Mortgage Mis-selling Compensation, Can I Claim ?

There were a lot of mortgage brokers that gave wrong advice over the past ten years and in the process made great sums of money doing it. The FSA - Financial Services Authority launched an investigation, as early as 2008, to find out about this growing sector of mis sold financial products. If you were sold a mortgage with incorrect information, given bad advice at the time, then you could be eligible for compensation

There are several ways you can tell if your mortgage was mis sold. First, look for the bad advice :

• If you were advised to take a self certification when you were not self employed and;this was intended (no longer available) for self employed people, but brokers stretched this meaning to include people with a second income, this allowed people to arrange a larger borrowing.

• Advised to change lenders and not told about penalty fees

• If you were advised to let the mortgage ending date exceed your retirement date;you may have been told that a pension tax free lump sum will pay off your mortgage. This needs to be properly checked, because it may or may not be applicable.

• Advised to exaggerate your income to borrow more

• Advised to take a fixed rate mortgage and change at the end of the term

• Advised to buy your council house without assessing your financial position

Negligence is also involved:

• If they were negligent in assessing the afford ability for you;the information submitted to your lender may not have been complete or accurate.

• Neglected to explain that the lender will give your broker a commission

• Neglected to find out if you were on benefits at the time of the mortgage

• Neglected to check the surveyor's valuation of your property

This neglect and bad advice has led a growing number of people into mortgages they can never hope to repay. The cost of the loan in some cases is more than their total monthly income. This kind of mis selling of financial products can result in the loss of home or property. Before that happens, it is good to ascertain if you have a mis sold mortgage and file a claim.

A full mortgage audit needs to be completed by a solicitor to asses if you have been mis sold your mortgage. Your lender will need to participate in this and pass all of your documents to your solicitor. This is done through the Data Protection Act by your solicitor with your permission. Once this is done, a risk assessment of your mortgage can be completed. If it is found that you have a mis selling mortgage claim, you need experts in Litigation and Financial Irregularities.

This will save a lot of time, but experts in the field focus only on this and know the latest laws and legal changes. It is not recommended that you take up your claims yourself. There are FSA rules and mortgage legislation that is understood by the experts. Rather than struggle with a mortgage that you may have not be able to pay, the possibility of losing your home, it is worth taking the time to find out if you were mis sold and if entitled to claim.

It is not difficult to do, and there are places online that will research your case for free to ascertain if you have a good chance to succeed with a claim.