"barry" beats the banks

“Barry” was a disabled property owner who had worked until his health and disability stopped him. He only had three loans which he was struggling to pay when he came to see us and having assessed his situation our advice was one option was to offer a voluntary charge on his property to his creditors.

One accepted straight away one agreed but required interim payments and the third, a major high street bank, refused point bank and carried on demanding payments from him.

They took him to Court but we helped “Barry” successfully defend an application for a County Court Judgement after which the bank reluctantly agreed to the charge and to withdraw costs.

Unhappy with the way he had been treated we helped “Barry” complain to the Financial Services Ombudsman who upheld his complaint and awarded him £150 compensation.

“Despite the obvious attractions of our offer, for some reasons the bank refused to go along with our proposals,” said Debt Team Co-ordinator Jay Lowe. “Where creditors do not agree to offers and seem unwilling even to negotiate, then debt advice becomes more complicated. In “Barry’s” case this meant defending court action and being persistent in pursuing what we believe to be the best course of action for him.

“We are delighted that eventually the bank saw sense and that the Financial Services Ombudsman agreed with our case.