Kensington Mortgage Co

[halfcj]

Does anyone know if there's a Class Action anywhere on Kensington Mortgage Co, or their owners.

2010, we were treated horrendously, after taking out a mortgage top-up of £35,000 (pre crash), KMC placed the money not into our personal account, but into the bank account of the company I worked for!! (It was the same bank) The company bankers gladly accepted the money and diverted it to pay off a business loan account of the company, never to be seen again!

All we got from KMC was an "oops sorry!, not our fault, it was the fault of the Advisers you appointed, and by the way, there's now a market crash and your mortgage payments are no longer £1,200/mth, but now £3,800/mth.....Oh wait, did we say £3,800, what we meant was over £5,000! "

They took us to court, we fought and counter claimed, and the judge sent them away on 4 occasions because they did not disclose paperwork asked for, they did not provide answers requested in the previous hearing...until we ran out of money to fight their delay tactics.

Next hearing the judge had no alternative but "not to judge on the claims", but to award possession, because we could not afford £5,500 per month going forward...surprise surprise.

We already had the house on the market for £820K and had found a cash buyer at a crazy low price of £645K! We were due to exchange the day before the re-possession date. However, as they had a 'repossession order', we had to get their permission to exchange, which, yes, you've guessed it, we couldn't get, as no-one could "authorise it". They would have got their money back that day/week!! Our buyer caught wind, and as we closed our front door to drive around to the estate agents, we got the call they had pulled out. A few weeks later, KMC sold our house for £575K...and sent us a bill for a further £75K of further charges, supposed interest, outstanding payments, legal charges....We lost our home, our business, our creditworthiness, our pension and most of all our dignity.
(over the last 4/5 years we regained our sanity but gained gained bitterness as we realised our home was now worth 3 times as much as they got!)

We can't be the only people this happened to and would love to hear there is a class action pending that we could join...or even start!

Anyone help?

[MrsD]

Re: Kensington Mortgage Co

this is not my are at all but it sounds awful. Did you not involve the police as surely what happened to the original loan was fraud by the company?

[PlanB]

Re: Kensington Mortgage Co

Your story does sound like a unique set of circumstances which may not be appropriate for a class action where all the victims will have suffered a similar fate.

Kensington didn't deal direct with its customers. The loans were offered through brokers and often packagers too (i.e. the underwriting was outsourced). So as KMC have said to you any mis-selling issues should be pursued through the broker.

If this was a "mortgage top-up" as you've described it then it would have been a further advance not a stand-alone secured loan if KMC already had a charge on your property with a first mortgage.

However if the funds were paid into the wrong account by Kensington that's a different issue. Normally KMC would pay the funds to your solicitor. The solicitor would be responsible for dealing with all matters relating to the charge on your property if the original charge specified the original loan ceiling. Then the solicitor would release the funds to you. Did you have a solicitor instructed at the time?

If the funds were transferred to a third party's account in error then they had a duty to return those funds. If they didn't return them this means they kept money which didn't belong to them. That may have been a criminal issue. Who gave KMC the company's bank details because they must have got them from someone.

Kensington's mortgage and secured loan interest rates are Libor linked which does fluctuate (historically rigged by Barclays and others allegedly). Most KMC loans started with a low fixed rate and when that honeymoon period expired the loan reverted to their variable rate which was very high. Is this why the repayments increased so dramatically?

From what you say at the possession hearing the DJ didn't grant a money judgement for the arrears, he only granted possession to the Claimant (the lender). It's not clear when you got your offer from the purchaser of your home but normally a court would grant a suspended possession order to allow time for the sale to complete. If this didn't happen it may have been because the DJ was either unaware of the offer, or unconvinced it would complete within a reasonable period of time if no payments at all were being made to the lender so their position would be prejudiced if the possession order was delayed.

If the lender subsequently sold your property for seriously below market value then you may have a claim against them (KMC).

Are you currently being chased for the KMC shortfall (if there was one after the sale)?

It seems you may have lots of avenues to explore, but I don't think a class action is one of them.

Plan B x

[PlanB]

Re: Kensington Mortgage Co

. . . Kensington Mortgage Co, or their owners.

2010, we were treated horrendously, after taking out a mortgage top-up of £35,000 (pre crash) . . . . We can't be the only people this happened to and would love to hear there is a class action pending that we could join

In 2010 Kensington was fined £1.2 million by the FSA for the way they treated mortgage customers in arrears. At the same time they were ordered to pay compensation to customers.

Did KMC ever contact you about any compensation which may have been due to you? Part of the problem has been Kensington couldn't trace customers which it had repossessed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8615870.stm

Plan B x

[halfcj]

Re: Kensington Mortgage Co

In 2010 Kensington was fined £1.2 million by the FSA for the way they treated mortgage customers in arrears. At the same time they were ordered to pay compensation to customers.

Did KMC ever contact you about any compensation which may have been due to you? Part of the problem has been Kensington couldn't trace customers which it had repossessed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8615870.stm

Plan B x

Wow - thanks Plan B - apologies for the delay in response. I didn't seem to get an email from the forum telling me I had a reply, otherwise I would have been straight back to you.

This is great information - after so long waiting for something. They don't currently seem to be chasing me, but obviously it's still there on record - and I am almost reluctant to wake a sleeping beast!
I guess I'll need to employ a solicitor to investigate all of this. My fear is that they will do exactly what they did before, which was throw legal eagles at me at every turn until I ran out of money, and then just repossessed my house. I guess my bitterness is that they sold my house for £575K, when I had placed it on the market at £820K and had an offer in - but they wouldn't get back to me to agree I could proceed (they had walking possession at the time of the offer), and their delay led to the purchaser finding out - so they pulled their offer. They may well have been the people who bought - we don't know. The house is now valued at £1.5m just 6 years later!

The irony is the link to the news item was less that a month after we were evicted. I suffered some pretty major depression for at least a year afterwards, so was not focused on news about them for some while. I fear this story may be too old fro have any effect for me, plus as I say, waking a sleeping beast.

Any thoughts?

[oneway]

Hi Halfcj,

I owned a house with the mortgage with KMC my mortgage was £1m.

My home was repossessed after i had a purchase offer for £1.4m, this was just after the financial crash so i had lost over £500k from the value of my home, The problem was that I had permission from KMC to leave goods in the home till i had found a new property to live in with my family.

KMC said that they would give me the statutory notice of 14 day when they had a buyer for my home as the sale i had arranged fell through due to the repossession.

KMC did not tell me they had sold my home they just disposed of all my stuff (irreplaceable items art and family photos as well as lots of expensive furniture).

KMC also sold the property for £1050,000 under value by about 20% then they slapped on £88k of charges and say that i owe them £140k with arrears and charges combined.

The amount of furniture and items they disposed of not including the artwork cam to £70k, I have contacted KMC on numerous occasions requesting a settlement figure and compensation for the loss of my goods (they have admitted liability for this as well) I have never had even the courtesy of even a reply from them.

I would love to start action against them for my loss and also for the value they sold my property for i estimated that they lost me over £400k.

Good to hear from you.

[halfcj]

Hi oneway.

Sad to hear your familiar story. Not sure if 2 of us is enough to start a class action. Also, as Plan B comments above, maybe it's not relevant as our circumstances are different? I'm in the hole for £74K in charges/shortfall, and my business going into liquidation as a result of their negligence. They only won the court case to re-possess because I ran out of money to fight them! They sold my house from under me for £575K when it was on the market for £820K, and is now worth £1.3m. I'm guessing it was all about the same time as you though.

I would love to open the case against them and seek compensation, I just don't know how. I guess we would need to find a firm that would take it on and find others to join in. There must be loads of others!

halfcj

[Janin]

PLEASE SUPPORT THIS PETITION TO STOP MORTGAGE LENDERS LIKE KENSINGTON CHARGING BORROWERS UNFAIR, EXCESSIVE AND UNLAWFUL CHARGES:

https://www.change.org/p/teresa-may-...share_petition

[The Tech Clerk]

Diana Mayhew one of your old post???

[Janin]

I saw your post about a Class Action which I can’t afford but we can put pressure on the tresury Committee who are responsible for the administration and policy of the HM Tresury and it’s agencies such as the Financial Conduct Authority.
PLEASE SUPPORT THIS PETITION TO STOP MORTGAGE LENDERS LIKE KENSINGTON CHARGING BORROWERS UNFAIR, EXCESSIVE AND UNLAWFUL CHARGES:


https://www.change.org/p/teresa-may-...share_petition

[Janin]

Update: I am awaiting a Financial Ombudsman Service investigation decision from Kensington Mortgage Company. I have been wanting to apply to the Financial Ombudsman Service for years and Kensington Mortgage Company responded to my complaint in writing stating I was not an eligible complainant to the FOS and The Financial Conduct Authority would not allow them to investigate my complaints about hidden, unfair and excessive charges. On one day alone back in 2013 Kensington Mortgage Company charged the account £17,612. In one year 2013-14 the total charges added to the account was over £40,000. I could only just about manage the mortgage and as a lone parent and survivor of domestic and economic abuse from my ex partner, but could not afford to pay hidden and unknown charges indefinitely, especially as they were occurring despite paying the agreed monthly mortgage amount.




In 2019 it was confirmed that I was an eligible complainant to the FOS under FCA rules and had been all along and my concerns should have been addressed back in 2014. It was also confirmed that Kensington Mortgage Company had no right to decide and tell me or the Court who was dealing with possession proceedings that the Financial Ombudsman Service had refused to help me and if the Court was minded to order that they did, they would appeal as the Court had no jurisdiction to force the FOS to consider my complaints.




That turned out to be lies and again both myself and the Court were misinformed. (There are now misconduct complaints investigations by the Bar Standards Board for the Radcliffe Chambers Barrister that passed on the incorrect information to the Judge, as well as Solicitor Regulation Authority Complaints against the Denton’s Solicitors Lawyer and Paul Heeley Kensington Mortgage Company’s own in house Senior Lawyer for their parts in misinforming the Courts) it turns out the FOS had written to Kensington Mortgage Company prior to the Court hearings informing Kensington Mortgage Company Litigation Team that my Complaints were with them, going to be investigated, I was eligible to complain and most importantly to please hold off on any eviction or repossession proceedings. Of course the Solicitors and Barrister being investigated for misconduct, forgot to tell the Judge that bit, even though he asked these questions outright. Because the Court was likely to have said that the repossession proceedings could be put on hold to allow a fair investigation by the FOS,,as the FOS also requested, these lawyers wanted a repossession so lied. I was a litigant in person so they thought I would never fight on and investigate until I found the truth, especially after I lost my home. Now the FOS investigation is tasked with putting me back to the position I would have been, had the lies and errors not occurred.




So if a lender ever writes and says you are not eligible to complain to the FOS, they are lying. Under FCA DISP Rules 1.4 they must merely inform you that you can bring a complaint to the FOS and provide a leaflet on how to complain to the FOS. It is the FOS who decides whether or not someone is eligible to complain and if they will or not. Any lender like Kensington Mortgage Company who tries to interfere with this process to help consumers knows they have done something that is wrong.




It has been 1 year 2 months since I first complained to Kensington Mortgage Company and 8 months since I was deemed in jurisdiction by the FOS and my complaint started. The FOS have asked Kensington Mortgage Company if they wish to make a settlement for their actions before the long FOS investigation concludes and Kensington Mortgage Company have said no.




However, even though I have started the complaints process to the legal regulatory authorities about the Solicitors and Barrister, Kensington Mortgage Company appear to let them be thrown under the bus. I was told to even save the reputation and careers of their legal team they might offer to settle, they have not.




I lost everything my home, much of my belongings and my home was sold at a massive undervalue leaving me with nothing. But these methods adopted by Kensington Mortgage Company and their Lawyers are tried and tested and need to be exposed so they don’t continue pulling the wool over the eyes of the Court, the Financial Conduct Authority and the public to get repossessions. So I know my case involves so much evidence that proves Kensington Mortgage Company acted intentionally wrong, this will be highlighted and hopefully prevent other families and children being made homeless

[Joanna Connolly Solicitors]

It has been 1 year 2 months since I first complained to Kensington Mortgage Company and 8 months since I was deemed in jurisdiction by the FOS and my complaint started. The FOS have asked Kensington Mortgage Company if they wish to make a settlement for their actions before the long FOS investigation concludes and Kensington Mortgage Company have said no.

However, even though I have started the complaints process to the legal regulatory authorities about the Solicitors and Barrister, Kensington Mortgage Company appear to let them be thrown under the bus. I was told to even save the reputation and careers of their legal team they might offer to settle, they have not.

I lost everything my home, much of my belongings and my home was sold at a massive undervalue leaving me with nothing. But these methods adopted by Kensington Mortgage Company and their Lawyers are tried and tested and need to be exposed so they don’t continue pulling the wool over the eyes of the Court, the Financial Conduct Authority and the public to get repossessions. So I know my case involves so much evidence that proves Kensington Mortgage Company acted intentionally wrong, this will be highlighted and hopefully prevent other families and children being made homeless

I've read your post in full and it sent shudders down my spine. Your determination to battle on until you get justice is commendable. This is a true David and Goliath story.

I expect Kensington Mortgages have declined to make you an offer in order to not be seen as admitting liability. Perhaps they think any settlement 'negotiated' via the FOS would be less harsh than damages awarded by a court. I would suggest you take some free legal advice before agreeing to anything offered (if it is).

How can anyone put a price tag on the loss suffered from losing your home, your personal possessions, and the pain and distress this must have caused you along the way.

Well Done You for keeping going, and it's not over yet.

Di

[kaisewilliams]

Omg, I feel so sorry for you! No one deserves to go through this. I'm so glad that they were severely punished. They deserve it.
Did you get your home back? It's been two years since they started looking into your case, and I'm curious how it ended. I really hope they will return your home. Or at least get your money back. After stories like this, I will be even more vigilant when I get a loan. And I will definitely consult with an expert, such as " removed advertising" Nightwatch
I hope people will continue to show the names of companies to avoid using their services in the future.