It says in the article - "My mum signed all the paperwork as my dad asked her to. She didn't think about it."
You mean a little bit like selling them poi that they’re not sure they need? That ended well for banks….
Assuming you mean ppi then this is a completely different situation. You’d be comparing a lending solution with an insurance product sold to protect a lending solution. Single premium ppi (typically sold with unsecured loans) in particular was a woefully designed product and was clearly not of value for a decent whack of those that bought it. Especially those with propensity to refinance those loans (eg take a five year loan out to buy a car but get a new car every three years). They didn’t get a pro rated refund on the asu policy and so essentially paid premiums for the same ppi on several loans (as well as having new ppi every time on a lot of occasions) - pretty much all of these got refunded if a complaint came in, unless it was an unadvised sale. The regular/monthly premium version (often over the term of a mortgage for example) was a lot better value and often deemed more suitable. These very often were not refunded. In fact when I was at Lloyd’s, the amount of mortgage ppi complaints upheld (for Halifax, bos, Leeds perm, Lloyds, tsb and c&g), was actually very low. It was actually a relatively cheap and sensible product on their mortgages.
She’s admitted she signed the loan agreement but never asked what it was she was signing as her husband asked her to sign it. Part of what she would have signed would have been confirming she had taken legal advise.
Thinking about this, and while taking out the loan was short-sighted and had a fair chance of leaving them having to make a big payment to the bank, another angle is the change to social care funding that came in over the last 10-12 years. At the time it was taken out, they'd have expected to just be provided any care they needed - so it wouldn't have been a problem except for the kids losing some (or most) of their inheritance. Since then, the law changed and couples in this situation now need to sell properties to fund social care so it would affect the couple - or in this case the wife.
Parents had one of these. You could borrow up to 25% of the value of the home and when you had to repay you repaid 75% of the growth plus the original loan. Therefore if they borrowed 16k the property was valued at 64k.
Well it wasn't IFAs selling PPI, it was the banks' product? Independent is just that- taking time out with one to discuss the ins and outs of a deal might save you a lot of money/ pain in the long run. Nothing more complex than that.
I think government bodies such as the current FCA and it's predecessors have done a fine job to protect people from the long history of 'miss-selling' of various products including pensions, 'Mortgage' endowment policies,etc but then I believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. Barclays could not be trusted to manage their own money and arranged for 'loan' from Qatar ..... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43029731
Equity release to pay them off at lower interest rate? She is not going to be kicked out on the street and now the council will have to pay for any care once her net proceeds are exhausted to within set limits (think around £24k with some contribution and £14k absolute). She'd have lost the house anyway if she goes into care as the council will put a charging order on for the care home fees she will need to pay. In her shoes, I'd had least think they had the money while they were young enough to enjoy it together.
I think Austiniho means that the banks can not be trusted to act in the best interests of their customers and will sell them things that are not suitable and perhaps that extends to the deal this couple got. Sounds like not enough people had this product to form a cadre for a class action. Interested to know why the banks dropped them and only a couple offered them originally The banks have lost the trust of people (though their adverts Lloyds for eg continue to portray them as some benign life long companion) This isnt aimed at general branch staff, but banks are there to make money and the people who have the power in them repeatedly demonstrate they don't have scruples as to how they do it. They didnt even have the good grace to fess up when caught. They lied to people about it and faced fines, Yorkshire bank parent company being one of the worst- advertising slogan of old "friendliness.... We built a bank on it"
Which is why I am confused as to why he chose my quote to make that point when I was advocating for people to get independent financial advice...
Not a fan of individual financial advice either…. But I was commenting on your thing about banks. Sorry for the misunderstanding.