Serve a Data Protection Act notice
Readers know that I think they should serve subject access rights notices on lenders that pursue them for shortfall claims. I know a lot of people doubt the effectiveness of doing this. They feel it will somehow upset lenders. It won't. They are already upset with you - in as much as they feel anything at all about shortfall claims. What it will do is give you valuable information. This week a reader sent me a copy of the data he obtained by serving a subject access rights notice on the Bradford & Bingley Building Society. It shows that much of what the web-site says is true. That is, that you should fight for information and you should question the lender. It shows the debt collector assessing the risk of going further. It shows how the lender tried to trace the customer on a yearly basis and, most important of all, perhaps, it shows that the Bradford & Bingley never had enough evidence to back its claim in court.

It's in the Repossession section of the site as one of the internal logs we have reproduced.

Mortgage advice is unreliable...
Undercover trading standards officers sought mortgages from 166 brokers and lenders to discover that around a third of them gave advice so bad that it put customers' at financial risk. So said the BBC in a story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/your_money/newsid_449000/449719.stm.

...but you can complain
The Financial Services Authority said too few people complain about how banks and building societies treat them - even though many customers are very unhappy. The BBC's got the full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/your_money/newsid_452000/452340.stm and you will find a new guide to complaining at the FSA's own site. It's at: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/.

Debt counsellors work on their act
And band together to raise standards, apparently. I'm hearing rumours that Manchester-based Bains & Ernst and Altrincham- based Gregory Pennington are trying to start a debt counsellors' trade association. Called the Debt Management Association, it will have "tight" rules in an attempt to show that the industry does have standards.

I've published my findings about how debt counsellors operate in the Arrears section of The Home Repossession Page. Whether this organisation will clear up the practices that some debt counsellors/repossession agents/private detectives are engaging in remains to be seen.

Sunday Times quotes Home Repossession Page without credit As the Council of Mortgage Lenders might say: "We welcome the Sunday Times' decision to publish an article on how lenders treat home repossession." The full page piece gave mostly useful advice. I was a bit concerned to see them recommending that people "who want to settle" should start with an offer of five per cent. I think the bit about wanting to settle should have been phrased more cautiously. No-one should be encouraged to settle until the lenders have come over with the details of what they did.

I was also concerned at a couple of other things in the article and wrote the following letter to the Editor of the Sunday Times:

"The URL for the Home Repossession Page that Robert Winnett
mentioned in his article on repossession shortfall claims
is www.lee-k.dircon.co.uk, not www.users.dircon.co.uk, as
published.

Alternatively, readers can use the friendlier
www.home-repo.org

I was also concerned to see that Robert had cut and pasted
a part of the site's advice into his article without
crediting the site by name. My guess is that around 60 per
cent of his ten tips were taken from the site. For example,
the site is the only source that advises borrowers to
use a DPA.

The piece he appears to have cut and pasted was the following:

"Do not be intimidated by threats of court proceedings
- it is the last place lenders want to go. "

And you can see the original at
http://www.home-repo.org/reposses/dos.htm where it is point 6 in the final section entitled

"After they contact you and demand cash:"

It reads:

"Do not be intimidated by threats of court proceedings - it is
the last place lenders want to go"

The page concerned is marked my copyright. I encourage material
to be reprinted but I do expect to see the original source credited.

Lee Kimber

The Home Repossession Page"

I'm not going to say any more than this. The Home Repossession Page has done a lot of original investigative work to find out what lenders do, what everyone's rights are, and to uncover the seamier side of mortgage lending. But you, the borrowers, supplied most of the information that it publishes.

Problems with this newsletter
A couple of readers pointed out that the links in last week's newsletter didn't always work. The failed link to the SPICE insurance web-site was my fault and has now been fixed.

The failure of the link to the CIFAS comments page - a popular stopping off point for some supporters of the credit blacklisting industry - was beyond my control but has worked for the last few days.

Free help changed
SPICE have written to me to point out that they do charge for their services helping people fight insurance-related problems. I've moved the information on them to the Paid Help section. I've also updated the information in the Free Help page to reflect job changes and corrected a couple of mistakes.

Home Repossession Page has a new address. It is now at http://www.home-repo.org.

[ends]

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