Not upheld: Section 75 CCA claims (misrepresentation and breach of contract) and Section 140A CCA claim (unfair credit relationship) complaint against Clydesdale Financial Services Limited trading as Barclays Partner Finance

Decision detail

Summary

Mr M financed a £7,000 timeshare purchase in December 2010 through a loan from Clydesdale Financial Services Limited trading as Barclays Partner Finance. In March 2017, more than six years later, Mr M's representative raised complaints that the Supplier had misrepresented the timeshare and breached contract, and that the Lender had participated in an unfair credit relationship. The ombudsman found the misrepresentation claim time-barred under the Limitation Act 1980, found no evidence of breach of contract, and rejected the unfair credit relationship claim as the representative failed to provide substantiated evidence of the alleged unfairness. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the six-year limitation period from the Limitation Act 1980 to Section 75 misrepresentation claims, finding the claim time-barred as it was raised on 15 March 2017, more than six years after 16 December 2010. For breach of contract claims, the ombudsman found no evidence that Mr M did not receive what he was promised, as he did not own property and therefore could not have been entitled to proceeds from property sales. On the Section 140A unfair credit relationship claim, the ombudsman found: (1) no evidence of unaffordable lending; (2) insufficient evidence of pressure from the Supplier given the 14-day cooling off period was not used; (3) the Timeshare Regulations did not apply as they post-dated the sale; (4) no commission was paid; and (5) the PR's assertions about conflicts of interest and regulatory breaches were unsubstantiated and required proof to the civil standard, which was not provided.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website