In its 2014/15 annual review, FOS found that while the number of complaints about mortgages had decreased by 2% since 2014 from 12,606 to 12,297 this year, it was “disappointed” with the high level of complaints received about administrative errors.
In 2013/14, complaints about mortgages and second charge loans climbed 6% on the previous year.
FOS said it continued to receive complaints where the lender had not identified the customer’s specific concerns or had not recognised the full, individual impact of what had gone wrong.
The dispute settlement service said despite this year’s figures representing a positive turn, it felt a number of complaints could have been resolved internally instead of being relayed to the Ombudsman.
Many interest-only mortgage customers also questioned the advice they were given, as they were concerned they would be unable to repay the mortgage.
Mortgage intermediaries were the second most complained about (20%) when products were broken down by sector, followed by building societies (9%), IFAs (2%) and others, which include non-bank mortgage providers (5%). Almost two-thirds (64%) of mortgage complaints were related to banks.
However, FOS said it experienced a reduction in the number of complaints from people at the end of their interest-only mortgage arrangement unable to repay the capital.
‘Dominated by the past’
A steady rise in complaints about porting, the process of transferring a mortgage to another property, was also recorded. Customer complaints were focused on lender charges for applying to move from one mortgage to another, with some individuals prevented from porting their mortgage completely.
Overall, payment protection insurance (PPI) dominated complaints in 2014/2015, accounting for two-thirds of all disputes but halved from record highs seen in 2013/2014 to 204,943. In total, the Ombudsman answered 1.8 million enquiries and resolved 448,000 cases last year.
Four of the UK’s largest banking groups accounted for 58% of all complaints received.
Chief ombudsman, Caroline Wayman, said: “The world has moved on and changed significantly since I first joined the ombudsman as an adjudicator in 2001. Yet our workload over the last 15 years has been constantly dominated by the past – clearing up the fall-out of the mass claims and mis-selling scandals of the last decade and a half.
“But 15 years of sorting out millions of these problems have given us unparalleled experience, knowledge and understanding of why complaints happen – and how they could be avoided in future. That’s why our focus continues to be on complaints prevention and sorting things out pragmatically as soon as problems emerge.”
