Advice needed re ulster bank "losing" a document

I took out a tracker mortgage with Ulster bank in August 2005. I fixed my rate in 2006 for a period of two years. When the fixed rate expired I was put onto their variable rate in 2008. From reading of other cases with Ulster bank I was apparently entitled to go back to a tracker mortgage in 2008 as my fixed rate contract in 2006 would have said about being put back to home loan rate which the ombudsman in other cases has said means tracker rate.

I only realised all this in the last few months and unfortunately when I checked my documents I realised that I didn't have the fixed rate contract from 2006. I requested this from Ulster bank on the 16th February. Finally after the last two months of difficulties with the bank and being passed to their complaints department I received a letter today stating that they can't find this document and as an apology they want to give me €350. I am really suspicious of this that they can't find the one document that would show I was entitled to a tracker mortgage. Has anyone any advice for me or has experienced anything like this before. I know I'm outside of the six year time frame for the ombudsman so I'm wondering have I any other options as in taking a legal case myself. If they have no documentation to show that I signed for a fixed rate in 2006 does that make that contract null and void? Thanks

Hi. Your solicitor should have a copy. I would suggest using the €350 to obtain this document from your solicitor.

No I don't think solicitors get copies of anything after the initial contract. Thanks anyway

I wouldn't accept any money from them.

It looks very suspicious.

If you pay 3 euro you can request everything the bank has belonging to you, phone calls /letters etc.

Surely your letter of offer would contain such information. I would request that first.

My other advise to you would be to contact a person on here who deals with all these situations all the time. He's meant to be very good but I can't remember his username. Maybe another poster can give you his info..

Was it definitely a tracker mortgage on the original loan offer in 2005? If so then ask why you did not go back to tracker after the fixed was up, if UB say you gave up that right when you signed the fixed rate appendix then ask them to prove that by showing you the copy of where it says that. Definitely don't take the 350.

Yeah it was definitely a tracker mortgage which I didn't realise I had until a year ago. Nobody told me back in 2005 what a tracker mortgage meant and that I would lose it
You see from other posts on here other ulster bank customers are saying that it's the form from 2006 the one going on to the fixed rate is the important one as that's the one that would have said you revert to home loan term. In 2008 when the fixed rate was up I automatically went onto the variable rate as they didn't offer a tracker then.

Gigantic lamb I can't pay the €3 as ulster bank are saying they can't find this document. Am I being totally too suspicious that a bank in Ireland destroyed documents on people's files in case they asked for trackers back?

Thank you all for your replies so far as this is very stressful especially when I found out that the ombudsman won't help me

What was your tracker rate in 2005? We took out one in 2005 and ours is ECB + .9%. We never strayed from it but in June 2008 the ECB hit a high of 4.25%..
So a variable rate in June 2008 may well have seemed an attractive choice (even if you should have been offered a tracker at that

Nobody knew in 2005 how valuable it was so that's just unfortunate that the fact that you weren't told back then what the tracker mortgage meant and that you would lose it, it wouldn't have been a major issue with staff at that time.

I doubt the bank has gone through files which are stored off site in huge facilities looking for one document in each file to destroy it, you have to request back a whole box of files to get to just one, the cost would be enormous. Too much of a conspiracy theory I think, to be fair one form is fairly easy lose, probably more a case of misfiled than actually lost but that doesn't help you much.

When you completed the form did you post it back directly to Head Office or give it to a branch?

I would have thought that a signed contract is of importance to the Bank to retain.I cannot see it being just lost .

For e6.50 you are entitled to request a SAR (Subject Access Request) , what it is is a full copy of things on your account.
It is a lot of work for Ulster but tough!

It would be important to the bank to keep it and I doubt they misplaced it intentionally. Very easy for stuff to be filed wrong, take O'Connor for example, leave out the O or the apostrophe, leave no gap and write as OConnor and they will end up in different places if scanned and filed, if manually filed then human error and our atrocious spelling comes into play.

I doubt very much that there is anything suspicious about them losing the document, I just think it is probably down to gross incompetence. That's not unique for Ulster Bank

Was your mortgage taken out with Ulster Bank or with First Active?, that may have an impact on where things were stored. Remember UB took over FA and everything at the front end migrated to the UB name but I doubt if they moved anything they had in storage in FA at the time.

AnneB77 said:

I am really suspicious of this that they can't find the one document that would show I was entitled to a tracker mortgage.

If they have no documentation to show that I signed for a fixed rate in 2006 does that make that contract null and void?

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I would be really suspecious too. It's either deliberate or sheer incompetence and I favour the former.

It would seem to me that you know what you signed for, the bank cannot prove otherwise so you should be entitled to what you say you signed for as the bank cannot prove otherwise. So them losing the document can be used in your favour. Go throught the complaints departmetn (so called in Ulster bank) who will not do anything only send you round in circules, get their final response letter and go to the Ulster banks complaints department known as the Ombudsman by Ulster bank and take your chances there.

From past experience I would use an expert, something I regret not doing. Try poster on here Padkiss, he has the pulse on this. Padraic Kissane or find someone local to you. He's a straight dealer from his posts and newspaper articles and he'll tell you if you have a chance. It will stack the odds more in your favour.

Bronte's right, I also would advise seeking professional help with this. I contacted Padkiss (Padraic Kissane) through this site and got my UB tracker restored and backdated, all sorted within 6 months with no Ombudsman involvement.

In my case, my original tracker loan offer stated "a tracker rate for the lifetime of the mortgage". So, regardless of what fixing I did on the mortgage (I fixed the rate twice), and what the terms stated on the fixed rate offer at each time of fixing, my mortgage always had to revert to a tracker based on what my original loan offer stated.

Seek help from someone with experience here......there's too much at stake to be merely fobbed off.

Ulster Bank lost all of my account opening details re money laundering etc. Twice!!!! I have refused to give them third copies.
I can guarantee you that your solicitor was sent the loan approval letter back when your account was approved. You need to check this out.

Grizzly, it is highly unlikely the solicitor has the fixed rate document. Yes they will probably have a copy of the original loan documentation, but when you fix or do other changes, the letter of changes offer comes to the customer only and is not done via a solicitor.

Yes there is no second letter of offer, the original goes to the solicitor but none of the subsequent changes like opting for fixed rates. I agree too that the fact that they can't find it should actually work to your advantage, you have your original tracker offer and they can't prove they changed that entitlement because they have lost the document.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond to my post. I really appreciate it.
As some of you said you doubt it's suspicious but they were able to provide me with every other document which is what raised my suspicion in the first place.
Thanks again

I have a similar situation with boi
I had original documents which were carried around and sent to eg ombudsman and then one day I couldn't find them.

I asked boi to send them out and they sent out 4 but said 2 documents were not retrievable.

I raised the issue as a complaint to the ombudsman. The ombudsman said they had no role and to raise it with the data protection office.
The issue has been running now for 6 months.

As you say it is suspicious.
Did they give a reason?

In my case they simply said the documents were not retrievable.

That doesn't say why or give any explanation.

And by the way I was on tracker before I fixed and then they refused to put me back on tracker.

rodger said:

I asked boi to send them out and they sent out 4 but said 2 documents were not retrievable.

.

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As far as I know banks no longer keep paperwork beyound a certain date. For space reasons they also store a lot of them on microfiches (like photo negatives). No idea why banks seem to have lost so many records though. Ulster bank insurance lost my original insurance application forms, I often wondered if I'd made a claim would the form miraculously appear to try and use a get out clause on paying up based on some question I'd answered incorrectly.

Their answer to me has been that despite extensive searches they have been unable to retrieve the document