Court advocates respond to advice charity MPAP report
The ‘Turning the tide?’ report, published by advice sector organisations Advice UK, Citizens Advice Bureau and Shelter in December, suggested a third of mortgage lenders are failing to comply with the Mortgage Pre-Action Protocol (MPAP).
LPC, an advocacy and clerking service whose advocates attend every county court in
The report considered evidence obtained from advisers at court relating to 452 cases. As part of LPC’s continued monitoring of MPAP, and its effect at court hearings, LPC points out that the report’s findings in respect of non-compliance are not based upon District Judges determining that the lender had failed to comply with MPAP, but rather upon advisers at court assisting defendants “believing” that the lender has failed.
Pamela Zacharia, advocacy manager for LPC, observed that the report itself concedes that generally advisers did not raise non-compliance in court hearings and said: “Statistics LPC has gathered from thousands rather than hundreds of cases reveal that advisers’ views regarding MPAP compliance are not always very consistent with the views of the court, in fact Judges rarely find that the lender has failed to comply with MPAP.”
She added: “Whether this is due to the issue not being raised before the Judge or because Judges are satisfied with the steps taken by the lender is unclear”.
Rob Burke of LPC said: “All of the lenders that we represent at court take MPAP very seriously as a TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) issue. Also from a practical point of view it is simply not in the interest of lenders to fail to comply with MPAP and risk court imposed sanctions or face hearings being adjourned.”
