Customer complains - but lender says it's too late

Banking

We look at Aleksei's complaint when he wasn't able to repay his interest-only mortgage. 

What happened

Aleksei took out an interest-only mortgage in 2001. In 2014 he complained to his mortgage lender that he didn't have a way of repaying it. 

The lender said that Aleksei's mortgage was suitable and that our service couldn't consider his complaint under the FCA's Dispute Resolution rules.

They said Aleksei had taken out his mortgage more than six years ago. And, because of the paperwork he'd been sent, he should have realised more than three years ago that he had cause to complain. 

Aleksei didn't think that this was fair, so got in touch with us. 

What we said

We looked at the information that Aleksei had received about his mortgage over the years. We didn't find anything that could have prompted Aleksei to realise that his interest-only mortgage wasn't suitable for him.

We decided we could look into his complaint.