Tried to Negotiate

I took out a shared appreciation mortgage from Bank of Scotland in 1997. I borrowed Ł90,000 and find I owe B o S today the enormous sum of Ł251,000 plus the original loan.

I have written to the Chairman Lord Stevenson and M.D. John Crosby appealing to them as fair minded people, but to no avail. I have taken the bull by the horns and have had meetings with "Watchdog" who are so interested in my and other cases that they asked me to appear in a programme to be broadcast on Tuesday 8th April.

This I have just done and it should be very hard-hitting indeed. I heard about your organisation from them.

We are all victims of the grossly misleading literature talking about "a better lifestyle" or using as an example an estimated figure of 4.5% p/a increase in property values.

This, we trusted to have been researched by the banks using their database from all over the country.

What is missing, is any warning of the serious consequences of taking out a loan if property escalates to the extent it has. This is inexcusable.

All sorts of organisations have financial health warnings and those that don't are paying the price. Included are insurance companies, share dealers and the like however it seems that these products were not properly regulated.

Incidentally, firstly, I offered BoS to redeem my loan by paying them 2% above the annual mortgauge rate during the years of my loan.

Answer a NO-NO!! I have also just dealt with the Financial Services Ombudsman putting them all the reasons why the contract was blatantly unfair. I have received a letter from them who have just repeated the BoS mantra and state that there is nothing they can do to help.