Barclays has been told to pay compensation to a customer over a delay in sending title deeds.
The Financial Ombudsman Service upheld a complaint against the bank from a woman, identified as Mrs H, who received an offer for an equity release mortgage but needed her property title deeds to complete it.
However, she claimed Barclays sent the deeds to her too late, after the offer for the equity release mortgage expired in September 8, 2022.
She said as a result of this she had to re-apply at a higher interest rate.
The ombudsman’s investigator said Mrs H didn’t contact Barclays until early September 2022 which would have been too late for Barclays to provide the title deeds in time for her to complete the mortgage.
However, Mrs H didn’t agree with this and argued she could obtain phone records to show when she contacted Barclays.
Ombudsman’s decision
In its decision, the ombudsman said Mrs H received the offer for the equity release mortgage in late July 2022 which expired on September 8, 2022.
Mrs H claimed she called Barclays on September 2 and visited her local branch the same day, however, Barclays said it has no record of contact from Mrs H on that day.
Instead, Barclays argued Mrs H first contacted it about the title deeds on September 9, sending the ombudsman a recording of this call.
Despite this disagreement, the ombudsman said Barclays did make an error in this case.
When Mrs H first called the bank it said it didn’t have the title deeds she needed for her mortgage.
Mrs H said she spent considerable time contacting solicitors and other businesses as well as searching the property to locate the title deeds.
She called Barclays several times before she was given the correct information, that it did in fact have the title deeds.
Barclays accepted it made an error and offered £600 as an apology for the distress and inconvenience caused which the ombudsman described as “fair and reasonable in the circumstances”.
While the ombudsman acknowledged Barclays’s error it added: “I don’t think I can fairly find that this was the reason Mrs H’s equity release mortgage didn’t complete before the mortgage offer expired.”
The decision explained that even if Mrs H provided evidence she’d contacted Barclays on September 2, the ombudsman did not think the mortgage would have been completed before it expired.
The ombudsman ultimately ruled that Barclays should pay £600 to Mrs H.
A Barclays spokesperson said: “We take all complaints seriously and we work hard to improve the service to our customers.”
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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