Bank reported incorrect data to CCR

Bluestarw27

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In 2019 i paid off a loan in full however the finance company reported it as settled instead of completed to the CCR in 2020 i applied for a mortgage but got refused due to ccr, i got a copy of my ccr but didnt notice the mistake.
In 2021 the bank wrote to me advising of their mistake and stating they will rectify my ccr. Do i have a valid case with ombudsman
 
First, you must make a complaint to the finance company.

If you are not happy with their response, you can then complain to the Ombudsman.

So what do you want the Finance Company to do?

How do you know that the mortgage was refused because of the CCR?

Were there any other negative comments on the CCR?

Brendan
 
I set below an email which I recently received from Alan Raftery, a solicitor specialising in such cases.

In the past 12 - 18 months, we have received a number of queries from Clients in respect of mistakes on their ICB and CCR reports . Many of the queries involved a person or persons having successfully complied with a Personal Insolvency Arrangement or Bankruptcy continuing to have Debt's or loans which were written off recorded on their CCR and ICB reports.

Fortunately, we have been able to take action on behalf of a number of Clients seeking these errors to be rectified. We have also obtained compensation for our Clients.

This is a new and constantly evolving area of Law. We have significant experience in this area. If you have any Clients who feel your ICB or CCR report does not accurately reflect your true financial position, please contact us on (021) 430 0734 or by email [email protected]. We would be delighted to help.


Alan Raftery

Solicitor

Holohan Lane LLP Solicitors
Suite 319, Capel Building, St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin 7 & Waterview House, 16 Sundays Well Road, Cork

T: 01 8727120 & 021 4300734
F: 021 4300911
E: [email protected]
W:
www.holohanlaw.ie
 
The mortgage provider sent me a letter stating based on my ccr they werent happy to offem me a mortgage , i had been given approval in princeable but then after the ccr check i was denied, i raised a complaint with the provider they offered 50 euro which i refused as house prices increased in the year they had me recorded incorrectly on the ccr as settlement instead of closed and they closed the complaint on their part. I havent entered any insolvency aggrements i was paying the loan jist paid it off early and they marked it as settled
 
The mortgage provider sent me a letter stating based on my ccr they werent happy to offem me a mortgage

OK, so you got your CCR and thought it looked fine.

What did the mortgage provider say when you went back to them to tell them that your CCR was clear?

Brendan
 
Bankruptcy continuing to have Debt's or loans which were written off recorded on their CCR and ICB reports.
Should a loan company not be aware of this?


We have also obtained compensation for our Clients.


Is this not just another form of ambulance chasing. We already live in a society of looking the wrong way at somebody only to have a possible action of some sort taking against them. Its smacks of who can we screw next.

i refused as house prices increased in the year

What if they went the other way. You'd be very happy and content.

I had a similar issue when obtaining a loan some years ago, the bank made a mistake in not updating my report. They apologised, verbally and written.
Somebody cocked up, what do I want to do, have them wrung them out dry.

Ive cocked up, god knows more that once, I hate to think there's a sniper out there waiting to take me out.
 
Hi LS

I agree with your sentiment. People should be allowed to make mistakes and then correct them quickly.

It seems in this case, that the OP knew that he had a clean record and alarm bells should have rung when he his mortgage was declined. He should have at least picked up the phone and said "But my CCR is completely clear" and they would have explained that it wasn't because he had settled a loan.

But there are cases where banks have not corrected the record quickly and the person has suffered loss and should be compensated accordingly. This does not seem to be the situation in this case though.

Brendan
 
Is this not just another form of ambulance chasing
I do not believe so. As a professional advisor I have dealt with harrowing cases of people negligently mistreated by the banks. How do you compensate people for cases such as?:

  • A couple who put off having children so that they could pay their mortgage in full, not knowing that the bank was incorrectly charging them an extra €1,500 a month in interest, as the bank had improperly taken them off the tracker rate. The delay in having children contributed to fertility issues resulting in costly fertility treatment with no guaranteed outcome.
  • Couples who lost their family homes as a result of the tracker scandal.
  • Couples who could not afford to send their children to third level education because of the tracker scandal.
  • People who lost businesses because of the tracker scandal.
  • People who could not obtain essential credit because of inaccurate Credit Reporting.
The reality is that some people do not have resources to pay professional fees, and they resort to sites such as this for guidance. Another reality is that very few firms of solicitors have the necessary level of expertise to advise their clients on complex bank issues. One of the purposes of this site is to direct people with valid issues to the appropriate professionals with proven expertise in that particular area,

Jim Stafford
 
Hi Jim,

I expected a reply in the form you have made.

What you have outlined was absolute and intentional fraud, and the suffering that was a result of this, is still raw. A whole 9 yards away from what the poster said.

Brendan got where i was coming from. This was a mistake, what you have described isn't and wasn't. The bank acknowledged the error, put their hand up straight away and promised to rectify it.

Why the need to slaughter?

The poster should also have picked up the phone as mentioned above and clarified his position.
 
The fundamental issue here is whether the bank’s mistake was negligent causing damage or loss to the customer. If so, then a cause of action arises in the courts. If the customer is at no loss and/or has suffered no damage, then no issue arises.
 
But i didnt settle a loan i paid it off in full early. the bank had it marked wrong for 2 years .
I was embarresed with the mortgage rejection and it caused distress for personal reasons we needed a larger living space so had to put an extension onto current home instead of buying new larger home
 
The fundamental issue here is whether the bank’s mistake was negligent causing damage or loss to the customer

So how do you quantify that,

I missed out on the rising markets?
I've effectively lost tens of thousands? and only because of your mistake, i would be in a better position than i am now?
I was embarresed with the mortgage rejection
Com`on, Really. I see the Gravy train pulling into the station here.
 
They had marked me as settled instead of completed on the ccr, when i looked at the ccr settled didnt stand out to me as being incorrect. I went back to the bank but they werent happy to proceed and we had to change living conditions asap so went with extension rather than buying bigger house that was prefernce Wasnt until i got a letter this year from finance company that i realised the mistake
 
So how do you quantify that,
That’s a very good question and in a lot of cases the alleged loss will be difficult to quantify, if indeed it’s quantifiable at all.

It depends on the circumstances of the individual customer and, as you have pointed out, circumstances such as rising markets etc. But there are cases where there will be a quantifiable loss that was foreseeable and can be linked directly or substantially to the bank’s error.

The issue of defamation and/or negligent misstatement also arises in the OP’s case.
 
They had marked me as settled instead of completed on the ccr, when i looked at the ccr settled didnt stand out to me as being incorrect. I went back to the bank but they werent happy to proceed

With respect, it sounds as if they just used that as an excuse.

You went back to them immediately and said your CCR was ok and they still did not proceed.

Did you approach other lenders?

Yes, the lender made a mistake. We all do.
But it's up to you to take action to minimise the impact of it on you.

Brendan
 
Hi Bluestar

Any chance you could post an image of the CCR report?

I have not seen a negative one and would be interested in seeing how clear it is.

I have brought your case to the attention of the CCR suggesting that they change the terminology to "settled at a discount"

Brendan
 
I had a look at my own CCR report and it is very long and complicated. It's not clear to me if there is anything incorrect on it. If there were, it would be hard to pick it out unless you were familiar with the language.

This is the bit which I presume Bluestar read

1630579629124.png

If the word "settled" appears in Last Credit Status, that would not ring any alarm bells for me.

It would be helpful for the consumer to see a summary at the top:

Credit Report: Clear
or
Credit Rating: Negative. AIB loan shown as settled for less than the full amount in June 2019

Brendan
 
I have to say that the word "settlement" would ring no alarm bells for me either.

However, it is odd that the lender to whom you applied for a mortgage did not pursue this a bit further. You had no payments past due. And then suddenly you "settle" the account.

I do suspect that you were rejected for other reasons.

Brendan
 
From a legal point of view, this is a very interesting area, where the law has evolved rapidly and is ripe for further development. The traditional position in Irish law held that is was a serious defamation to wrongly state or imply that a person's financial position was not secure. Any suggestion that a debt wasn't honoured or couldn't be honoured was particularly serious and would tend to attract large damages for loss of reputation. (It was said that the two most serious forms of libel were to defame a man's business reputation or a woman's moral reputation!) The Courts enthusiastically defended people's reputations and something like incorrectly refusing to honour a cheque and marking it "refer to drawer" would attract serious damages. This carried over into the era of credit reporting and (until recently) an incorrect report was also regarded as a serious act of defamation. In a 2001 case, a customer was awarded £10,000 against Woodchester Bank for such a report!

However, matters changed in 2015, when, in the case of Cornelius M. Cagney v. The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland, [2015] IEHC 288, the High Court held that such credit reports were entitled to benefit from a defence of qualified privilege (even if the information was incorrect) and thus refused to award damages for defamation.

So that closes off the defamation route. However, the GDPR route is potentially quite interesting. The bank holds and processes data and is obliged (among other things) to ensure that the data is correct. This is not a trivial responsibility and a failure can have serious consequences for the data subject. As the GDPR is a piece of EU legislation, compensation for any breach is supposed to be dissuasive in line with standard principles of EU law. This would suggest something more than mere nominal compensation. I'm not aware of any case where this has been tested but it can only be a matter of time.

In my opinion, the OP here has been done a serious detriment by the finance company. It is not simply good enough to talk of "gravy trains" or to suspect that there were "other reasons" for the refusal of credit. Even if that were so, having one's credit rating wrongfully damaged can have devastating consequences and it is only right and proper that there be an appropriate remedy in law with substantial damages.

OP would be well advised to consult a solicitor specialising in this area. Google throws up a few.
 
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