Nottingham benefits landlord Mick Roberts has slammed Barclays after it sent letters to 22 of his tenants, listing his monthly payments and erroneously alerting them that he is in mortgage arrears.

Roberts (pictured) explained many of them are now angry at what they perceive to be unfairly low mortgage payments and have threatened to stop paying rent. Two have told him they are leaving.  

The saga started two years ago when he was left with bad credit due to computer errors on his Barclays’ mortgage payments, due to the bank’s faulty Trinity System, which did not recognise over-payments.

It sometimes lost them, paid the capital but no interest, or paid the interest and no capital. Other payments did not even get registered.

Refused low mortgage rates

As a result, Barclays put a bad credit note against his file, which meant Roberts was refused good low-rate fixed mortgages and even had bailiffs trying to repossess goods for alleged defaults.

Barclays apologised, removed the bad credit note from his file in early 2023 and promised that appropriate steps had been taken to ensure the information held by the credit reference agencies was now accurate.

In October that year, the Financial Ombudsman upheld his complaints, and ruled Barclays should pay Roberts £1,300 and the difference between the current market rate and the one he would have been able to access had he not been flagged in arrears.

Roberts said it offered him hundreds of pounds compensation for each complaint, and could potentially owe him £200,000 for the 32 mortgages he was unable to switch due to the mistakes.

“My mortgages look small because I’ve been overpaying for years,” Roberts tells LandlordZONE. “The tenants don’t understand or aren’t bothered about the previous overpayments. I’m now getting abuse from six of them saying they are not paying or want a rent reduction, telling me ‘I know why you’re selling, it’s because you’re in arrears’.

“This could financially ruin me if all the tenants move out next month.”

Barclays tells LandlordZONE that it is unable to comment as the case is currently under investigation with the FOS, while the FOS also says it can’t comment.