Barclays Bank UK PLC · DRN-6236192

The complaint Mr W complains that Barclays Bank UK PLC has refused to acknowledge that it is the owner of his mortgage, or to answer his questions about it. It has facilitated another firm unfairly seeking to repossess Mr W’s property. What happened Mr W took out a mortgage with Standard Life Bank in 2008. In 2009 Standard Life Bank announced that it was withdrawing from the UK mortgage market and transferring its business to Barclays. The transfer of the Standard Life Bank business completed in 2010. Mr W says he was never notified that his mortgage had been transferred from Standard Life Bank to Barclays. He is now being pursued for the outstanding balance by another firm, which he does not believe he has any relationship with. Mr W says there is evidence that shows that Barclays retains ownership of his mortgage. But it has repeatedly denied that it is the lender, refused to give him any information about the mortgage, and not complied with a subject access request he sent to try to find out more. Barclays said it had no evidence Mr W was ever a mortgage customer. I issued a provisional decision setting out my preliminary conclusions on the complaint. My provisional decision I said: “I’ve seen a transfer document from 2023, when Barclays transferred the standard security registered against Mr W’s property from Barclays to Standard Life. That document explains what happened. And it’s confirmed by evidence from Mr W’s current lender I’ve seen on his other complaints. When Standard Life Bank’s business was transferred to Barclays, that included most – but not all – of its mortgage book. Standard Life Bank retained some mortgages, including Mr W’s. There are actually two elements to a mortgage, in the way that word is commonly used. There is the loan agreement – the contract between borrower and lender, by which the lender agrees to lend and the borrower agrees to repay. And there is the mortgage deed, the agreement by which the obligation to repay is secured against a property – giving the lender the ability to repossess and sell the property to recover the borrowing if necessary. The mortgage deed is registered against the property’s title, in this case by a standard security at the Registers of Scotland. When mortgages are transferred from one bank to another, what that means is that the loan contract is transferred and the new bank takes over as lender, with the borrower now obliged to make repayments to the new bank in place of the old one. And, because the new bank is now the lender and therefore also needs the security of the mortgage deed, the standard security at the Registers is also amended to

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show that it is now held by the new lender. Unfortunately, there was an error at the time of the transfer of business from Standard Life Bank to Barclays. Mr W’s mortgage was not included in the transfer. His loan contract did not transfer to Barclays, it remained with Standard Life. Standard Life continued to be his mortgage lender throughout. That’s why Barclays had no record of Mr W’s mortgage or of Mr W as a mortgage customer when he complained. However, the standard security was accidentally included in the batch of standard securities transferred to Barclays. Most of those were securities securing mortgages transferred to Barclays, so it was necessary to amend their standard securities to show they were now held by the new lender. But that wasn’t true of Mr W’s mortgage. His loan contract was never transferred to Barclays. Barclays never became his lender. But the standard security registered against his property was mistakenly transferred to Barclays. This meant that Mr W now had a mortgage with Standard Life. Standard Life remained his lender. It was Standard Life that Mr W was obliged to make repayments to. But the security for that mortgage was no longer held by Standard Life, it was held by Barclays. When this came to light, therefore, Barclays and Standard Life agreed that the standard security would be transferred back to Standard Life. That meant that Standard Life now owned both the loan agreement and the standard security securing the debt. That’s what the 2023 transfer agreement Mr W gave us shows happening. It was the agreement between Barclays and Standard Life to return the standard security back to Standard Life – where it should have been all along. That means that Mr W was never a mortgage customer of Barclays. Barclays was never his lender. It did hold the standard security over his property for a time, but that was as a result of an administrative error, since corrected. I understand that once the standard security was transferred back to Standard Life Bank, by now acting on behalf of Standard Life Assurance Limited, both the loan and the standard security were transferred on to a related company, Standard Life Lifetime Mortgages Limited, in September 2023. Standard Life Lifetime Mortgages Limited is part of the Phoenix group, so Phoenix has been dealing with Mr W. I’ve set out above my understanding of the factual background. Our investigator said we couldn’t consider the complaint. So I first have to decide whether, based on those facts, I agree – or whether I think we can consider it. Under our rules, we can only consider a complaint about a firm where the complainant has a complaint that arises out of one of the specified relationships with the firm. For mortgages, the relevant relationships are: • Customer • Potential customer • Person who gave the respondent a security • Person from whom the respondent has sought payment.

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As I’ve explained, Barclays never owned Mr W’s mortgage contract and was never his lender. He was not therefore its customer or potential customer (which generally means someone who has had an application to be a customer refused) in relation to his mortgage. He was in the past a credit card customer of Barclays, but this complaint does not arise out of his credit card. Mr W did not directly give Barclays security for the mortgage loan either. He gave it to Standard Life Bank. The security was then (mistakenly) transferred to Barclays before being transferred back to Standard Life. However, it’s not unusual in the mortgage industry for loans to be transferred from one lender to another. I think “gave the respondent a guarantee or security for a mortgage” must be understood to include firms to whom the original lender transferred the security. The purpose of the rule is to include as a class of eligible complainants those whose property is given as security for a mortgage. I don’t think it can have been the intention for that to include only the original lender and not subsequent holders of the security to whom it is transferred. That would not make sense given that securities can be transferred on during the life of a mortgage loan, and given that the other relevant categories of eligible complainant do permit complaints against successor lenders. For that reason, I think Mr W is an eligible complainant, because he gave a standard security for a mortgage loan to which the respondent was successor. In giving security to Standard Life Bank, he agreed that Standard Life Bank could transfer the standard security and therefore he also gave security to potential transferees. The complaint arises out of the relationship he had with Barclays as holder of the standard security over his property. And therefore I can consider his complaint – I’ll go on to set out my thoughts on what I consider to be a fair outcome. I’ve already explained the circumstances in which Barclays came to be the holder of the standard security. I don’t know exactly how Mr W’s mortgage came to be mistakenly transferred from Standard Life Bank to Barclays. It’s likely that it was a simple administrative mistake; when most – but not all – Standard Life Bank’s mortgages were transferred, a list of standard securities was drawn up to submit to the Registers of Scotland for amendment, and Mr W’s standard security was mistakenly included on the list or mistakenly not excluded from it. Regardless of how it happened, the mistake was put right in 2023 when the standard security was transferred back to Standard Life Bank, so that Mr W’s mortgage lender once again held the security over his property, as should have been the case all along. I don’t think the mistake had any direct impact on Mr W, because Standard Life remained his mortgage lender and he continued to deal with Standard Life in that respect. And given it arose from Standard Life Bank wrongly transferring the standard security, I don’t think I can hold Barclays responsible for the mistake arising in the first place. However, once Mr W discovered that that standard security had been transferred to Barclays and then transferred back to Standard Life Bank, he was clearly very concerned about what had happened – and understandably so. He tried to ask Barclays what had gone on, both via complaints and via subject access requests. But Barclays simply told him it had no record of him as a mortgage customer. That was true, as far as it went – but it wasn’t the whole truth, and it didn’t answer Mr W’s

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questions or give him any reassurance. I think that, acting fairly, Barclays ought to have explained to Mr W exactly what had happened and what it had done to put things right. And I think that the failure to do so unnecessarily prolonged the upset and worry Mr W was caused when he learned that the standard security had been transferred. I think it’s reasonable that Barclays should compensate Mr W for the extra distress and inconvenience he was caused by its failure to give that explanation and reassurance. I think £400 is fair in all the circumstances. Finally, Mr W has also said that because the 2023 transfer was done without notification to him, it is invalid as a matter of Scottish law. It’s not for me to make decisions about whether a standard security or mortgage contract is technically enforceable as a matter of law. Only a court can decide that. That’s something Mr W will need to raise with Standard Life Lifetime Mortgages or with a court. On the evidence available to me, I’m satisfied that the fact is that Barclays was never Mr W’s lender and that the standard security was transferred from Barclays to Standard Life to Standard Life Lifetime Mortgages. Whether Standard Life Lifetime Mortgages Limited is now entitled to regard itself as Mr W’s lender or to enforce the standard security is not something I can decide as part of this complaint against Barclays.” The responses to my provisional decision Barclays said it accepted my provisional decision. Mr W’s representative said: • I had asserted, but not evidenced, that Standard Life had always been Mr W’s mortgage lender. The general position is that the security follows the debt. • I had not explained how Barclays could lawfully hold the security without owning the loan, or how it took so long for the situation to be corrected. Nor had I provided any evidence for it being an “administrative mistake”. • Neither Barclays nor Standard Life notified Mr W of the transfer, of the error when it was discovered, or of the transfer back to Standard Life. A borrower should be notified when their lender changes, or when a security or title error comes to light. • The 2023 transfer document contains information about the current state of Mr W’s mortgage. How could Barclays state that if it held no record of the mortgage? • Barclays must have held some information about Mr W even after the transfer, yet it provided nothing in response either to his complaint or his subject access request. • My proposed award does not reflect the impact on Mr W. £1,500 would be a fairer award. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. As I said in my provisional decision, I didn’t just consider the 2023 transfer document. I also took into account the evidence we’ve received as part of other complaints Mr W has brought. This evidence shows that Standard Life has always regarded itself as Mr W’s mortgage lender to whom Mr W has made payments. That’s consistent with the terms of the 2023 transfer document.

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I appreciate discovering, after it had happened, that the standard security had been transferred from Standard Life to Barclays and back again caused Mr W worry and upset. But I don’t think it’s something he would have noticed, or been caused any loss by, at the time. His loan contract remained with Standard Life. The security having been transferred to Barclays would have caused difficulties for Standard Life if it had ever needed to rely on the security. But it didn’t have a direct impact on Mr W at the time, or cause him any financial loss. By the time he discovered it, the problem had already been put right. As I said in my provisional decision, I don’t know how the mistake occurred in the first place – it seems to me that an administrative error is most likely, but it’s not something I have detailed evidence about. But given it’s a historic issue, which has now been put right, it’s not something I consider I need to enquire into in more detail. As for how the figures about Mr W’s mortgage came to be included in the transfer document, that’s something Standard Life as his lender would have been aware of. I’m satisfied my proposed award of £400 represents fair compensation. Discovering the problem after it had been resolved caused Mr W concern. While it doesn’t appear to have been Barclays’ mistake in the first place, its failing here was to give him any explanation about what had happened, making it necessary for him to make this complaint. Rather than saying it had no knowledge of him as a mortgage customer (which was true), it should have explained how it came to be that the standard security came to be in Barclays’ name and then be transferred back to Standard Life. If it had explained that, it would have avoided further distress and inconvenience. I think £400 is fair in all the circumstances. My final decision My final decision is that Barclays Bank UK PLC should pay Mr W £400 compensation. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr W to accept or reject my decision before 20 April 2026. Simon Pugh Ombudsman

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