Not upheld: Mortgage administration / arrears handling complaint against Bank of Scotland plc trading as Halifax

Decision detail

Summary

Mr M complained that Halifax refused to implement a settlement offer made via a cheque for £3,820.25 marked as full and final settlement in September 2025, and refused to amend his credit file. The mortgage had been in arrears since June 2016 when Mr M stopped making payments, claiming the account was in dispute due to previous calculation errors upheld by an ombudsman in 2013. Halifax accepted the cheque but continued to treat the remaining balance as outstanding. The ombudsman found Halifax was not bound by the settlement offer as it never expressly accepted it, and could not investigate the underlying calculation disputes as they were out of time. The ombudsman upheld Halifax's position on credit file reporting but accepted Halifax's offer to write off the remaining balance as fair resolution, while maintaining that historical adverse records should remain as they accurately reflected Mr M's conduct.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Halifax was not bound by Mr M's settlement offer because Halifax never expressly communicated acceptance of the offer. While Mr M attempted to deem acceptance through conduct (cashing the cheque), Halifax did not agree to this mechanism. The ombudsman could not investigate whether the mortgage calculations were correct as the previous ombudsman's decision was final and any complaints about subsequent calculations were out of time. The ombudsman found Halifax was entitled to continue charging interest on the outstanding balance and was fair in reporting missed payments to the credit file, as there was no obligation to suspend reporting when a balance was disputed. The ombudsman accepted Halifax's pragmatic offer to write off the remaining balance as a fair resolution, though did not require removal of adverse credit file records as they accurately reflected Mr M's conduct in not making payments over several years.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website