Not upheld: unauthorized addition to mortgage / alleged fraudulent inclusion complaint against Bank of Scotland plc trading as Birmingham Midshires Mortgages

Decision detail

Summary

Miss A complained that she was fraudulently added to a Buy-to-Let mortgage in 2007 without her knowledge, only discovering this in 2023 when the council informed her she was ineligible for housing as a property owner. She claimed she was unemployed at the time and could not have provided income evidence. Birmingham Midshires relied on documents apparently signed by Miss A and witnessed by a solicitor. A police investigation was conducted but reached inconclusive findings. The ombudsman found Birmingham Midshires acted reasonably in accepting Miss A onto the mortgage based on the solicitor-witnessed documentation, and that her unemployment was not relevant to a Buy-to-Let mortgage where rental income is the key consideration. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Birmingham Midshires acted reasonably in accepting Miss A onto the mortgage based on documentation apparently signed by her and witnessed by a solicitor. The police investigation findings were inconclusive and did not definitively prove the signatures were not genuine or that Miss A did not enter into the mortgage. For a Buy-to-Let mortgage, the key affordability consideration is rental income rather than personal income, so Miss A's unemployment at the time was not relevant. Birmingham Midshires had no obligation to provide information beyond what it had already supplied.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website