Reply from Financial Ombudsman

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Repossession : One Thread

To those who said that the FO was a paper tiger, I'm in full agreement. It has taken them 4 months to read my letter and come to the decision that there is nothing at all they can do to help with my 'various' complaints against YBS. It seems that YBS are within their rights to:- Repossess the property even though I tried to prevent it by asking for help and suggesting various means to prevent it. Massively undersell the property. As I didn't bring the complaint to the FO within 3 years, they now class it as 'Time Barred'. YBS have got away with it. I was offered an amount for the property prior to the repossession which was approx 2K less than the asking price, YBS refused to let me sell as I was in negative equity, they sold it for 18K less than asking price a matter of months later. According to the FO this is ok. YBS continue to harrass me for 18K even though I have stressed I do not have it, they have accepted 800 from my partner as full and final that is ok. Misrepresenting an MIG is also ok, again, over 3 years old so 'Time Barred' Don't they realise that the first 3 years you are stuck in a whirlwind of fear and that you are trying your best to resolve the case amicably with the lender? Unfortunatly, it is only in the last 18 months that I have found this excellent site which has helped tremendously by informing me of my rights and what I am able to do next. It is only with deperation that you seek help from FO,

The best thing to come out of the 4 months it has taken for the FO to read my letter and reply, I have had time to live as a normal individual and actually have managed to forget about it at times. It is almost 6 years from the date of repossession, they have harrassed me solid for this time, I have tried to reach an amicable agreement, they refuse every time. I have sarned them and refused to fill out a I&E.

Typical, they always seem to get something over me just on Xmas.

I think I am now in a corner, if I don't fill out the I&E form they take me to court, this is actually looking quite inviting now, one way of ending this.

Any ideas? I'm desperate. My main concern is the I&E form, my annual salary isn't good but all the expenditure is in boyfriends name as I live with him in his house.

Any suggestions of what I should do would be gratefully accepted.

Thanks

-- Jessie (jessie01@talk21.com), December 11, 2002

Answers

Jessie,

Sorry to learn of your problems. Have you tried contacting your MP, some of them can be helpful. At the moment I am in contact with Ruth Kelly the Treasury Minister pushing the Mortgage Shortfall e-petition (www.petition-them.com) and the plight of MS victims, I think it might not be a bad idea if you wrote to her (via your MP) and show her what's going on in your case. It might not be a bad idea to contact the Office of Fair Trading too, although I'm not too sure how much they have in the way of teeth. Make sure you read the Home Repo site thoroughly too, particularly the Do's and Don'ts section, whatever you do don't acknowledge the debt. Let us know how you get on.

Mark.

-- M Amos (idgroms@hotmail.com), December 11, 2002.


Jessie I am sorry - this was my experience of them too which was why I called them paper tigers. They wrote me a pathetic letter after about three months saying basically the same thing, even though I also had proof of fraud by the Lender and it's agent (they falsified a signature on a time sensitive document and the estate agent sold my place to a friend *after* I had shown them they had no authority to do so.) The FO tells you to do what it's initials suggest I am afraid. BTW if you contribute to the boyfriend's expenditure...which I am sure you do by way of cash payments..or round sum bank transfers.... don't you, then that 50% of the expenditure has to be taken into account.

-- Too scared to say (iwasduped@yahoo.com), December 11, 2002.

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