site team and got no response

 

can you confirm how you contacted the site team?

 

Ida x

[enoughisenough]

Posts are being pulled left right and centre here. Posters who achieved something are being banned. A famous most illuminating poster once told me in confidence that even the cag is not to be trusted. I once believed in the cag. Who do I believe in now? Too many AWOL posts for my liking. Especially those selected for the horror of extraordinary rendition. A belief in democracy my arse.

[ryde]

I can confirm what idainfife says that the posts did indeed show in the edit function

[cerberusalert]

The posts are not "being pulled left right and centre here", as Ida said there's been a software glitch & some where not showing. If anybody's posts are pulled for whatever reason you will be notified.

[rocket1]

Various posters on these forums have said how frustrated they are that no real progress is being made in bringing legal action against the sub-prime lenders.

 

I think you are quite right about being frustrated that nothing meaningful has yet been achieved, excepting some victims have been helped a bit.

 

I am equally frustrated and completely astonished that when I started a thread about trying to organise a class action, only a handful of people said 'yeah me too' but nobody has actually offered any meaningful contribution to progress the issue.

 

I have been too involved in problems I currently have to spend any time on the idea at present. I am currently trying to evade eviction and a huge raft of consequential problems consuming my life - all caused by the sheer wickedness of years and years of mortgage sub-prime hell.

 

It would seem to me that no progress will be made without conversations with a lawyer.

 

I have a vague layman's idea of how there is almost certainly a case to be brought against the sub-prime lenders, but without a lawyer's perspective, I just haven't a clue how to proceed.

 

 

In the past, when a lawyer has pointed out how to proceed in litigation about something, or if I have read something like a law report or judgement, I can instantly understand how to proceed in that particular manner and am capable (sort of ) of doing it myself if necessary. But you need a lawyer to know just what to focus on and how to proceed in the first place.

 

So, the bottom line is, who amongst us might be a lawyer with whom we can discuss basic concepts of how we might proceed with an action ?

 

We don't need an official (and paid for) lawyer actually acting for us yet. Just a few minutes of conversation might be all that's needed for us lot - that's you and me and others here - to bustle off an do the time consuming legwork to start building the case.

 

For instance, someone spending the time to get information from America about the Ameriquest class action brought by several State Governing bodies in 2006 so we could see the legal framework of that. It might be all we need to show us how to proceed as it may possibly be the same sort of action we seek to bring. But, of course, it may be quite different. But I am sure it might be useful though !

 

So, our first objective is to find a legal brain to just talk to about generalities. A proper paid for (or pro bono ?) lawyer comes later.

 

The first question to pose to this lawyer is 'Tens of thousands of people have been either partly or completely stripped of their home equity and often been made homeless and suffered other serious consequential losses as a result of being manipulated and duped by the mortgage providers owned by the banking industry.

 

'That these same homeowners would never have suffered these losses if their mortgages were administered within the same sort of transparently honest structure and system of mortgage lending that was previously so successfully undertaken by the original mortgage lending mutually owned building societies whose aim was to facilitate home ownership rather than engage in predatory lending to squeeze as much profit for themselves as possible out of homeowners .

 

' It is self evident the banks took over the original mutually owned building societies in order to milk profit for themselves out of the housing market.

 

'It is equally self evident that the costs of mortgages of any sort for any homeowner have risen exponentially since the banks forcibly took over the mortgage lending market; and that repossessions and evictions and resulting homelessness and other associated social problems have also risen exponentially as a direct result of the mortgage lending subsidiaries of the banks forcing homeowners to accept deliberately predatory lending contracts designed to maximise profit for the banks.

 

'That the entire mortgage market is rigged and manipulated by a small cartel of only a handful of principal banks who have contrived to completely drive out of the market the older style, simplistic mortgage which is now virtually non existent as a direct result of the banking cartel's activities.

 

'The banks have contrived a delusion of the concept of 'the unreliable and risky borrower' as an excuse to create the infamous 'sub-prime mortgage lending market.'

 

'That these sub-prime lenders have engaged in predatory and wrongful, frequently fraudulent and sometimes criminal practices directed against homeowners in order to deprive homeowners of money, and to wrongfully convert homeowner's property to their own use.

 

So, Mr Lawyer, how might we find a way of constructing a class action case against one (to set a precedent) or all of these extremely nasty and grasping mortgage lending organisations ? What do we need to actually look for ?

 

What would be the list of many possible grounds for bringing a case so we can look at each possibility and discover it's presence (hopefully) as experienced by homeowners with mortgages ?

 

Perhaps we could all start making a list of what we think these grounds might be, many of which have been discussed on these forums.

 

Anyone want to make a start here right now ?

[Helplessconsumer]

bump

[rocket1]

My thirteen year old son and I have been deliberately made homeless and thrown out onto the streets today by Social Services. There was no warning whatever. Both of us will be sleeping in a shop doorway or similar tonight or certainly by tomorrow night.

 

My local Council illegally & wrongly described me as 'intentionally homeless' after I was evicted from my home in March this year by a vicious sub-prime mortgage lender (Lehmans Bros subsidiary SPML).

 

This meant the Council could deny they had any legal obligations under law to re-house my son & I. They had announced about three years ago they intended to do this and describe me as ‘intentionally homeless’ . It seemed obvious to me the Council official concerned was being deliberately spiteful for some unknown reason.

 

Frankly, they seemed to me to be sadists who had an opportunity to ‘get at’ a professional ‘middle class’ person and kick the hell out of him by the inappropriate exercise of the power they had over me. There is simply no other way of putting it. They seemed to be making that very clear to me - although of course they will deny that.

 

Without any meaningful warning I was therefore consequently thrown out of the B&B the Council had originally put me in immediately after I had been evicted .

 

The Council then told me to contact Social Services who now had a legal duty to ensure my child was adequately housed and not homeless & on the streets.

 

Social Services duly housed my son & me in bed & breakfast accommodation for five weeks until today, August 1st, constantly telling me various arrangements to obtain permanent accommodation would be pursued, including my legal appeal against the wrongful & illegal behaviour of the Council who had wrongfully 'dumped' me on social services instead of fulfilling their legal obligation of re-housing as statute clearly states.

 

But today, August 1st 2011, with no warning at all, not even just one hour, I am told by Social Services that they are no longer funding Bed & Breakfast accommodation for my son & me and I must leave it with immediate effect. They told me to go and ask 'one of my son's friends to put him up' - presumably expecting me to sleep on the streets !

 

I have spent the entire day telephoning Social Services, being roundly abused by them and with them putting the phone down on me with every call for no reason other than they did not want to hear me asking them how I was expected to find and pay for or otherwise find accommodation when I have no means of any kind to do so.

 

I informed them repeatedly that I did not know a single person who would be able to accommodate my son & I and their constant response to this was to repeat to me their demand that I simply perform a conjuring trick and ‘go and find my own accommodation today’ by ‘asking someone to put my son up’.

 

This is why they always put the telephone down on me so they could avoid further discussion. They were completely, unbelievably, abusive. It was extra-ordinary and surreal talking to them.

 

They made various threats to me, the principle one being they expected me to properly look after my son and that meant providing accommodation for him & if I could not do that then they would take him into care.

 

The implication was that they were threatening me with their intention to place my son in care when they had evidence of him being homeless on the streets with me, despite the fact it would be a situation of their deliberate making.

 

My son has already informed them he will not allow himself to be so wantonly and wrongly parted from me or taken into care without any proper justification when he is of the opinion Social Services have simply taken leave of their senses.

 

Can anyone help with advice ?.

 

The help I need is mainly legal advice which I cannot get at all as all my attempts to find a lawyer have resulted in the same result of me being told the legal aid system is so derelict that it is no longer possible to get legally aided for ‘civil cases’, although dead easy for criminal issues. Many actual solicitors themselves have told me this.

 

Are there any current or ex lawyers here on these threads who can guide me (informally & entirely without liability) as to what points of law to pursue and how to word & bring necessary applications to court etc. I am completely clueless without legal advice.

 

I am quite capable of standing up in court & doing what is necessary, but only if I know what to do. I don’t really want to do that though as essentially I would say that I know perfectly well that a competent lawyer is always needed to represent an issue in court even if it is a lawyer himself who is either bringing or defending a case in court. By choice I would NEVER be a litigant in person, so matter how cocky I felt and I would ALWAYS rather employ a lawyer to do the job. But I have no choice here.

 

URGENT HELP ANYONE !!!

 

PS - another bit of spite the council have come up with is their announcement they intend ‘disposing of all my possessions’ which they announced they had ‘seized’ from the storage they had been placed in.

 

So my whole life time of domestic and personal chattels and possessions are being effectively stolen by my local Council. Some have already been stolen during the eviction process.

 

The whole thing is an incredible story and frankly, almost defies belief. But it is all absolutely true.

 

Just to help in putting all this in perspective, I am sixty three years old, and all my possessions are being viciously trashed by the council, leaving me with nothing. No photos etc of my kids, no mementos of my sixty three years alive, no nothing - because these wicked vandals tell me they have ‘seized’ them and intend ‘disposing’ of them just because they want to do so.

 

You couldn’t really make all this up, could you ?

 

SINGLE DAD BLOG at:

Edited August 3, 2011 by citizenB
typo correction - removed blog link

[perplexity]

What you are doing is making yourself look like nothing but trouble, right from the start.

 

Except perhaps for a journalist short of a story, the market for trouble is poor, so I am not so surprised if nobody wants to know.

[HardYards]

Rocket, I am so sorry to hear about your situation. I have no legal experience but maybe this might be of help:

 

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/UsefulContactsByCategory/Governmentcitizensandrightscontacts/DG_195356

 

Apologies if you've already tried this....

[raydetinu]

Contact SHELTER immediately, they deal with SS and councils all the time and can give you legal advice.

[watchinginvestigation2011]

OMG I really hope you are okay xx

[bedlington83]

Could someone more knowledgeable than me tell me if someone being evicted due to repossession by a lender is regarded as that person making themselves intentionally homeless? This seems to be the crux and origin of the Ops problem.

In respect of the eviction from the B&B by the council can the mods please cross-post this to residential lettings where the OP is more likely to get meaningful advice in respect of this aspect of his problems?