A County Durham woman says being a “mortgage prisoner” has left her without enough money to live on and relying on family members for help.

 

Claire Young, 40, took out a £96,500 Northern Rock mortgage 16 years ago to buy her two-bedroom, end-terrace house in Newton Aycliffe.

 

Without a deposit, she chose the company’s Together mortgage, which allowed customers to borrow more than the value of their home.

 

Shortly afterwards, Northern Rock collapsed and Ms Young’s mortgage was ultimately transferred to TSB’s Whistletree brand, where she was stuck on interest rates far above the market average.

 

She is now among 27,000 TSB customers who leading law firm Harcus Parker believe may have a legal claim as part of a no-win, no-fee group action.

 

The bank has agreed to a court hearing next year to let a judge rule once and for all whether its Whistletree mortgage customers were financially exploited.

 

As a Whistletree customer, Ms Young, an NHS pharmacy technician, found her interest rate climbing to 6.2% and her monthly repayments rising to £600.

 

“Everyone else around me was saying ‘Why are you paying that much?’” she said.

 

But switching to another provider was not an option since she was considered a high risk and fell short on lenders’ affordability criteria.

 

With debts mounting, she eventually signed an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), an alternative to bankruptcy where a proportion of debt is written off and more affordable payments are negotiated.

 

But her mortgage payments, not part of the IVA, remained crippling. “It’s been awful,” said Ms Young, now a single mother to Henry, five.

 

“You just don’t have enough money to live on. The first two weeks of the month you can go food shopping, but not the second two.

 

“I’ve gone without holidays, stuff for myself, clothes for the bairn, house improvements that need doing.

 

“I’ve got a boiler than needs changing and I’m praying that doesn’t go wrong.

 

“My car needed two new tyres recently, and there’s no way I can afford that. Thankfully, my dad

loaned me the money – but he can’t do that every time.”

 

She had better news recently when Whistletree wrote off the personal loan part of her mortgage since it had been incorrectly calculated.

 

And her interest rate has been fixed at 1.54% for now, taking her monthly repayments down to

£389, but she still owes £52,000.

 

While this has helped, money is still tight for Ms Young, who earns £32,000 a year. She wonders how much she has overpaid by over the years and how much compensation she could be entitled to.

 

“Anything would be a bonus. If it was £1,000, I would be over the moon,” she said.

 

“If I was to get back everything I’d overpaid by, that would be life-changing.”

 

Harcus Parker currently represents more than 6,500 former Northern Rock mortgage prisoners, including more than 1,200 TSB Whistletree customers.

 

Damon Parker, senior partner, welcomed news of the court hearing but emphasised that potential claimants should not delay in signing up.

 

“While these people have suffered, large institutions have made hundreds of millions of pounds. That simply cannot be right,” he said.

 

‘We do not want mortgage prisoners to wait and see what happens because TSB will argue that every day they delay starting their claim will reduce the final amount of money that they can recoup.

 

“It’s really important if you think you have a claim to join up as soon as possible.”

 

Harcus Parker has set up a dedicated website for those wishing to make a claim: https://harcusparker.co.uk/campaigns/mortgage-prisoner-litigation.