According to the Financial Ombudsman Service, endowment mortgage complaints rose by 57% last year. The number of complaints received topped 50,000.
Walter Merricks, Chief Ombudsman claimed that the surge in complaints was mainly due to publicity and greater awareness of mortgage endowment mis selling. Merricks also claimed that 93% of complaints had been resolved by other means, rather than a formal Ombudsman decision having to be made.
Our View
The publicity surrounding endowment mis selling has been gathering force, as we all know, over the last few years. We understand that the Ombudsman is under immense pressure with some mortgage endowment cases taking well over 12 months to investigate and resolve. This is obviously due to the volume of cases being received. What we are not so happy about is the rumoured bonus system to encourage case handlers to finish cases off quickly. For those not-so-conscientioius, this could mean skipping over the real facts to get a speedy conclusion. Whilst we are sure this is not the idea, this definitely goes against the new FSA document on how to incentivise your sales staff without creating more mis selling.
Factsheets - Endowment Mortgage Don't Panic and Complaints Putting Your Case Forward