Claiming Compensation for Mis-sold Loans, Car Finance and Mortgages.

Some big UK banks, including HSBC, have failed to hit an extended deadline to clear their backlog of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) misselling complaints.

Some big UK banks, including HSBC, have failed to hit an extended deadline to clear their backlog of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) misselling complaints.
However, 97% of the 200,000 complaints not dealt with during the High Court judicial review earlier this year have now been resolved, with full offers of compensation sent out to valid complaints.
In June, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS were granted extensions to the usual eight-week resolution period, allowing them until 1 September to settle complaints unilaterally put on hold on or before 20 April 2011.

This followed the High Court loss, where banks failed to overturn new Financial Services Authority (FSA) rules to compensate those mis-sold PPI - to cover loan and credit card payments if you cannot work.
MoneySavingExpert.com understands that 194,000 of the cases put on hold have now been settled, with banks failing to resolve 6,000 within the restructured timeframe.
HSBC has admitted that not all of the letters confirming their final decisions will be sent out until 4 September, three days after the extended deadline.
Margaret Cole, interim managing director of the FSA's conduct business unit, said:
"We are encouraged that most firms have used the time extension to clear the backlog of complaints received during the judicial review. In fact, over 97% of the complaints that needed a decision by August 31 have been dealt with.
"We will continue to work with firms to monitor their progress and compliance with the PPI complaint handling timescales during the course of the year."
Complaints made since April 20
Due to the massive volume of complaints about mis-sold PPI, banks negotiated varying resolution timescales, depending on the date of a complaint.
HSBC, Lloyds and RBS are under the following mandate:
PPI complaints still with the firm but put on hold during the judicial review had to be resolved by the end of August.
Complaints received after the conclusion of the judicial review (on April 20) but on or before 31 August must be resolved within 16 weeks.
All complaints received on or after 1 September and before 31 December must be resolved within 12 weeks.
The banks will also need to keep PPI complainants and their customers fully informed and provide the FSA with regular compliance reports.
The handling of PPI complaints should return to the requisite eight weeks by January 2012.
Barclays, which agreed in June to pay everyone on hold, no questions asked, has a slightly different mandate.
All PPI complaints received between 21 April and 31 July must be resolved within 16 weeks and complaints received between 1 August and 1 October have a 12-week deadline.
All new PPI complaints received after 1 October will fall within the standard eight-week resolution period.

They have a PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) section where you can claim back PPI yourself quite easily if you have the time and can write a good letter.
PPI was a very poor deal which made huge profits for lenders and insurers.
If you are not sure if you were mis-sold ppi take a look at the checklist here.
There is no need to use a claims management company if you don't want to. Just follow the Which Guide and use the Which Template Letters they supply on their website.

Which PPI Mis-selling Checklist

Mis-selling checklist

If you can answer 'no' to one or more of these questions, then you may have been mis-sold PPI.

%u2022 If the insurance was optional, was that made clear to you?

%u2022 Did the adviser tell you about any significant exclusions under the policy - for example, the exclusion that says you won't be covered for any pre-existing medical condition?

%u2022 If you took out a loan or finance agreement, did the adviser make it clear that you would have to pay for the insurance up front in one single payment?

%u2022 If you had to pay for the PPI as a single payment, did the adviser make it clear that the insurance cost would be added to the loan and you would be paying interest on it?

%u2022 Single premium PPI insurance normally only lasts for five years. If your loan or finance agreement was for longer than this, did the adviser make it clear that the insurance would run out before you had finished paying for your loan or finance agreement? The adviser should also have told you that you would continue to pay interest on the insurance premium, even after the insurance expired.

%u2022 If you bought PPI after 14 January 2005 did the adviser try to persuade you to take it out by saying something like 'we strongly recommend that you consider taking out PPI'. If so, the sale counts as an 'advised' sale and they should have issued a 'demands and needs statement' to show why a particular policy has been recommended and why it is suitable for you. If they didn't, this is grounds for complaint.

What to do next.

If you answered 'no' to any of the questions in the checklist you should make a formal complaint as you may be entitled to compensation. Use the Which PPI re-claim tool to get redress.

If you didn't answer 'no' to any of the questions you probably weren't mis-sold, but you might still want to cancel your PPI in favour of better protection.

PPI Alternatives To Keep You Protected

WHICH Guide To Income protection- How IP works

Income protection will cover you if you are unable to work due to accident or illness
Millions of us have policies like critical illness, private medical insurance and payment protection, sold to us over the years by salespeople who convinced us we needed protecting. However, whilst they were right about the protection, they were wrong about the policies.
The one protection policy every working adult in the UK does need is the very one most of us don't have - income protection (IP).

What is IP?

IP is an insurance policy which provides you with a regular tax-free income if you can't work because of illness or disability. The benefit paid is up to a maximum percentage of your earnings - often 50% or 60%.
Policies pay out after you have been off work for a period of time known as the 'deferred period', and will continue to pay out until you can get back to work or until the end of the policy term - usually retirement.
You can choose a deferred period of four, 13, 26 or 52 weeks, depending on how long you may be able to survive on any savings or how long you receive sick pay from your employer.
The longer the deferred period, the lower the cost - for example, with some policies a four week period would cost more than twice as much a month than a 26 week deferred period.

Do I really need it?

Ask yourself the following questions. If your answer is no to all three, then you need some form of IP:
Will your employer continue to pay you a percentage of your salary indefinitely if you are off sick?
If not, and you are part of a couple, could you pay all the bills and live on your partner's income indefinitely?
If not (or you are single) do you have savings you could live off indefinitely?
Remember: Illness, accident or disability can happen to anyone. Currently 2.2 million people of working age will be off work for at least six months because of sickness and disability, and more than 2.6 million people are claiming incapacity benefit.

Is it worth having a look at your mortgage agreement to see if it is unfair or even unenforceable and making a mortgage claim? There are several companies who offer the service of taking a look at your mortgage to see if it is unfair or unenforceable. There are many reasons given why a mortgage agreement might be unfair and these differ from company to company. The best advice is to gather as much information as possible from as many firms offering the mortgage claim service.

The fees charged also vary from company to company so shop around on price. Don't pay anything until you are sure you have a case. Companies are willing to take money before they have even seen the agreement or mortgage offer. This is wrong. They cannot tell you if you have a mortgage claim before they see your paperwork.

The first thing you need to do is ask for a copy of your mortgage offer and any other related pre-mortgage offer paperwork. If you used a broker collect as much paper work as you can about the fees and terms and conditions they offered you. The more work you do now the better. It will save you time later when you are asked for the information.

You or your mortgage claim company will need to ask your lender for your full agreement records including your mortgage offer and all records relating to your mortgage. The will send for what is called a 'Subject Access Request' or SAR which will cost you £10.00. This is normal. When this has been assessed the company will be in a position to tell you if you have a mortgage claim or not.

You have to be patient. It will take years...........yes years before you may see a result for your mortgage claim. The law is always changing and when cases reach court new laws are made so you can never be sure what will happen in the long term.
Be prepared, shop around first gathering as much information as possible on a mortgage claim and most of all%u2026%u2026%u2026..be patient.

Claim Compensation for Mortgages and Loans.

Did you know that mortgage companies are preparing for massive compensation payouts to customers?

If you have taken out payment protection insurance (PPI) or accident sickness and unemployment insurance (ASU) on your mortgage you willbe able to claim this back.
You will NOW be able to have your mortgage or loan agreement checked to see if it is flawed in anyway and you may be able to claim compensation.

Have you ever borrowed money in the form of credit cards, a loan or a mortgage? If so you may have been sold Personal Protection Insurance (PPI) and you could be owed thousands of pounds in compensation. Payment Protection Insurance protects a borrower's ability to maintain repayments and helps them avoid getting into debt should they be unable to keep up their repayments due to accident, sickness or unemployment. Payment Protection Insurance is also known as: Accident, Sickness, Unemployment Cover; Redundancy Protection; Loan Protection and Mortgage Payment Cover.
Policies are available to protect most forms of personal credit, including mortgages, personal loans and credit card repayments. Cover is often purchased at the time the finance arrangement is made, but may be available at a later date or taken out as a stand-alone policy.
The Financial Services Authority recently carried out an investigation into the selling of PPI. They found that tens of thousands of people could have received bad advice and are therefore able to claim compensation. If you have or are borrowing money for any of the following reasons then you may have PPI and could be owed thousands of pounds in compensation:
Consolidation loan
Loan for a car
Credit cards
Personal loan
Mortgage
Of course, PPI could be very beneficial, but if you are not careful, it can also be very expensive. Inevitably, there is also the usual list of exclusions to look out for. For example:
Consumers must not be aware of impending unemployment
Policies do not usually cover unemployment occurring within an initial period of time
Policies exclude claims arising from pre-existing medical conditions Claims that result from your own actions will not be covered.
Like thousands of others, you may have been given bad advice. Were you told about the costs, exclusions, charges or alternative (potentially cheaper) products available to you?
Even better, it will not normally cost you anything in front fees to find out how much you are owed.
That's because most claims companies operate a no win - no fee service, so you only pay a percentage of anything they claim back. If they don't claim back anything, and then you don't pay anything!

How do I know if I've been missold Loan Insurance / PPI?
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published strict rules for the financial services industry which your financial advisor must follow.

To help you further, here are just a few of the reasons why you may have received bad advice.

You were told you had to have PPI to get the loan
You were pressured into buying PPI by a pushy sales person
You were told PPI would improve your chances of securing a loan
The small print of the contract was not fully explained to you
The cost of PPI was not fully explained to you
You were not told that PPI was included in your credit agreement

It is easy to claims back so why not claims?

Judicial review - Source 'Which'

Which? published an advert in The Times on 5 May calling on members of the British Bankers' Association to admit defeat over the PPI judicial review. They did so on 9 May.
Between 25-28 January 2011, the British Banker's Association (BBA) went to court with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Financial Ombudsman (FOS) over the mis-selling of PPI policies.
On 20 April 2011 a high court judge ruled that the BBA lost their case over complaint handling rules on Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).
On 9 May 2011 the British Bankers' Association announced that it would no longer appeal the ruling of the high court, meaning that the banks must continue to compensate consumers if they were mis-sold PPI.
Judicial Review - a win for consumers
Which? is delighted with this outcome. Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said:
'We're delighted that the BBA has at last seen sense. Hopefully this will be a watershed moment in how banks treat their customers.
We're calling on members of the BBA to respond to the complaints they may have had on hold as a matter of urgency.
No excuses to delay compensation
There are now no excuses to delay compensating those who were mis-sold this insurance product and we'd encourage anyone yet to complain to get their complaint in to whoever sold them the product and to take their complaint to FOS if the are unhappy with the response.
We hope this outcome sends a clear signal to the banks that they must move on from PPI, cannot get away with poor complaints handling, and must pay up to the roughly two million consumers who have been mis-sold.