Hi All, new to this and hope you can help and also hope I am in the correct forum?
We have had a mortgage with E-MEX Home Funding for 6 years now, it was originally with Kensington, changed to Rooftop and now is with E-MEX who are owned by Nationwide Building Society at the top of the tree.
We had some financial difficulties several years ago and ran up an arrears balance which we are currently reducing, throughout the process EMEX have been extremely aggressive in their chasing (we currently have a suspended possession order which they have tried to enforce on several occasions unsuccessfully.) During this time they have registered multiple fees & charges totalling in excess of £11k, they have also been taking funds we have paid towards the arrears and applied them to additional interest charges instead of the arrears balances.
As a consequence of their behaviour I finally decided to fight back in July this year, I started by raising a complaint with the Financial Services Ombudsmen, providing our account numbers and all relevant information. EMex eventually replied to this complaint claiming that they could not find our account details so the complaint is currently on hold!
Following this I decided to submit a SAR request directly to EMex (via The Mortgage Works who now administer all Emex accounts as from August this year) with a view to manually digesting the information myself and re-submitting the complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsmen with all the specific details of the mis-charging, mis-appropriation of funds and unfair behaviour with dates/times/amounts. I used one of the approved SAR templates from this site (I have attached a copy of my SAR request for your reference) and enclosed a postal order made payable to The Mortgage Works for the £10 fee, I also did not sign the letter as advised in these forums.
This morning I have received a response to my SAR (copy attached for your reference) dated 1st September 2011 (SAR submitted on 24th August 2011) stating the following:
1. 'Unfortunately we are unable to process your request as we are unable to locate any information on our system. Please advise us of the appropriate account numbers, addresses and dates of birth. Please note we must receive the details in order to proceed with your request.' - These details were provided (with the exception of our dates of birth) in my original request!
2. 'Unfortunately we are unable to process your request as the postal order is incorrect. Please make your cheque/postal order for £10 payable to Nationwide Corporate Account / your name and return in the enclosed pre-paid envelope. Please note the fee must be received before we can release the details.' - The postal order I sent (and was enclosed by Nationwide with this letter) was made payable to 'The Mortgage Works' who I pay my mortgage to on a monthly basis and who I have been advised my Emex to address all correspondence to!
3. 'We also require your original signature in order to process your request please could you fill in the attached form below and send back in the pre-paid envelope enclosed.' - Your forums advise not to send any signed documentation to lenders in case they have lost paperwork and use the signature to duplicate such items.
I am sure this is standard blocking tactics, similar to the ones they have used to try and de-rail the complaint to the Financial Ombudsmen however I would be very grateful is someone out there could advise me how to progress as I am sure what they are asking for is not in order.
Apologies for all the information but I think it is relevant, please ask if you need anymore.
Thanks in anticipation!
GBI
EMex_SAR Request_240811.pdf