Sue mortgage lender for unrealistic loan approval?

It has been mentioned many times in previous comments that innocent people signed a two way contract when buying a house one which we were happy to sign, and I believe we kept our side of the contract in making payments but we didn't sign up for the corupt practices of the banks that now have us unemployed and unable to pay this debt so yes they need to start sharing the responsiblity of this contract.
 
when someone took out their original mortgage they would have been stress tested to see if they could afford repayments with a 2% hike in interest rates.

Really? Was testing to meet loan repayments supposed to have been done?

What about a case where the lender lent so much money that the repayments (even at existing interest rates then, without the 2% hike you mention ) were well out of reach of the borrower? For example, if a borrower was mentally unwell (and getting medical care for same) and borrowed so much from the bank that the repayments alone on this one loan were say €50,000 a year more than his total income, what then about the OP's question? Could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval? Surely the mortgage lender should - in its own interest, in the countries interest and in the interest of the lender - have checked to see if the loan was repayable? If it neglected to evaluate an applicants ability to repay, should it not be held responsible....otherwise, why were some / most applicants evaluated on their ability to repay, and this person not?
 
Really? Was testing to meet loan repayments supposed to have been done?

What about a case where the lender lent so much money that the repayments (even at existing interest rates then, without the 2% hike you mention ) were well out of reach of the borrower? For example, if a borrower was mentally unwell (and getting medical care for same) and borrowed so much from the bank that the repayments alone on this one loan were say €50,000 a year more than his total income, what then about the OP's question? Could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval? Surely the mortgage lender should - in its own interest, in the countries interest and in the interest of the lender - have checked to see if the loan was repayable? If it neglected to evaluate an applicants ability to repay, should it not be held responsible....otherwise, why were some / most applicants evaluated on their ability to repay, and this person not?

It is up to the bank to decide whom they wish to lend money to and what criteria they use in reaching that decision. So long as the comply with the law enforce at the time, then like every other business, their responsibility is to their shareholders end of story. In this particular case the banks got it wrong and their shareholders got wiped out. Whether that state should or should not have taken over the banks is a story for another day.

When it comes to signing a contract you are assumed to have the mental capacity to do so, unless you somehow demonstrate otherwise. The fact that someone is suffering from say depression or something thing similar does not mean that they do not have the capacity to enter into a contract. To somehow expect that the other party should be held responsible for assessing your mental capacity to enter into a contract is total nonsense!

Unfortunately, people are learning in a very painful way that their decisions have consequences and that in the real world they will be held accountable for those decisions. The assumption that adults are capable of making decisions that are in their own best interests, is fundamental to the operation of society, what would we do otherwise, require everyone to get an assessment before they sign a contract, buy something in a shop, apply for a credit card.....
 
For example, if a borrower borrowed so much from the bank that the repayments alone on this one loan were say €50,000 a year more than his total income, ?


This doesn't make sense. Can you clarify please.
 
This doesn't make sense. Can you clarify please.


Suppose a mortgage lender for whatever reason ( negligence, carelessness, corruption or greed for bonus ) lent so much money to a vulnerable person ( one on a prescription of serious drugs from psychiatrist ) that the mortgage repayments are 50,000 or 100,000 euro per year more than the borrowers income ever was ....could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval?
 
It is up to the bank to decide whom they wish to lend money to and what criteria they use in reaching that decision.

supposing they lend without any criteria....what then? Are they supposed to explain their criteria if they lent say double an independent valuation for the property , at say nearly 100 times someones income? Can the banks extraordinary action be unexplainable to both shareholders and borrower?


So long as the comply with the law enforce at the time,

is there a law saying they are supposed to evaluate a borrowers ability to meet repayments? Morally of course the bank should, but is there a law? I doubt it.


In this particular case the banks got it wrong and their shareholders got wiped out.

should the person in the bank therefore not be answerable to his/ her superiors and/or the shareholders?

people are learning in a very painful way that their decisions have consequences and that in the real world they will be held accountable for those decisions.
The borrower has learnt that over the past 8 years ( and has had his life destroyed), but should the bank employee who made the mistake not also discover that "their decisions have consequences and that in the real world they will be held accountable for those decisions". Should the bank not check to see if a borrower remotely has the ability to repay, or some plan or projections to repay the money? Surely the shareholders would expect that in any bank?
 
Honest, why have you dug up an old thread from 2011 to continue a discussion on an issue you already started a specific thread for?

Maybe I'm just a cynic but I don't think you're entirely living up to your username in your description of the circumstances of this person being given their loan...

Do you know all of specific details of this alleged victim's loan application? Have you seen their application and all of the supporting documentation - eg. accountant's report, certified earnings, business plan / projections etc?

Or are you simply taking the word of someone who by your own assertion is not entirely mentally capable?
 
Honest, why have you dug up an old thread

because I asked "Was testing to meet loan repayments supposed to have been done?" and the question the OP asked was
could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval?

Do you know all of specific details of this alleged victim's loan application? Have you seen their application and all of the supporting documentation - eg. accountant's report, certified earnings, business plan / projections etc?
yes. Certified earnings were much less than mortgage repayments. There was however no business plan or projections. The borrower was told the bank would evaluate if the mortgage was viable ("they were the experts") but it clearly did not.


Or are you simply taking the word of someone who by your own assertion is not entirely mentally capable?
The documentation is immaculate and impressive, and the person is no longer on heavy medication / attending consultant psychiatrist. It will make an excellent test case. The question remains: is the lender supposed to evaluate the borrowers repayment ability ( for the mortgage amount ); and could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval?
 
The documentation is immaculate and impressive, and the person is no longer on heavy medication / attending consultant psychiatrist. It will make an excellent test case. The question remains: is the lender supposed to evaluate the borrowers repayment ability ( for the mortgage amount ); and could the mortgage lender be sued for unrealistic loan approval?

None of the concepts you have dreamed up exist in law! If the borrower disclosed at the time that they were under the care of a psychiatrist there is a very slim chance that a court might declare the contract to be void, but that is an entirely different argument to the one you are making.
 
Honest this is presumable the situation with the loans of the borrower you mentioned above, from your post on this thread:

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=172241&page=2


To answer the OP's question, the most shameful lending I know of is a loan for 90 times the persons income. The borrowers own bank did not give him a loan at all when he asked for one, but another bank lent a 7 figure sum which was over 100% of the property cost, for 90 times his income. The borrower (who was medically unwell ) had closed down his old business / sold old stock etc, and the broker knew that, but the financial institution either did not know or did not care. Should'nt the financial institution have phoned up / checked to see if the borrower had the means to make 20 years of monthly repayments? The building society used a "buy-to-let" mortgage application form, for this 209 year old property! No proper valuation was done - the valuation which was done valued the property ( a derelect property of an eleventh of an acre in the west of Ireland ) at 17 million an acre! The nearest record within a 130 mile radius was a fraction of that. The borrowers life has been destroyed since, and his life made a hell. Sleepless nights, 7 years without holidays or new clothes, losing assets built up over many years, secondhand Santy toys, a miserable lifestyle and future etc
 
Honest - if the bank loaned at least 100% of the property cost, then the bank would be able to recoup it's money on sale of said property, that may have been their thinking. Naturally enough with property price collapses that wouldn't be realistic now, but it was relevant at the time to the lending criteria.

Why did the borrower want to borrow so much if he couldn't afford the repayments. How did he think he could repay it.

If this has destroyed his life why did the borrow not just hand everything back to the bank, go broke and start again.

For some one who was so ill according to you, they were able to sell a business, sell stock, deal with two banks, accountants, take medication and manage to borrow money they could not repay. Did this person not have a solicitor or accountant or spouse helping them?

Why do you think it's solely up to the bank to see if the loan is viable, surely it's up to the borrower who is asking for the money to evaluate if the business/land/asset justifies the borrowings?

You mention 'test case'. So far you've not demonstrated in any concrete way what was incorrect about the banks lending decision in your friends situation. Not to take away from you there was certainly reckless lending going on, but I believe it takes two, so the borrower has to share some of the blame. Whether one could prove such recklessness, well it's never been done as far as I know. Does it even exist as a legal concept in Ireland.

Is your friend actually planning to take a court case against the bank? If he is, he'd want to be a lot clearer than you are explainaing the situation on here. If he's broke how can he afford to go to law?
 
@honest
It is very strange that you have dug up an old thread. This is not relevant to here.

Anyway, the bank has no duty to determine mental capacity or to act as medical guardian. If the borrower did not disclose a material fact, that may impact the loan application, it is the bank that should feel hard done by-even if the information was withheld due to mental incapacity. Seems an unarguable case on that point.
It would be interestig to see the fiduciary duty or prudent lending tested based on the facts presented in the application though.
 
The bank has a responsibility in law to make sure a person has capacity to act so if they knew of mental problems there is a higher duty of care

In answer to the main thread you can't sue for reckless lending but you can sue for negligence and breach of duty of care....I'm trying this but there are other aspects of fraud and misrepresentation with my case...the Bank in question won't provide any paperwork to back up they done it correctly
 
In answer to the main thread you can't sue for reckless lending but you can sue for negligence and breach of duty of care

So a bank is actually supposed to check if a borrower can meet loan repayments? Or the bank is supposed to look for some sort of projections? Interesting, neither of that was done in this case, or the borrower would not have got the loan.


.the Bank in question won't provide any paperwork to back up they done it correctly
Same in this case, except they will not provide any paperwork to show they they evaluated the borrowers ability to repay at all. The accountants figures show that the borrowers income - at any stage in his life - was only a fraction of what would have been necessary to pay the mortgage. Is the borrower entitled to ask for the complete file from the lender, showing the lenders calculations ( if any ) showing the borrower could meet monthly repayments?
 
Is the borrower entitled to ask for the complete file from the lender, showing the lenders calculations ( if any ) showing the borrower could meet monthly repayments?
Yes, see Section 4 Data Protection Act 1988 to 2003.
 
Yes, see Section 4 Data Protection Act 1988 to 2003.

A customer is entitled to ask for a a copy of the personal data the business holds on them, that is all. According to the law, like any business, the bank is required to hold only data necessary for the operation of it's business, in other words the finally signed contract, nothing else. Most businesses have a policy which requires the destruction all unnecessary data, so it is very unlikely that you will find much if anything relating to the decision itself.
 
A customer is entitled to ask for a a copy of the personal data the business holds on them, that is all. According to the law, like any business, the bank is required to hold only data necessary for the operation of it's business, in other words the finally signed contract, nothing else. Most businesses have a policy which requires the destruction all unnecessary data, so it is very unlikely that you will find much if anything relating to the decision itself.

A friend of mine had a dispute with the EBS recently and a solicitor recommend she ask for all the data and correspondence in her file. They dithered but eventually sent her everything and she even got given internal emails where her case was being passed around, and some very detailed info was sent to her. After she got the wad of documents, the bank backed off on their dispute (regarding a condition of the loan)
 
The absence of paperwork is a sign or symptom of negligence
in response to honest the Bank is supposed to assess affordability with a SVR +2% stress test and can evidence that....most didn't do it

THE negilgence angle is difficult particularly when the Bank plays games over the paperwork...in my case they had audacity to say that the Terms of Business letter which is supposed to set out their relstionship with me is not Personal Data !!!. They also said that their valutional panel is commercially sensitive and can't tell me anything !!! Seriously !!

The great thing about a negligence case is you can shift burden of proof with Res Ipsa Loquitir in laymans terms the facts speak for themselves
 
The bank has a responsibility in law to make sure a person has capacity to act so if they knew of mental problems there is a higher duty of care.

A responsibility in law to prove a person has the capacity to act is not the same as a responsibility to prove mental capacity.

Responsibility to act for example would be -is the person authorised to sign or enter into the contract.

If medical facts relating to the customer are withheld or otherwise not declared in full, how could the bank form any decision other than of sane or competent mind? If information relating to the capacity of the borrower is deliberately withheld, the bank could argue misrepresentation, non-disclosure or fraud!
 
A friend of mine had a dispute with the EBS recently and a solicitor recommend she ask for all the data and correspondence in her file. They dithered but eventually sent her everything and she even got given internal emails where her case was being passed around, and some very detailed info was sent to her. After she got the wad of documents, the bank backed off on their dispute (regarding a condition of the loan)

They can't sanitise a file once a request has been made, or at least it would be very stupid to do it... But what is on individual file depends on the relationship manager and what they believe is necessary for the operation of their business - over the years I've seen plenty of memo's going out legal departments instructing business to clean up their files. Remember it is also an offence to collect and store unnecessary personal data.
 
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