Issue
Every record in the archive tagged "Communication".
Rooftop Mortgages Limited publishes a Treating Customers Fairly statement on its website. It sets out commitments about how the business says it will deal with customers, including a statement about the basis on which fees are charged.
Rooftop Mortgages Limited publishes a complaints procedure and a separate complaints leaflet. Both apply to residential and buy-to-let accounts; no separate procedure for either mortgage type is published. They record the timescales the business says it works to, including a three-day resolution route and an eight-week final response deadline.
The Rooftop Mortgages website publishes a section for customers in financial difficulty. It describes the questions staff will ask, states that assistance will be tailored, and lists forms of assistance including reduced payments — which the page says can include paying nothing for a period — and consent to let on residential mortgages.
Secure Trust Bank plc publishes a mortgages page stating that it no longer offers mortgage products to new customers and that existing customers' mortgages have been transferred to Rooftop Mortgages Limited, giving a contact telephone number and opening hours for Rooftop.
An unregulated interest-only buy-to-let mortgage of a little over £111,000 taken out in early 2007 with another lender and transferred to Rooftop Mortgages Limited in 2016. The term expired in 2022 and the borrower could not repay. Rooftop agreed a number of informal term extensions. In March 2025 it issued a formal demand. The borrower proposed selling the mortgaged property at a likely price of £75,000, paying a £5,000 lump sum from savings and repaying part of the residue from the sale of a second property expected sometime in 2026. Rooftop rejected those proposals. The complaint was not upheld.
A complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC about an interest-only mortgage and a linked mortgage current account whose term ended in 2017. The borrowers were unhappy that the bank's solicitors sent them a notice to quit and that legal fees were added to the mortgage balance after they believed the mortgage had been repaid. The complaint was not upheld.
A buy-to-let mortgage where the borrowers began having difficulty paying in mid-2023 following interest rate rises. Rooftop appointed Law of Property Act receivers to manage the property. The complaint about that appointment and about Rooftop's conduct was not upheld.
An interest-only mortgage taken out with Rooftop in 2006, fixed for two years and then reverting to LIBOR plus 4.1%. Payments from the borrowers and the Department for Work and Pensions cleared the arrears and built an overpayment balance, which was eroded from 2022 as interest rates rose and payments reduced. The complaint concerned the erosion of that balance, the interest rate increases and the charges applied, and was not upheld.
Receivers appointed by Rooftop sold a buy-to-let property at auction, leaving £69,800.45 still owing. The borrower said a letter from Rooftop meant she no longer owed it.
Outcome: The Ombudsman did not uphold the complaint. The shortfall was still owed, and the complaint about the sale itself was not one the service could consider against Rooftop.
An interest-only mortgage where the borrower arranged an equity release agreement with another provider that would not cover the full balance owed to Rooftop. She asked Rooftop to accept a shortfall of roughly £14,000, initially in February 2023, and on 7 April 2023 proposed repaying it at £500 per month on an unsecured basis. She told Rooftop she needed an answer by 12 May 2023, when the equity release offer expired. Rooftop conducted a new income and expenditure assessment on 20 April 2023 and confirmed acceptance on 12 May 2023 by telephone and by email sent at 11:12 am. The borrower was unable to confirm the equity release offer in time and the replacement offer was £10,000 lower.
Rooftop Mortgages Limited publishes a notice about the Financial Conduct Authority's Consumer Duty. The published document is marked version 1.0 dated 21 August 2023 and records that the Duty applies to closed products from 31 July 2024. It states that Rooftop is no longer an active lender and that all of its mortgages are closed products.
An interest-only mortgage taken out in 2007 with another lender transferred to Rooftop Mortgages in April 2019. The borrower made a £100 overpayment which was not applied to the capital balance, because Rooftop required overpayments of at least £1,000 to be applied to capital. The Ombudsman upheld the complaint, finding the mortgage offer permitted smaller overpayments and that Rooftop had not validly varied the contract terms.
A complaint that Rooftop made payments to a managing agent claiming service charges on a leasehold property and added the cost to the mortgage balance. Rooftop had received copies of county court judgments recording that the borrower owed the managing agent money, and a copy of a section 146 notice said to have been served on her. Rooftop wrote to the borrower each time it received a request for payment. The complaint was not upheld.
A thread started in October 2019 after borrowers received letters about the sale of their mortgage from Mortgages PLC to Rooftop.
A thread posted on 26 November 2016 by a borrower who had received a letter about their mortgage being transferred to Rooftop.
An open discussion thread started in November 2008 in which contributors describe their experience of holding a Rooftop mortgage and of trying to move to another lender.
Charges and interest
Ownership, authority and servicing