Case study one

Complainants who took out a £20,000 (€25,394) home loan repayable over five years in equal monthly instalments were mistakenly asked by the bank to make insufficient monthly repayments.

Four years into the loan the bank discovered the monthly payments should have been £412 and not £386.

It was agreed the loan would be extended and the payments continued as before. But the complainants took a case to the ombudsman on the grounds of unfairness and breach of contract.

The ombudsman found the bank's mistake did not alter the terms of the agreement and the loan should be repaid. But he found the complainants should be given £1,500 to compensate for the upset caused.

Case study two

A couple with a 20-year endowment mortgage applied to change it to an annuity mortgage after two years, filled out the necessary forms and paid the required fee. But the changeover was never completed.

Four years later the bank discovered the mistake. Nothing was done for another six years. The result was that, for 10 years, the endowment policy had been allowed to lapse and there had been no insurance cover for the complainants. During the period they enjoyed lower repayments as they were only paying the interest accruing on the loan.

The ombudsman found there had been a "lamentable degree of negligence and maladministration" by the institution concerned. He directed the full mortgage be repaid by the complainants but that £5,000 compensation be paid to the complainants.

Case study three

For seven years after he had returned a rented television set a retired man continued to pay £15 per month by way of a standing order. The man had rented the television in 1989 and returned it in 1992. He wrote instructing the bank to cancel the standing order. In 1999, he discovered during a conversation with his bank manager, that the standing order was being paid.

The customer produced a copy of the letter he'd sent in 1992 cancelling the standing order but the bank said it had no copy of it. The bank pointed out to the ombudsman that, for seven years, it had sent the customer monthly statements showing the £15 debits. There were only three other direct debits or standing orders on the account.

The ombudsman decided that on the balance of probability the man's letter cancelling the payments had been sent and received. However, he decided the man must bear some responsibility because of his silence over the years.

He ruled that the bank bore 70 per cent of the responsibility and pay a rebate of £950.