Fine imposed on mortgage company for unfair fees

The UK’s financial regulator has been really cracking down on mortgage firms that are seen to be treating genuinely struggling homeowners unfairly over the past couple of years, and this has been reflected in the most recent fine that the regulator has imposed on a UK mortgage company.

The fine has been imposed by the Financial Services Authority against a sub-prime mortgage company called Kensington Mortgages. The mortgage firm has been accused of treating customers unfairly when they fell into arrears, and its alleged actions have cost the company £1.225 million, which is the fine that was charged by the FSA.

In addition to the fine Kensington has also been ordered by the FSA to pay in excess of £1 million in excessive fees to its customers. Kensington was accused of being too aggressive in trying to get its money back off borrowers, and was found to be levying three different fees that were described as unfair or excessive by the FSA.

The FSA was told to take action with firms such as this after the Parliamentary Treasury Committee carried out an investigation last year. The investigation found that some lender were making a profit by imposing unfair and excessive charges on struggling borrowers, and this measure was described by the committee as being ‘intolerable’.

In the meantime Kensington has apologised to its affected customers and has stated that it will be repaying the money that the FSA has asked it to repay as quickly as possible.

An official from the mortgage firm said: “Kensington would like to apologise to all those customers who were impacted by these charges and would like to reassure you that we are working to redress those customers affected as quickly as possible.”