The Treasury Committee continues to pursue its concerns regarding what is being done or can be done for ‘mortgage prisoners’. These are people who took out mortgages when lending rules were less prescriptive and/or who no longer meet current lending requirements for lenders, and are therefore unable to refinance their mortgages to take advantage of lower rates currently on offer. Often their mortgages have been sold to non-authorised entities (eg SPVs) who are therefore themselves not authorised to offer new rates to those customers, or their loan is with a firm that has since withdrawn from the lending market.
The Treasury Committee has published recent correspondence with the FCA in which Nicky Morgan asked for information regarding the FOS’ approach to dealing with complaints from such ‘mortgage prisoners’. In response, the FOS outlined their general approach to these types of complaints, and noted that they are going to meet with the UK Mortgage Prisoners group to discuss their experience.