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The Fifth Sub-Prime Lender So Far To Be Fined


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HOLA441
The Financial Services Authority fined mortgage company Swift 1st £630,000 earlier this month and ordered it to compensate borrowers with £2 million of refunds. It was the fifth sub-prime lender so far to be fined for the same wrongdoing. The lenders had unfairly charged borrowers who were in arrears, said the watchdog. Although five businesses have been fined, there are others whose practices appear similarly harsh but which have yet to be censured. One is Acenden, formerly known as Capstone, a mortgage business that adminsters thousands of mortgages originally provided by offshoots of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers. Financial Mail has highlighted numerous cases where Acenden has applied large, repeated and unexplained charges to borrowers in arrears. In some cases these charges are blamed for the homeowners losing their properties.

Sheila James (not her real surname) first fell into arrears in December 2007, a year after she and her partner remortgaged for £120,500 at a high rate of ten per cent – later falling to about five per cent – on a modest 1936 two-bedroom maisonette in Whetstone, north London. Sheila, 57, lost her job that year and her partner, who also wishes not to be identified, suffered a drop in his earnings too. The couple could not keep up with the mortgage payments of about £1,100 a month and started slipping behind. Some months they managed to pay the full amount but sometimes they simply couldn’t find the money.

The FSA has received numerous complaints about Acenden, but it will not comment on individual firms. It told Financial Mail: ‘We continue to focus closely on the way firms treat customers who get into arrears. The industry as a whole can expect continued, intensive scrutiny of arrears-handling processes.’

Sheila says she has not been told of the property’s sale and says she has not been sent a final statement or given any indication as to whether she will be expected to make good the shortfall. She has lodged a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service and says: ‘Looking back, I think the penalties and charges were structured in such a way that as soon as we fell behind there was only going to be one outcome, losing the property.’

Comment from Hugh Daniels, Fun Land:

What is the story here ? 1. Borrowers circumstances change and they are unable to continue to afford the payments that had previously contractually agreed to make. This is the lenders fault, exactly ? 2. The Property was subsequently sold for a higher amount, once the lease had been extended. The lender is to blame, how ?

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HOLA442

Comment from Hugh Daniels, Fun Land:

What is the story here ? 1. Borrowers circumstances change and they are unable to continue to afford the payments that had previously contractually agreed to make. This is the lenders fault, exactly ? 2. The Property was subsequently sold for a higher amount, once the lease had been extended. The lender is to blame, how ?

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Because they are crooks and their business is based on exploiting daft people. They also helped prop up the housing pyramid by giving mortgages on properties, to people who could never afford to pay them back. All this has helped prolong the pyramid selling scam ...till now.

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