Your Local Member of Parliament
It goes without saying that I am NOT going to list all 650 MPs here. The following will provide an easy search to find your local MP and his or her contact details. Click on the image below for access to the search.
Once again it is highly advised to think carefully and draft any correspondence carefully. Written and posted is always best in the first instance as you have time to think and mull over what it is you want to say. Guidance will be posted here soon. Please hold back until then. You can always start by listing all the things Capstone have done to you and then gradually refine it. We want maximum impact here, so please take time to get it right.
15 Comments for “Your Local Member of Parliament”
Leave a Comment
FWIW, here is one I wrote to my MP. Feel free to lift any or all of it. It is very easy to write to your MP or MEP by email via http://www.writetothem.com.
Dear XXX
I am writing to express my very deep concern that the government is doing very little if anything to enforce the excellent existing regulations to protect borrowers forcing repossession claims, especially in the case of those whose loans have been securitised without their consent.
My particular concern is with Capstone Mortgage Services, of High Wycombe, which appears to use profits from repossession as its business model and is allowed to breach the statutory pre-action protocol of the Mortgage Code of Business rules (MCOB) of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) with complete impunity.
Capstone Mortgage Services, which administers my secured loan account on behalf of Southern Pacific Mortgages Limited, the original lender, has made no effort whatsoever to negotiate a repayment settlement with me as it is obliged to do under the pre-action protocol, and the “arrears” on the account are the subject of an ongoing complaint both to Capstone and the Financial Ombudsman. Yet the hearing for repossession is still going ahead at the XXX county court on XXX. Typically defendants in such cases receive 10 minutes of the court’s time and are disqualified from legal aid as property owners, even though the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the right to respect for one’s home, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, includes adequate legal protection for homeowners. Moreover the judge typically sides with the lender and does not challenge its evidence, however flawed.
The consumer defendant of this type of mortgage product faces unfair discrimination. The securitisation covenants prevent the administrator from observing the range of consumer protections available such as waiving, reducing or refunding charges or observing the Civil Justice Council (CJC) pre-action protocols, by for example switching to interest only or modifying the date of payment due.
It cannot have been the intention of the regulators that some mortgage holders would benefit from these additional forms of support and others would not, through no fault of their own. Indeed the FSA has criticised this particular model of securitisation:
In terms of the issues raised around securitisation, we expect a firm to adopt the same approach to forbearance for borrowers with mortgages that have been securitised as for borrowers whose mortgages remain on the firm’s books. Securitisation covenants should not constrict a firm’s ability to treat its customers fairly by exercising appropriate forbearance strategies.
Source: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/policy/ps10_09.pdf
My regulated loan has been securitised and sold on to an unregulated third party (SPV). One of the main reasons for arrears is unexpected and unplanned-for circumstances such as a temporary drop in household income which then triggers oppressive and unfair charging regimes. Whereas in a mainstream agreement defendants could change from repayment to interest only, extend the term or numerous other modifications to get them out of trouble the effect of securitisation means these suggested options in the pre-action protocols and Section 13 of the FSA’s MCOB rules are not available. This further unfairly penalises a borrower and leads to an uneven distribution of justice in similar cases.
Another ground for concern is that typically court hearings in repossession cases last for 10 minutes. This hardly seems long enough when defendants are typically litigants in person because of the lack
of legal aid for homeowners with financial difficulties, whereas the lender has access to enormous resources. There is no equality of arms in such cases.
This lack of access to legal representation and advice is itself deeply troubling when the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled in a case against the UK—McCann v UK—that the right to respect for one’s home, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, includes adequate legal protection for homeowners.
It said:
The loss of one’s home is a most extreme form of interference with the right to respect for the home. Any person at risk of an interference of this magnitude should in principle be able to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal in the light of the relevant principles under Article 8 of the Convention, notwithstanding that, under domestic law, his right of occupation has come to an end…the applicant was dispossessed of his home without any possibility to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal. It follows that, because of the lack of adequate procedural safeguards, there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in the instant case.
Article 11 of the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also protects the right to housing. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has interpreted this in its general comments to include a right to due process and appropriate procedural safeguards before being evicted from one’s home.
While they have the discretion to do so, it is rare for courts to investigate the legality of mortgage contracts, even when asked to do so by the defendant. Courts tend to focus on repayment of the arrears to the exclusion of anything else. When the arrears are genuine and not in dispute, this policy may well be sensible. However when the “arrears” are in fact extortionate fees added to the genuine arrears by the lender or its administrator, in breach of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts, Section 12 of the FSA’s Mortgage Conduct of Business rules and Section 6 of the FSA’s Principles for Businesses, it is essential that courts should be willing to investigate their legality. The FSA has recently issued final notices to several lenders ordering them to compensate borrowers for these excessive and unlawful charges.
Furthermore, even if the defendant in repossession hearings does not raise the issue of the legality of the fees or the loan contract, courts should examine this issue of their own accord. Courts in the EU must examine and rule on terms in consumer contracts that may be unfair even if no consumer has complained about them, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said. The duty will exist when a company seeks to enforce a consumer contract. The European Union’s Directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts governs contracts because consumers have no bargaining power when presented with pre-written contracts to sign. It says that any term that is unfair will not be binding.
A Hungarian woman was taken to court by her mobile phone provider Pannon. It enforced a term of its contract with her which said that the court in Budaörsi had jurisdiction over the contract. The woman, Sustikné Győrfi, lived 275 kilometres away from Budaörsi. She receives invalidity benefit and there is no direct public transport between where she lives and Budaörsi.
The Budaörsi court said that the normal place of jurisdiction would be the court where Győrfi lives, and asked the ECJ whether it had the right or an obligation to examine the contract term governing jurisdiction for unfairness, even if the consumer in question had not raised an objection to its fairness.
The ECJ, the European Union’s highest court, said that the court had not only the right to make its own analysis of the contract’s fairness, but an obligation to do so. Only if courts do that, it said, are consumers protected in the way the EU legislation envisages. It ruled:
The system of protection introduced by the Directive is based on the idea that the consumer is in a weak position vis-à-vis the seller or supplier, as regards both his bargaining power and his level of knowledge. This leads to the consumer agreeing to terms drawn up in advance by the seller or supplier without being able to influence the content of those terms.
Referring to an earlier ECJ ruling involving Salvat Editores, the ruling said that “the aim of Article 6 of the Directive would not be achieved if the consumer were himself obliged to raise the unfairness of contractual terms, and that effective protection of the consumer may be attained only if the national court acknowledges that it has power to evaluate terms of this kind of its own motion”.
“Article 6(1) of the Directive must be interpreted as meaning that an unfair contract term is not binding on the consumer, and it is not necessary, in that regard, for that consumer to have successfully contested the validity of such a term beforehand,” it said.
The ruling said that previous ECJ decisions indicated that courts had not only a right but a duty to assess terms on behalf of consumers. “The nature and importance of the public interest underlying the protection which the Directive confers on consumers justify the national court being required to assess of its own motion whether a contractual term is unfair, compensating in this way for the imbalance which exists between the consumer and the seller or supplier,” it said.
“The court seised [i.e. having ownership] of the action is therefore required to ensure the effectiveness of the protection intended to be given by the provisions of the Directive. Consequently, the role thus attributed to the national court by Community law in this area is not limited to a mere power to rule on the possible unfairness of a contractual term, but also consists of the obligation to examine that issue of its own motion,” it said.
The ECJ was also asked what factors should be taken into account to determine fairness. It said that distance, which was the primary concern in Győrfi’s case, could itself deny people access to justice. Referring again to the Salvat Editores case, the ruling said that: “a term [deciding jurisdiction] obliges the consumer to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of a court which may be a long way from his domicile. This may make it difficult for him to enter an appearance.
In the case of disputes concerning limited amounts of money, the costs relating to the consumer’s entering an appearance could be a deterrent and cause him to forgo any legal remedy or defence”. “The Court therefore concluded that such a term falls within the category of terms which have the object or effect of excluding or hindering the consumer’s right to take legal action,” it said.
The ECJ did say, though, that it could not rule generally on whether a term was unfair, that national courts had to make decisions based on the facts of the case in hand.
I also refer you to the Capstone Action Group website, where many customers of Capstone express their extreme dissatisfaction with the way the courts handle their cases, as well as the lack of enforcement of existing laws and regulations in repossession cases.
The FSA has issued final notices to mortgage lenders GMAC, Redstone and Kensington for similar practices to Capstone’s and required them to pay large fines and compensate their customers. Yet Capstone, probably the worst serious offender in the business, with 80,000 mortgages on its books, has so far entirely escaped sanction. The legal and financial authorities allow it to inflate borrowers’ arrears with exorbitant and unfair charges that force them into repossession.
Decent ordinary people are losing their houses every day through no fault of their own as a result of the ruthless tactics of a completely unethical company that is allowed to flout the law with impunity. It is a huge national scandal and I urge you to raise the matter in the House of Commons.
I also request that you urgently ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the FSA has repeatedly refused to take any action against Capstone or to enforce existing legislation. I also request that you ask the Minster of Justice why the courts are so reluctant to enforce the MCOB pre-action protocols.
For further details of how Capstone works, I attach a link to the following submissions to the Treasury Select Committee:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/766/766we10.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/144/144w273.htm
which outline the ruthless, unlawful and unethical practices of this company, as well as this article dated 10 October 2010 on the http://www.thisismoney.co.uk website:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/144/144w273.htm
and this article in today’s Mail on Sunday:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1327263/Ruthless-march-son-Lehman.html#addComment
Yours sincerely
XXX
This is pretty comprehensive stuff and an ideal letter of complaint.
“Another ground for concern is that typically court hearings in repossession cases last for 10 minutes. This hardly seems long enough when defendants are typically litigants in person because of the lack
of legal aid for homeowners with financial difficulties, whereas the lender has access to enormous resources. There is no equality of arms in such cases.”
Whatever happened to the overriding objective in the CPR.
PARTIES SHOULD BE ON A LEVEL FOOTING in this case the Judge should assist the defendant.
These regulations are all meaningless unless they’re enforced.
A high court judge told a friend they are sick of all these appeals where the apellant claims fee remissions.
The simple answer is enforce the Regulations then half of it wouldn’t even get to Court!!!
Can anyone who has read these messages and agrees with them PLEASE email his or her MP? Now, now, now. Very easy to do. just click on http://www.writetothem.com.
No problem if you feel inarticulate. Feel totally free to copy and paste my submission above.
Capstone is the Auschwitz gas chamber of the financial industry and deserves a war-crimes tribunal.
To run a business on the basis of stealing people’s property is theft and beyond despicable.
Survivor has had ,I am sure they will not mind me saying,a very positive response to their letter of complaint from their mp..
With capstone now fully exposed in the National press and the impetus now clearly changing the opposite way,I truly believe that this is an inspired method to really press the iniative home.
I THINK THE ABOVE POST COULD BE PERHAPS SHORTENED AND PUT INTO BULLET POINTS TO MAKE EASIER AND QUICKER READING FOR SOME MPS BUT ALL THE INFO IS THERE FOR A TERRIFIC TEMPLATE.
IF THE COLLECTION OF MAIL ARTICLES AT LEAST 4 ARE THEN TIED TO THE COMPLAINT TO GIVE IT THE ADDED CREDIBILITY,EXPOSURE,PUBLICITY AND WEIGHT IT REQUIRES WE COULD ACTUALLY SEE SOME ACTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THE ONGOING REPOS EVERY DAY MANY ON FALSELY ADDED ARREARS CHARGES WHICH JUST HAVE TO BE STOPPED A.S.A.P.
HOW COULD AN MP FAIL TO ACT WHEN HIS CONSITUENTS ARE BEING IN MANY CASES ILLEGALLY EVICTED,BASED ON FALSE ARREARS FIGURES,FROM THEIR HOMES,THIS NEEDS TO BE IMPLIED IN THE TEMPLATE.
This needs to be posted in as many places as possible eg cag and the mail blog for maximum impact.
Hi Ryde
Thanks for the endorsement. I am sure others can improve it. It’s important to personalise it so that the MP can identify with you as a vulnerable constituent who needs his or her urgent help..
Here is the reply my MP got from the Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly:
Dear XXX
XXX – MORTGAGE PRE-ACTION PROTOCOL
Thank you for your letter of 12th November to the Justice Secretary, on behalf of your constituent, XXX, regarding his views on the operation [sic] mortgage pre-action protocol (MPAP) and the problems that he has encountered following his mortgage lender transferring his mortgage on to another company. I am replying as the Minister responsible for civil law matters.
I note that you have taken up XXX’s concerns about the actions of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) with the Chancellor. I will therefore limit my comments on [sic] court procedure and guidance.
You mention that XXX states Capstone Mortgage Services has not negotiated a repayment settlement with him before issuing court proceedings for possession of the property.
Decisions on cases before the courts are, of course, entirely a matter of judicial discretion. Judges have a statutory duty to consider whether it is reasonable to make a possession order, they are aware of the serious consequences of making a possession order and do not grant orders routinely or without good reasons. In doing so, judges will take into account a wide range of factors when reaching that decision.
The courts [sic] power in relation to mortgage arrears cases is set out in section 36 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 (as amended by section 8 of the Administration of Justice Act 1973). This provides that the court can adjourn or suspend a case only where there is evidence that the borrower can maintain their current contractual mortgage payments and can repay all of their arrears within a reasonable time. Where these circumstances do not apply the court must award possession to the lender.
The MPAP was introduced in 2008 and applies to all claims issued from 19 November. Its purpose is to provide guidance from the judiciary on the steps that lenders, including those organisations that have bought loans from an original lender, are expected to take before bringing claims in the courts with a view to ensuring that repossessions are always a last resort. The guidance sets out the steps that the court will expect lenders to have taken to show that they have made reasonable efforts to negotiate with borrowers to resolve the situation out of court.
One of the key purposes of the protocol is to provide courts with clear evidence to allow a decision to be made on whether or not the powers under section 36 can be exercised. Under paragraph 7.1 of MPAP the court will expect the lender to explain what alternatives were considered, for example, extending the term or changing the type of the mortgage and why this has not been accepted. The court will adjourn the case if it is not satisfied with that explanation. Therefore, failure to comply with the MPAP may adversely affect the lender’s ability to obtain a possession order.
Guidance (MCOB) was also provided by the FSA, who are responsible for the regulation of mortgage lending on how lenders should treat clients. Rules 13.3 and 13.3.4A of the MCOB set out the procedures and the range of options to be considered by lenders before issuing a claim for possession. The MCOB has recently been amended to embed forbearance by lenders and provide stronger encouragement to them to explore alternative options to repossession by changing the code from guidance to regulations that lenders must comply with.
These changes took effect from 25 June 2010 and further constrain the circumstances in which lenders can issue a possession claim and my department is currently in the process of amending the MPAP to reflect the changes to the MCOB rules with a view to these changes being introduced in April 2011.
Additionally the Coalition Agreement makes specific reference to the need to ensure that repossession is a last resort and the Ministry of Justice has a responsibility to ensure that this happens.
If XXX wants advice on his specific case I suggest that he contacts a solicitor or a Citizen’s Advice Bureau. The website of the Community Legal Service (http://www.communitylegaladvice.org/en/directory/directorysearch.jsp) may also assist him.
I hope this information is helpful and enclose a copy of this letter for you to send to XXX, if you wish to do so.
Yours ever
Jonathan Djanogly MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
Ministry of Justice
How very depressingly predictable!
You would think given the above that Capstone/Acenden Were the ones who had a rough time of it. Will these people in authority recognise that the protections they itemise in glorious technicolor here are precisely what we should enjoy and are precisely what we do not enjoy. The complacency, arrogance and lack of empathy is staggering and flies in the face of all the evidence.
Absolutely – but, as I’ve said before, there are at least two people left who are prepared to hold the regulator to account, namely, Vince Cable and Andrew Tyrie.
@Dingle: Has anyone on here been in touch with either of these gentlemen about Descenden’s shonky business model? It takes a while but the standard procedure is to ask your MP to send a letter on your behalf.
@Survivor – I don’t have a great deal of faith in ‘standard procedure’ or in the average MP come to that. The response from Jonathan Djanogly is a prime example of a response put together, probably by a secretary who simply copied the information from one of the monthly information bulletins supplied to all MPs to help them appear to be far more well informed and involved than the majority of them actually are.
As I say, ‘standard procedure’ isn’t the way to go – we need to utilise the resources at our disposal – CMS may want to expand on this – BUT via e-mail and NOT the website.
Dated 29 November 2010:
Dear [Survivor]
Thank you so much for your email. Unfortunately I have not yet received a response from the government about this issue. We must allow Ministers thirty days to respond before we chase them up. This is to ensure they have enough time to investigate a matter thoroughly. Please be assured that I shall let you know as soon as I have received replies.
Kindest regards,
Mark Field MP
Still awaiting a response
My email of 14 January 2011:
Dear Mr Field
I would be most grateful to know if you have yet had a reply from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as the 30-day conventional period for responses has long expired.
Yours sincerely
[Survivor]
FWIW, here is the reply my MP received from the Treasury. I have just received a copy today.
22 January 2011
Dear Mark
Thank you for your letter of 12 November to George Osborne enclosing correspondence from your constituent, XXX, about XXX’s mortgage. I am replying as Minister responsible for this policy area and I am sorry for the delay.
I am sorry to hear about the difficulties XXX has been having following the sale of XXX’s mortgage by XXX’s original lender to another company. The Government is aware that in certain circumstances such a sale can place the mortgage outside the scope of Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulation. The Government is very concerned about this gap in regulation, and believes all mortgage borrowers should benefit from the consumer protections provided by the FSA. We are actively looking at the best way of addressing this issue.
Please pass on my thanks to XXX for taking the trouble to make us aware of these concerns.
Yours sincerely
[signed]
Mark Hoban
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London
SW1A 2HQ
And the covering letter from my MP:
26 January 2011
Dear XXX
I thought you would like to see the enclosed reply I received this morning from Financial Secretary, Mark Hoban, following our letters to the Chancellor about Capstone.
The Minister advises that the government is aware of and very concerned about the gap in regulation that can occur in certain circumstances when a mortgage is sold by the original lender. They are actively looking at the best way of addressing the issue but unfortunately he makes no further comment about the FSA’s role in this matter.
I am sorry that I have not been able to provide a more detailed response from the government.
Yours ever
[signed]
Mark Field MP
Cities of London and Westminster
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Thank you
I recently visited the Direct Gov website to look at how to get into this Mortgage Rescue and other help and am more confused than ever. Just how do I work out if the mortgage and other debts are less than 120% of my value, when such a thing is subjective and value changes all the time now? Do I need a valuation first?
And there is no information on how to apply and why can this not be made more simpler? Why can you not get a simple form from the website or the housing people and fill it in and send it off to the relevant organisation or people to have it processed and a hold automatically put on the eviction process from the lender?
By the way I started this process last year, only to have Capstone make a mess of it by refusing to deal with the Housing Options Team who were trying to set it up and help me to apply for it and to negotiate and this is why they are now able to follow up and take me to court and try to take my home.
The CAB I have asked about help and they are useless on this matter. Should I just give up on this or try again and who do I contact and how?