The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has welcomed recent court support for interest-only mortgage cases.

The trade association has suggested the mortgage advice sector is continuing to to be attacked by a series of legal claims relating to interest-only mortgages sold between 2004 and 2007.

While a small number of these have gone to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), the AMI stated that the majority of cases currently look as though firms are facing court claims and action, which could be “very expensive to defend”, the trade body said.

However, in the last few months a number of cases have terminated in the final weeks before commencement of court hearings. The AMI highlighted there are three cases which provide evidence it is correct to defend these claims – with the results in the Ross and Ross versus Attanta Limited, Collett and Collett versus APF Private Clients Limited, and Colborn and Colborn versus Albany Park Limited cases all providing support to the broker position.

“These decisions strike out the cases as being time barred,” commented AMI chief executive, Robert Sinclair.

“In addition, the courts in delivering their judgements have also considered many of the substantive issues under review.

“These broadly have reduced the amounts of claim substantially, established that they have limited or no merit, set out that the costs of court time outweigh potential benefit and challenge the quality of both the claimant evidence and expert witness work.

“AMI continues to work to inform FCA, FOS and the SRA on these results. We are encouraged that firms might be able to recover their costs from the claimants as they mostly are insured.”

Share Story: