Not offered tracker when it was available

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Raging Bull

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I'm using this tab since its a Consumer Protection Issue which ordinarily should be remit of FSO

I took a mortgage with a tied agent (also undisclosed to me), at the time they said that the tracker mortgage was no longer available. I just found out 5 years after the event that it was.

They wanted me to go on Fixed Rate. 5 years. I was not being given many options but unfortunately I trusted this individual.

It transpires that the said branch manager being in effect a de facto broker is incentivised for selling own products and probably gets higher commission.

How can that be reconcilable with acting with Customers Interests?

To me this smacks of fraudulent misrepresentation?

Opinions?

Please don't make any comment or speculate on the name of institution.
 
How can you be 100% sure the tracker was available. It was September when Ulster Bank got rid of them.

If you were offered a fixed rate how can you be sure this wasnt the only rate available to you, due to your circumstances and requirements?
 
Neighbour has a tracker with same bank she completed 1 week before me but I was offered fixed in Dec 2007. The bank in question pulled rates officially October 08 whereas I completed early Oct 08....I specifically asked for it and was told they stopped doing them which was blatantly untrue
 
How would you not be aware it was a tied agent? Surely it would be apparent from the name?
 
I never got a Terms of Business Letter which I should have to explain his service, plus he came to see me so was never in his offices either

The only reference to tied agent is in very small print at the bottom of page. All the prominent material was in the name of the Bank...unless you were Sherlock Holmes you would never have twigged

Its a major breach of Consumer Protection Code

For added measure when he completed the forms he never ticked what product I wanted but he said the tracker was not available and I believed him. Its cost me close to 40k on that point alone
 
Maybe I've got this wrong but are you saying that you were surprised that a branch manager in X Bank did not specify to you that he was only going to offer you X Bank products?
 
I'm going to have a stab and say that what he may have meant by it wasnt available, meant that you possibly didnt fit the criteria with that institution. May have been a loan to value thing and maybe they werent offering them anymore to people in your circumstances.

It's a bit hard to make much of a stab of advice without the particulars.
 
If it was UB you are talking about then the tracker or anything else other than the 5yr fixed was unavailable to a lot of customers for a while as the 5 yr fixed was not stress tested under some obscure rule or other. This meant way more people qualified for a mortgage than would have if they were going for any other fixed term, tracker or variable.
 
Its not UB

For the record they never stressed test either as they did a 5 year fix

dereko is partially right I would expect him to primarily sell me his own products. In particular if I get a mortgage product I should have been offered everything that was available not just fixed. I believe he was renumerated more because he sold me fixed which is why he never offered tracker.

When you deal with a bank or building society who represent themselves as the branch manager I would not expect their renumeration to be entirely sales commission which it looks like it was....if it is then I should have been told about it so I can at leasts make an informed decision
 
You need to read between the lines with this report and what they are trying to say

[broken link removed]
 
Hi Raging Bull

I took out a mortgage in 2002 and my preferred bank AIB told me that they didn't do tracker mortgages. So I said fine, and went elsewhere.

If you went to, say EBS, and they did not offer you a tracker, you were free to go elsewhere to see if you could get one there.

You are calling him a "tied agent" and then a "branch manager". A branch of what?

The only reference to tied agent is in very small print at the bottom of page. All the prominent material was in the name of the Bank...unless you were Sherlock Holmes you would never have twigged
Click to expand...
If the material was in the name of EBS, then presumably you thought that you were dealing with an EBS branch manager. It doesn't seem likely to me that you ever thought he was independent.
 
We got a tracker in 2005. Had no idea what they were - or how valuable they would prove to be - but we researched them, compared them to other products and chose it. We also used a broker but also used our own heads!
 
Brendan I never realised he was essentially a broker.,,, I thought I waa dealing with the bank direct thats one issue that will be looked at

The other is why I never got offered a tracker when I asked for it , Im blatantly lied to and offered a product which is more lucratively rewarding to him instead
 
Raging Bull said:
Brendan I never realised he was essentially a broker.,,, I thought I waa dealing with the bank direct thats one issue that will be looked at
Click to expand...

If I go to an independent broker I will expect him to find me the best deal on the market.

You went to the bank directly, so the best you could hope for would be the best deal from that bank. You lost nothing by finding that he was a tied agent instead of the bank directly.

If you thought you were going to a broker, but he represented only one lender, you might have a claim.

Why did you go to one bank only? Why did you not check other banks or use a broker?

I think you are clutching at straws here.
 
I'm not so sure that it would have been more lucrative for him if he was indeed a broker, the usual commission from banks for lending was a percentage of the loan amount and wasn't based on the rate.
 
I agree with wbbs. As a broker I don't recall ever being offered additional commission for one interest rate over another.

This sounds like EBS as some EBS branches were operated on a sort of franchise arrangement where the branch was a privately-owned business but tied to EBS for lending purposes. But the branch office was still prominently advertised as EBS. And any business card or piece of stationery would have featured the EBS logo all over it, as well as "Joe Bloggs Limited is a tied agency of EBS".

Bull - were you looking for a mortgage at the upper end of your affordability level? It may have been that EBS would only offer you the requested amount if you took a long fixed rate.

But you seem to recall having been told specifically that trackers were no longer available. If that's what you were told & it wasn't true then you'll need proof or else it'll be your word against the other man's. What does the guy say about all this?
 
My original thinking when I started to look into this was they were paid a bonus for meeting lending targets. Then I found out about the agency aspect so I thought it was probably commission by lending per se rather than product type...it's something I will have to find out in discovery. Insiders within the institution has suggested that its based on the product not actual lending amount.My solicitor has my case file im hoping that the tracker not being available is documented in a mail but it could be verbal which would be my word against his.

I was never in a branch, the branch manager came to me. I never got the documentation as required by consumer protection code to be made aware of agency...the only thing that remotely suggests there was something unusual in the set up was as you say on the footer of the paper but all the headline information is listed from the Lending Institution rather than the agency..

Hard to assess the affordability issue when they wont advise the criteria but the tracker even then was more affordable

The Institution in question is refusing to provide any documentation other than what I had actually signed. If you were to believe them nothing else exists
 
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