Topaz Finance Limited · DRN-6075888

The complaint Mrs J complains that Topaz Finance Limited trading as Hessonite Mortgages took a payment plan off her mortgage without telling her, moved too quickly to instruct a Law of Property Act receiver to take over the property, and didn’t call her back when it promised to. What happened Mrs J is one of two parties named on this mortgage. In the circumstances of this complaint, our service has agreed to consider a complaint brought by Mrs J alone. Mrs J said she’d been having financial difficulties, and her Buy To Let (“BTL”) mortgage with Topaz had been on a payment plan for over a year. Mrs J said Topaz reassessed things in June 2025, based on her income and expenses, but she said Topaz then withdrew the payment plan without explaining things to her. Mrs J said she still thought the plan was in place, but a few weeks later she got a letter saying Topaz was going to instruct a Law Of Property Act receiver (“LPAR”). Mrs J was very upset, and found this very stressful. She wanted to know why this had happened so quickly. She said she offered to pay the full mortgage amount each month, but she was told the LPAR couldn’t be stopped. Mrs J wanted to talk to someone senior, and she was told a manager would call her in a couple of days. She was very worried in the meantime, unable to sleep. But when the time came, she didn’t get a call. When she asked Topaz why it hadn’t called, it said there had been a mistake, and a call hadn’t been requested for Mrs J. Mrs J said Topaz had offered £100 for not calling her when it said it would, which she felt was insulting. She’d turned that down. And she said Topaz had done the same thing again since. But Mrs J said there were two other things she was complaining about - that Topaz hadn’t told her that her payment plan had ended, and when the plan ended Topaz had instructed an LPAR immediately and unreasonably. Topaz said it understood that Mrs J was finding it upsetting to deal with issues about the property, and it said it had put arrangements in place so that her family member could now speak on her behalf, if she would prefer. Topaz said on 27June 2025, Mrs J’s previous payment plan had already expired, and it told Mrs J it couldn’t agree to another plan on her account without consulting its underwriters. Its underwriters would need an up to date assessment of Mrs J’s income and expenditure, so Topaz asked her to complete this. But Topaz said Mrs J didn’t want to complete the assessment, and ended this call. So Topaz didn’t refer things to its underwriters, because it didn’t have the information they would need to make a decision on a new payment plan. Topaz said it rang again on 10 July, but Mrs J didn’t want to talk, she told Topaz she had an payment plan in place and ended the call. Because Topaz hadn’t been able to take its discussions with Mrs J forward, on 20 July it

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decided to move forward with legal action. It wrote to Mrs J on 25 July about its intention to instruct an LPAR. So Topaz said it hadn’t instructed an LPAR when Mrs J already had a payment plan in place, her last plan had ended some time ago. And Topaz didn’t think it had made a mistake. Topaz said Mrs J claimed that on 2 August, she was told everything was on hold, so she was very disappointed when Topaz then moved ahead with the appointment of an LPAR. But Topaz said that things weren’t on hold on 2 August. Mrs J had rung then because she was unhappy with the wording of the letter from Topaz about the future appointment of an LPAR. Topaz told Mrs J then that it couldn’t reconsider this without an updated income and expenditure assessment. Topaz got that updated assessment from Mrs J a couple of days later, and then spoke to her on 5 August. It told her that unfortunately the mortgage still looked to be unaffordable for her, so it confirmed on this call that it would continue with instructing an LPAR. Topaz said it was disappointed to see that it had let Mrs J down, because she hadn’t received a call back from a manager after 5 August when she requested one. It said that was due to a mistake its agent had made, and it offered her £100 to say sorry for that. Our investigator didn’t think Topaz had to do more here than it had offered to do. He noted that this remained a joint mortgage, although Mrs J was the only one making payments. Our investigator said this mortgage is unfortunately in arrears, and has been for some time. Mrs J has had difficulties with her payments since November 2023. Our investigator said that under the terms of the mortgage, this means all the money borrowed is now repayable. Our investigator said Topaz had accepted it made a mistake in not calling Mrs J after she requested a call back on 5 August. He understood this caused her upset and inconvenience, as she was wating in for the call, but also because she wanted to discuss the situation with the mortgage account which was causing her a great deal of distress. Our investigator thought that a payment of £100 for this mistake was in line with our service’s published approach on compensation. Our investigator said Mrs J told us the same thing had happened again since, with Mrs J asking for further calls, and those calls not being made. But he said Mrs J hadn’t complained to Topaz about this, and we need to give Topaz a chance to put things right before we can look into things for her. Our investigator said that he’d looked at Mrs J’s mortgage records, and thought she ought to have been aware the payment plan had ended and Topaz had not agreed to another one. Her last plan had come to an end at the end of February 2025. Our investigator said Topaz previously put action to appoint the LPAR on hold because Mrs J was trying to sell her own property, but Topaz didn’t get any update on that. It said it was sending out a field agent on 16 June 2025. Mrs J spoke to Topaz after this, and was told she’d need to compete an income and expenditure assessment before it could consider another plan. But Mrs J didn’t complete an assessment until 4 August. And when she did so, it still looked as if she couldn’t afford the mortgage. So Topaz said it was going to go ahead with appointing an LPAR. Our investigator said Topaz had taken into account that Mrs J’s expenses and outgoings were considerably more than her income at the time. And Mrs J was paying less than the

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contractual monthly payment each month, so the arrears on this mortgage were increasing. Our investigator said he was satisfied that Topaz had acted fairly and reasonably. Our investigator said the LPAR will be there to act as an agent for Mrs J and the other borrower. They aim to get the property back on track. However, there may be occasions, where they’re unable to or don’t think that’s possible. This can lead to the LPAR making a recommendation to sell the property. Mrs J replied, to say she completely disagreed. She still felt Topaz had been unreasonable considering the timescales, and the stress involved. Mrs J said she was very dissatisfied with our service so far. Our investigator replied to say that he was sorry to see that Mrs J was disappointed, but it’s an unfortunate reality of the work we do here that we do have to disappoint one party or the other. He said it can be difficult to see our service as impartial when a case isn’t upheld, but wanted to reassure Mrs J that he’d looked into things, and the compensation offered was line with our service guidelines which can be found on our website. Mrs J wanted an ombudsman to look into things. And she said there had been two further occasions when Topaz had arranged to call her at a particular time, but had failed to do so. Mrs J said she’d understood that would be dealt with as part of this complaint, but now we were saying it couldn’t be. Because there was no agreement, this case came to me for a final decision. 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. I’ve reached the same overall conclusion on this complaint as our investigator. Mrs J said she had understood there was still a payment plan on her mortgage in June 2025, but it was removed without making her aware of that. And she said that action to appoint an LPAR was taken far too quickly. As background to this action, I can see that arrears have unfortunately been building on this mortgage since 2023. Mrs J has set up a number of payment plans in this time. Topaz has shown us that Mrs J’s last payment plan ended at the end of February 2025. Notes from the time show that Topaz made a number of efforts to contact Mrs J both before and then after this plan ended. I understand that Mrs J did speak to Topaz at the time. In early May, she expressed her concerns that Topaz could not offer lower interest rates. Topaz told Mrs J then that it was considering a LPAR appointment. It placed things on hold for a little while longer, as Mrs J was hoping to clear the arrears by selling her own home, but I understand Mrs J saw little progress with marketing her home. In late June Mrs J told Topaz she didn’t want to complete a further income and expenditure assessment. In early July, when Topaz rang her, she told Topaz she had a payment plan in place, and didn’t want to talk to the lender. I do think that by this time, Mrs J reasonably ought to have been aware that there was no existing payment plan in place, and that Topaz was considering the appointment of an LPAR. I don’t think that Topaz acted too swiftly in deciding to appoint an LPAR. And given the

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contact it can show it had with Mrs J, I don’t think it did this without warning her that such a decision was likely. I don’t think Mrs J could reasonably have considered that there was still a payment plan on her mortgage, when Topaz took this decision. Mrs J also said Topaz had failed to arrange a call from a manager, which she’d requested and then waited in for. I appreciate this is disappointing, and would have added to Mrs J’s stress. But I do think the payment of £100 which Topaz has already offered for this, is in line with other awards our service makes. Mrs J might like to know that this is the amount I would have asked Topaz to pay in this instance, if it hadn’t already made this offer. I understand Mrs J turned that offer down, so it seems most likely that the money hasn’t yet been paid. I’ll ask Topaz to pay it now, if it hasn’t done so already. Mrs J also wanted us to look into other calls she’d requested, which she said didn’t happen either. She said we’d told her to keep us up to date with what happened, but then decided we couldn’t look into the problems she told us about. Our service is sometimes able to deal with things that happen after a complaint is referred to us, but here, I can see that Topaz has told us something different. It says that it told Mrs J it wouldn’t be able to communicate with her while her complaint was being considered by our service. So I do think our service would need to look into this issue fully, and give Topaz a chance to offer Mrs J a formal reply. If Mrs J wants to make that complaint now, we may be able look into that for her. But I don’t want to delay the payment of £100 which I’ve decided Mrs J is due, so I won’t pause the decision here to consider any subsequent missed callbacks now. I know that Mrs J will be disappointed, but I don’t think Topaz currently has to do more than pay the sum of £100 that it has already offered. My final decision My final decision is that Topaz Finance Limited trading as Hessonite Mortgages must pay Mrs J the sum of £100 which it previously offered, if it hasn’t already done so. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs J to accept or reject my decision before 20 April 2026. Esther Absalom-Gough Ombudsman

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