The Emperor’s new mortgage
The plain-English version, for anyone who doesn’t speak lawyer.
A day out at the High Court
On 21 August 2025 I went to the High Court with my bundles of papers. The Co-operative Bank had already written down its version of my story, and we all know that if a bank writes something down, it must be true. I wanted my version on the record too.
I don’t get out much: about once every six weeks, if I’m honest. The train should have taken a little over an hour. I got on two wrong trains, so it took a bit longer.
Since my head injury in 2019 I often don’t recognise faces, which makes Ubers interesting. A driver pulls up, says “Hello Jon, how are you?”, and I haven’t a clue who he is. A lot of them know I don’t drive, but that I used to: I was a paramedic, working from a response car based at my home just south of Cambridge. They know the whole story because I’ve told them. Then I forget I’ve told them, and tell them again. I’m getting better at not doing that.
Going out makes me anxious, so on go the headphones to block out the noise.
I found the Royal Courts of Justice, and a High Court judge agreed to see me. It was all new, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Writing things down was very hard for me back then (it’s a bit easier now), which I told the Financial Ombudsman Service many times. They didn’t believe me. Talking is another matter. I have every detail in my head and I can talk for hours. I would have done, too, but the judge had other cases to hear. So I handed in my bundles and my witness statement, had about half an hour in court, and my work was done.
The Emperor’s new clothes
The Bank’s legal department was not happy. I was very happy. It need not have come to this, they barked at me. (All right, I’m imagining the barking. It was an email.) I had done the one thing you’re not allowed to do: I’d pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes on. In my statement I said I thought the Bank might have known I didn’t owe it the money it was chasing me for.
The Bank was fuming. I was smiling. And from then on, things got worse.
October: email ping-pong
In August the very friendly judge had told me I could come back to court and apply for an injunction. It’s a long story, but I ended up with two claim numbers. One claim I never felt confident enough to fill in, so it was never issued. The other I had filled in, and it’s a simple one: I want my personal data, which the Co-operative Bank still hasn’t given me in full.
So in October, out of the blue, I applied for an injunction. Cue chaos at Eversheds, the Bank’s lawyers. They had to think on their feet, and it showed.
On 23 October the Master (another very learned judge, and very pleasant in emails via her clerk) sent my application to judges’ listing, which is where someone decides which day it will be heard. The next day Eversheds told the court my application was “misguided and without merit” and shouldn’t get a hearing at all. That made me smile. It still does.
That evening I emailed a friend:
“Well, it’s been a fun day of ping-pong email tennis today. The Master sent my injunction to be listed for a hearing, the bank tried to stop it, I kept going, the Bank tried to stop it again by saying they had no legal title, and I showed they were telling lies by sending a copy of the Land Registry charge. So a normal day for the Co-op.”
I’m not trying to wind anyone up. I’m fairly down to earth (not daft, not a genius) and I say it as it is. But the whole thing only works if everyone agrees to admire the Emperor’s new clothes. I couldn’t see them, so I said so.
The cunning plan
What I wanted was simple: stop Topaz registering its interest in my mortgage until the Co-op handed over my personal data.
Here’s what I found out later. (I’m not a lawyer. It took a while.)
On 23 October, in the late afternoon, the very day the Master sent my application to be listed, the 0% interest rate on my mortgage (that I had terminated when the Bank kept pretending that I had agreed to the 0%) was extended by another four months, “approved by legal”. A “High-Risk Vulnerable Case Panel” had been looking at my case. I hadn’t told Topaz anything about my application. Topaz later confirmed there would be no enforcement while the 0% lasted.
My guess at the plan: if I got anywhere near an injunction, someone would stand up and tell the judge there was nothing to worry about. Nobody was going to repossess me, so what did I need protecting from?
How do I know what the 0% was for? Because Topaz told me. In December it wrote that the extra four months were to allow time for, among other things, “the transfer of the charge to be registered at the Land Registry” and for my “injunction application … to fall away”. It pinned that on my other “claim”, the one that had never been issued. Details.
Meanwhile, on 28 October Eversheds told me in writing that it was “not instructed by Topaz”. By 2 December, Topaz was telling me that, just like the Co-op, it used Eversheds as its solicitors, “although such instruction is entirely coincidental”. Of course it is.
I hadn’t yet realised I was up against the gruesome twosome. Facing a bill of about £9,000 for the Bank’s barrister, I didn’t press the application. The defendants wanted it recorded as “totally without merit”, and to avoid the costs I didn’t argue. The judge later wrote that the label applied to that one application only, not to my claims. Topaz still enjoyed rubbing my nose in it, in emails copied to me and the FCA.
And the timing? The application to register Topaz’s transfer went in to the Land Registry the day before the hearing. My credit report says my “arrangement to pay” with Topaz started the day after it.
The serious bit
I had made it clear that, in my view, no court would ever accept how the Co-operative Bank treated me: the interest rate hiked, enforcement again and again for arrears I didn’t owe, and me driven to the point of feeling suicidal.
So how do you stop a court agreeing with me? You make it look as if I happily agreed an “arrangement to pay”, first with the Co-op and then with Topaz. I say the Bank started telling that story in the summer of 2025, which is why I went to the High Court in the first place: to get the truth down in a witness statement. After October, I say, the documents were fabricated to match, and the story went onto my credit file.
And then
On 16 April 2026 I wrote to Eversheds and Topaz, copying in the FCA, and said the conduct I was seeing was “potentially engaging conspiracy to defraud”. A week later Eversheds replied that it was “no longer instructed by Topaz in relation to these matters”. Topaz had moved to TLT.
The next month, I finally saw what had really been going on.
In April 2019, while the Co-operative Bank was enforcing my mortgage, I suffered a head injury that put me in hospital, and I never worked again. I say the Bank knew perfectly well at the time that no arrears were owed, and the new evidence confirms it. Since then I have been recorded as a vulnerable adult and a safeguarding concern, and those designations are still on my medical record as “major” active issues. Being able to help other customers with their interest-rate complaints does not mean that I can always look after my own interests, or recognise when banks and solicitors may be acting unlawfully against me.
My Ombudsman asked the Bank what my arrears would have been under the very small, time-limited 1.25-percentage-point reduction to my SVR. The Bank answered a different question: it said I would still have been in arrears in 2024, and that missed payments meant arrears would have arisen even at the lower rate. The Bank deals in assertion, not evidence; I see it so often that it has become tedious. In 2025, after asking the Bank several times, I obtained its calculation. On the limited redress, there were no arrears for nearly a decade, from March 2014 until April 2023.
I had also told the Service that my mortgage offer from GMAC showed a reversionary rate of 1.99% above base rate, consistent with the restrictive covenant. I found out in 2026 that the Bank had told the Service this was “inconceivable” for my 2006 mortgage, because “the mortgage book was transferred to MAS in 2007, at which point the restrictive covenant was agreed”. Yet when it wrote to me in July 2025, the Bank said: “Later in 2006 the mortgage was transferred to MAS5”, and that terms were agreed “At the time of the transfer”. GMAC sold my mortgage to MAS5 on 30 June 2006, 79 days after I took it out. These are two examples of a pattern I call the Bank’s “two-audience” problem: one Bank, the same facts, two audiences, different stories. The truth lies in the gap that most people never see.
Information the Bank gave the Financial Conduct Authority is relevant to my case. The FCA released it to me in response to my subject access request, but under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 I cannot publish it without consent; doing so would be a criminal offence. I have asked for permission.
Issues for the Ombudsman
Assertion versus evidence →
1. The false account of the original mortgage transaction
The transfer dates, the original mortgage illustration and the Bank’s two accounts are compared on the acquisition and covenant page.
Read point 1 and the evidence →
2. My complaint starts in December 2008—and “another day” has arrived
The covenant wording, the December 2008 deadline and the recovered rate-change notices are now together on the acquisition and covenant page.
Read point 2 and the evidence →
3. The missing enforcement record
The Service asked for the full account history - and then decided without it. Many underlying demands, threats and instructions were not reproduced in the file disclosed to me.
Read the missing enforcement record →
4. The Bank’s run-down strategy—value for whom?
The Bank’s strategy for the mortgage book, the income from higher rates and the evidence behind my contention that it knew what it was charging.
Read the run-down strategy and evidence →
5. The recalculation the Ombudsman requested
The Ombudsman asked for the arrears “from time to time” under the 1.25-percentage-point correction. The Bank preferred to answer a different question: it said arrears would still be present in 2024. The Ombudsman accepted that answer. The Bank then quoted the decision back to me, telling me that the Ombudsman agreed.
I call this “manufactured authority”. The Bank supplies a false or incomplete account; conclusions are drawn from it; the Bank then presents those conclusions as independent confirmation that its account was right. The false 2007 chronology is another example. Once the resulting decision carries the Ombudsman’s authority, it can be quoted back to customers—or relied upon in later proceedings. It must be right, because that’s what the Ombudsman said!
Reality: the Bank’s later reconstruction showed no arrears, or a credit balance, continuously from 12 March 2014 to 21 April 2023.
The Ombudsman also said that a 2.76-point reduction would not have made the payments affordable during the periods when I paid nothing. On the Bank’s own corrected figures, I owed no arrears during those periods.
“Even if the interest rate had been 2.76% lower than it was (as Mr J says it should have been), the monthly payments would not have been affordable for Mr J during those periods. MAS5 has calculated what the account position would have been had the interest rate been 1.25% lower as recommended by the investigator (and now by me in this decision) – and that confirms the mortgage account would still be in arrears now had the unfair rate increases not been made.”
— Final Decision, 16 September 2024, page 17.
Did you spot what happened there? The Ombudsman is now answering the Bank’s question. The Ombudsman wanted to know what the arrears would have been over time. The Bank gave a conclusion about a single point in time: that in 2024, three years after I referred my complaint to the Service, the account would still be in arrears. The Ombudsman accepted that because the Bank had done the calculation.
So let me do the calculation. With the four increases removed, and on the payments I actually made, my balance at the date of the Final Decision would have been about £160,000. The Bank’s balance, before its small refund, was about £260,000. That is the starting point: where would I have been if the four increases had not been made? How much the Ombudsman then chooses to award back is a separate question.
It is not just my opinion that the increases were outside the contract. In the lead Davies case, on the same mortgage terms and the same increases, the Ombudsman, Simon Pugh, found that “the changes to the SVR MAS5 made between 2009 and 2012 – which collectively added 2.76% to the SVR – were not made for reasons permitted by the contract” (Davies final decision, DRN-4427884, 6 November 2023, page 2). My own Ombudsman wrote that MAS5 “may not have had any contractual justification” for the 2009 increases (Final Decision, page 10). That is a sentence from the Davies decision, copied without the finding that comes before it there: “I don’t think MAS5 acted within its powers”. The breaches of the terms and conditions are the problem. If the Ombudsman chooses not to award more back, or the scheme allows only time-limited redress, that is the Ombudsman’s decision and the scheme’s limit. It has nothing to do with my ability to afford the payments.
I gave the Service information about the effect of compound interest over time. The new evidence is that the Ombudsman was misled.
The reliability of the Bank’s account matters.
Withheld
Information the Bank gave the Financial Conduct Authority is relevant to my case. The FCA released it to me in response to my subject access request, but under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 I cannot publish it without consent; doing so would be a criminal offence. I have asked for permission.
If the smaller correction removes the arrears at the enforcement dates, how does citing a later balance justify the earlier enforcement? That is the contradiction the Service must address. If it refuses to confront the corrected history and simply repeats the original conclusion, I say that refusal would be irrational and open to judicial review. The Bank provided me with the reconstruction spreadsheet in 2025. I say the Bank had the dated figures in 2024, because it gave the Ombudsman a total calculated from them, but it supplied a ledger without them.
6. The concealed financial position during the 2019 enforcement
The Bank concealed that, even under the limited 1.25% method, there were no reconstructed arrears in 2019, when the Ombudsman found its enforcement unfair and premature.
In April 2019, after the Bank told me it was starting legal action, and while I was very depressed and finding it difficult to cope, I had three road collisions in two days and suffered a serious head injury. I say the consequences of the wrongful enforcement need to be examined. The later alleged arrears cannot fairly be treated as independent of what happened in 2019.
The vulnerability and safeguarding concerns recorded since 2019 should prompt someone to ask what help I need and whether intervention is required.
My tenacity should not be mistaken for my ability to protect myself.
7. The finding that the 2021 litigation was a “last resort”
The Ombudsman described the Bank’s 2021 move to litigation as a last resort. Yet the Bank’s later reconstruction showed no arrears at that time.
I say I received no compensation for the 2021 proceedings. The Service must reconcile its finding with the later reconstruction and the consequences of the 2019 enforcement. My contention is that the “last resort” finding cannot rationally be maintained without confronting those facts.
Read the 2021 record →
8. The misrepresentation of my health and finances
The Bank presented historical conditions that had been treated as though they were current explanations for my difficulties. That account obscured the effects of the disputed overcharging, the false chronology described in point 1, and the prolonged enforcement pressure described in point 3.
My case is that the Bank used my health history to explain away financial harm while concealing the corrected account against which its conduct should have been assessed.
9. The December 2019 incident
The Ombudsman did not substantively investigate my complaint that, following the car accident, the Bank pushed me to the point of being suicidal while pressing me towards an Assisted Voluntary Sale.
The Bank then told me it would not litigate if there were no arrears. Its own later reconstruction showed that there were no arrears at that time.
This raises the treatment of a known vulnerable customer, the handling of an express safeguarding concern, and the Service’s duties as a public body, including the Article 8 issues I raised.
“Mr says he now feels suicidal after the call.”
The Bank’s complaint record, 18 December 2019. The December page brings together my photographs, the call and CSAT records, Christmas Eve letter and corrected balance comparison.
Read the December 2019 complaint →
10. The claimed consent and the conduct of Co-operative Bank, Eversheds Sutherland and Topaz Finance
The new evidence supports my allegation of an abusive and coercive relationship with a known vulnerable adult. I say the Co-operative Bank obtained my financial information through promises of a meeting at its Manchester office. The meeting did not take place. Records were then created presenting me as a customer who had agreed to a zero-interest arrangement, despite my written objections. I dispute that account and the resulting “arrangement to pay” credit-file markers.
The subsequent sequence also requires investigation:
- 22 October 2025: Eversheds Sutherland, for the Bank, wrote to the court that “the transfer of the legal title to the Claimant’s Mortgage has already completed and the Defendants do not have legal standing to postpone the registration of the transfer at Land Registry”, and invited the court to dismiss my application without a hearing. Under section 27 of the Land Registration Act 2002, a transfer of a registered charge “does not operate at law until the relevant registration requirements are met”.
- 23 October: the injunction hearing in my personal-data claim against Co-operative Bank was referred to judges’ listing. On the same date, Topaz offered a further 0% “concession” on a mortgage contract I had already terminated, for repudiatory breach, by my notice of 11 August 2025.
- 28 October: Eversheds stated that it did not take instructions from Topaz.
- 30 October: the Land Registry recorded an application to register the transfer, the day before the scheduled hearing. Registration was completed on 11 November.
- 1 November: the start date Topaz’s entry on my credit report gives for an “Arrangement to Pay”, which I dispute.
- 6 November: Topaz expressly confirmed that it would take no enforcement action during the concession period.
- 2 December: Topaz wrote to me, copying the FCA. It said that before the transfer it had exchanged limited information with MAS5 and the Co-operative Bank “under common interest privilege”, that it too used Eversheds as its solicitors, “although such instruction is entirely coincidental”, and that it had extended the 0% rate partly to allow my injunction application “to fall away”. It also told me my 21 October application had been “struck out as being entirely without merit”. The judge had refused the injunction, and his written note says there is “no determination” that either of my claims is “totally without merit”: the designation applied to that one application, and had been presented to him as agreed. That is the account of the hearing the FCA was copied into.
On 16 April 2026, in a notice to Eversheds and Topaz that also went to the FCA, I said that I regarded the coordinated conduct of the Bank and Topaz as “potentially engaging conspiracy to defraud and other serious causes of action and offences”. My account is that Topaz changed from Eversheds to TLT within a week. The communications, instructions and timing require explanation.
11. The integrity of the file passed to Topaz
The repossession material disclosed by Topaz contains another borrower’s Ombudsman decision; my own decision was not located. It also contains 80 wholly redacted pages, with health information among the material affected by redaction.
I contend that the file presents a selective account. Its contents, omissions and provenance must be examined before it is relied upon as a complete history of my case.
12. The Bank’s reliability and the Service’s safeguarding duties
The 2012 note does not describe my later employment: the Bank’s later records show me working as a paramedic. A contact note in the file passed to Topaz says I “was a paramedic but had an injury and gave up”; the note is undated there, but the servicing diary dates it 10 October 2012. Yet the Bank’s later notes record me as a working paramedic: on 9 January 2017, “Mr is a self-employed Paramedic who is only paid when he works”. I worked as a paramedic until 10 April 2019. The serious head injury described above ended my career.
From 2024 onwards, I warned the Bank, the FCA and the Service about the risk of customer suicides. Last year, a friend who was also a Co-operative Bank customer took his own life.
The Service must address its responsibilities towards a known vulnerable customer who has expressly raised safeguarding concerns, including vulnerability to financial exploitation following a serious head injury.
