Issue
Every record in the archive tagged "Complaint handling".
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.
Two joint buy-to-let mortgages in arrears. Rooftop's records showed final demand letters issued in August 2023 stating that LPA receivers would be appointed if the accounts were not brought up to date. Receivers were appointed. The complaint concerned notification of the appointment and the information provided about the accounts afterwards, and was not upheld.
A mortgage taken out in 2006 on a leasehold property. The borrower had been in a long-running dispute with a property management company about service charges. This service had already decided an earlier complaint about payments made up to August 2020. The Ombudsman dismissed the part of the new complaint covering that earlier period and decided the merits of one further payment. In January 2021 Rooftop received a county court judgment dated 25 November 2020 recording that the borrower owed the management company money. Rooftop wrote to her, told her she was in breach of her mortgage terms, and said that if it did not receive confirmation of an arrangement within ten days it might make the payment to protect its security. It made the payment on 16 February 2021 and added it to the mortgage account.
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.
Charges and interest
Ownership, authority and servicing